The Future of EV Charging – Post Covid-19: New Technology Helps Make Charging Easier & Profitable

As automakers are revealing more electric vehicles, one of the major concerns is how will the vehicles be charged. Post Covid-19 incentives include installing more charging stations. Innovative companies and analysts offer their insights, predictions and solutions for a greener, cleaner EV charging future. Solutions include smarter software, incentives, apps, load balancing and blockchain.

Charging is Still a Problem for Future EV Buyers

“One of the most important aspects of infrastructure is home charging and it is critical and not getting enough attention,” says Mike Dovorany, Vice President, Automotive & Mobility, Escalent.

He notes problems with public charging. There is a huge gap between awareness and the actual number of charging stations. Consumers aren’t aware where public charging station are. There needs to signage as well as education and awareness.

“There needs to be DC fast charging at high rates, charging time is more important than the range of vehicle,” says Dovorany.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, potential EV buyers like that, when they are charging at home, that they don’t have to touch a dirty fuel pump handle, adds Dovorany. However, there is still a maze of incentives that are difficult to navigate when installing chargers at home. The good news is that once consumers buy an EV, they have the highest satisfaction rates amongst vehicle owners.

Free or Fee EV Charging What Is it Going to Be?

Dennis Pascual, Principal, Pascual Consulting, who has managed the installation of many major EV charging installations, knows all too well the problems associated with needing a charge. In 2015 he drove cross-country in a Tesla Model S. The Tesla supercharger network played a bit role in completing the trip.

“The good thing about the Tesla charging network is that Tesla drivers don’t suck up the energy from the other electric vehicles need,” says Pascual. He says, during the pandemic and stay-at-home mandates, more people are learning that a slow trickle level one charge