How Full-Serve Stations And Self Charging Cars Alter EV Charging Rules

There's now a decent sized industry around EV Charging--even though it's not really a business--and locations scramble to support EV drivers and companies rush to try to become the replacement of the gas station for the 21st century. Almost all of them are doing it wrong, even for the 2020s, but they're doing it even more wrong for the 2030s and the world of self-charging cars .

I've outlined before why EV charging isn't a business, and certainly it's not like the gasoline business. The largest charging networks (Tesla and Electrify American) were not built to sell energy; the first was to sell cars the second as penance for Dieselgate. The rest don't make a profit. Many are mired in "gasoline thinking." But that's yesterday's news.

In the 2030s most EVs will be able to drive themselves to where they charge, and do it for you. With "full-serve" charging stations (with self plug-in, robotic plug in or a human plug jockey) it will just happen. Any time you park your car for 30 minutes and it needs charging, it will run off and do so. Your car will always be full, you won't even be aware of how it happened. If you ask the dealer, "How will I charge this?" the sales staff will say, "you don't." It will be like magic, and people like magic.

This isn't science fiction. 60% of EVs are Teslas, and Teslas already will drive themselves to a charging stall, but they need supervision. Tesla claims they no longer need that, and maybe day that will be true, but what's much easier than driving people around crowded streets is crawling at low speed on quiet streets a couple of miles. Tesla, and others will deliver that in the early 2030s. For every new EV sold and most of the old ones. Few will want to visit your old, self-serve charging station. Here's why:

They will never see it

They will never see your station. They won't care much where it is, or what amenities it has. They won't care if it's pleasant or has a rain cover or convenience store. All they will care about is if it's within a few minutes easy drive of where they parked. It will go where land is cheap, where installing it was cheap, and especially where electricity is cheap.

They will care only a little about how fast it is

The quest for an EV charge in gas pump time is over. Most cars are parked 23 hours/day. They have lots of multi-hour parking intervals. Except on inter-city road trips (see below) they can take any speed, if it's cheaper. For the station builder, it's true that a 150w stall can do 2.5x as many cars per hour as a 50kw stall. So the land costs more for the slow stall, and the hardware and utility service costs more for the fast one. You decide. You will want a few fast stalls, for those few customers in a hurry, otherwise mostly not.

If you are not even aware of charging, then "how fast is it?" is not even a question. It takes zero time. We'll look at people pumping gas and wonder how they can tolerate having to spend 5 minutes filling up.

They also won't be nearly as obsessed with paying for a huge battery in their car. If your car can always go charge itself any time you park for >25 minutes, you technically only need enough battery for a single one-way drive plus 5 miles! Only long road trips will call for more battery.

If your price is good you can approach 100% utilization

The average EV charging station in the USA gets 16% utilization, and it varies all day. Aside from wasting a lot of land and hardware the Charge Point Operator (CPO) invested in, it also means they are normally way below their peak. But the power company charges such stations as much by their peak (the 15 minutes in the month they drew the most power) as by the kWh of energy used. In the future, cars will only come over when there's a free stall for them, and a good price. Drop your asking price and you will be full all the time. The margin is less, but now your peak isn't an issue. And you pay off that investment fast. This massively changes the economics of a station. A station's current costs are amortizing the large capital expenditure of building it, maintenance, the huge utility "peak usage" monthly fee. The actual per-kWh charge for energy is often comparatively small. It ranges from 8-12 cents in most states to 15-25 cents in California and New England. If charging is moved to the night, it can be under 5 cents (but that's only wise if utilization can be pushed into the night.)

The Price Will Be Really Good

The price at a full-serve station will be much, much better than the price at today's DC Fast stations. That's because the costs at today's stations are twice as high because of their low utilization. Many stations pay more in monthly peak charges than in per-kWh charges, and they paid to install that expensive station to only use it 16% of the time. A highly utilized station can offer a price that's almost half of today's overpriced (gasoline levels) stations because cars come when the station wants to keep it fully used which is vastly more efficient.

They might not even charge at home

Self-charging might beat home charging if it's cheap enough. Usually residential retail electricity, especially at night, is much cheaper than public charging stations cost - they are sometimes 3x to 4x more. So everybody wants to charge at home if they can. They often have to spend about $1,500 to install a home charging plug, and many people don't own their home or driveway and can't even do that. While we should work to get more private charging at homes, offices and apartments, for many people the self-charging will be a win, if they price gets competitive with that home price. It can, because right now those public stations are empty at night, and that's a great time for cars to wander over. It's found money, and night rates are cheap if you don't boost your peak, which you won't.

Office parking lots may have some self-plug machines. It's actually a lot cheaper than trenching up the whole parking lot to put in tons of stalls. Employees will park their EVs in normal spots like everybody, but the EVs will wander off during the work day and take turns charging up--a great perk for staff. Those same stalls can sell power to residential neighbors at night. The average car only needs 10 kWh/day, which is <90 minutes at level 2, and very quick at 50 kW. BTW, those 350kW chargers you crave? They are crazy expensive. 50kW? Not so much.

They might be "behind the meter."

One good place for a station would be next to a transformer substation. You can get in all the power you need fast and cheap. Many CPOs have faced huge problems getting their utility connection in what they thought were "prime" locations. But even better is right next to a power plant or solar farm, bypassing the utility. Then you buy power at the generation price, which is as low as 2-4 cents/kWh, with no distribution charges, no peak charges. Cars will drive a few extra miles to get that price. Solar farms are especially great. They are going to have a ton of surplus power in summer from 10am to 2pm. So surplus that in some areas they give it away free. You won't get free, but you will get almost there. "Drive a little, save a lot," except the robot is doing the driving. If you're a big CPO, you might even put up the solar farm; cover your buildings and parking lots with it.

Offices with solar roofs may also find it's great to put the extra solar into employee cars rather than get a poor price for it from the utility.

That Convenience Store

Some stations try to be like gas stations and install "amenities." They don't realize chargers aren't destinations with amenities. Chargers today are amenities, next to destinations people already want to go, like restaurants and shops and attractions. But the petrol-brain won't understand that. The full-serve stations can, however, provide more service than charging. They can clean the cars and do other minor things. If the customer orders it, they can even put some snacks in the car-- more "magic." But it's not a store.

If land is expensive (such as a downtown station) you'll pack the stalls valet dense, and get twice as many per square foot. You will allocate cars to the right stalls for easy access. If one car needs to leave earlier than planned, the other cars will temporarily unplug and get out of the way. (This is harder with the rear-plug scheme though.)

Security

The full-serve charging lot may have staff, or it may not. Either way, it's no customers allowed. Cars will come in through a security gate if it's in a rough area, and that makes it easier to stop thieves from cutting the cables or vandalizing. Yes, somebody could ride in with their car, but they'll be identified (it's their car) and it's all on camera. It won't be cable thieves. Even though you may well put these stations in sketchy places--the land is cheap--you'll have barbed wire fences if you do.

Intercity Charging

The rules are very different for intercity stops. There, the drivers will want fairly fast charging, though not if they are stopping for something like lunch or shopping. But they'll just stop at the restaurant of their choice and enjoy the meal, and their car will be ready in the same restaurant lot before they can finish the meal, even at 100kW. If they are at a tourist attraction, there's good time If they are one of those poor blighters just trying to make as many miles in the day as possible, they'll pay extra for those 450kw, 500kW or megawatt chargers if their car can take it. Or even for battery swap, but it's harder to justify designing a car for swap that's very rarely used. They might like an old school station with a convenience store and a toilet because they plan to…(gasp)… wait. They'll tell stories of the days when many people waited while charging, or even saw where it happened. The kids won't believe them. OK, they will believe it, because there will still be 2020s non-Teslas out there which are still charged the ancient way.

Much better at the hotel, where the car will trundle off while they sleep, and they will wake up to it full, even if the hotel doesn't have it own charging facilities.

How Does This Work?

Today, a robotic arm to plug in a car costs $50,000. A human handling a large station is actually cheaper. And that's how it will start--not long ago, everybody got their gas pumped by a person. They still do in a couple of states. That cost will be minor; the average car uses around 3,000 kwh – 60 fairly full charges – per year. But the robots will get cheaper. Some companies already make a single robot that rides a rail down all the stalls, plugging in 20 cars with one robot. Even better, the car is already a robot. If cars move their charge port to a standard location on the front or back, they can plug into a stationary plus mounted at the right height. (This doesn't work valet dense.)

So What Does a CPO do?

The good news is that many charging station designs will be adaptable to full serve from self-serve. Human plug jockeys can handle anything. Expensive, busy central locations are not bad, they are just too expensive. Remember, when the cars park and go onto the marketplace, they will pick the station with the lowest asking price and an available stall when they need it. Maybe they'll care about brand. Maybe--the end product is a pure commodity. They will care a tiny bit how far it is (as that uses time and one of your kWh.) If they know their master is busy for a while they won't care. If they want to be ready to rush back at any moment, they will try to be closer.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com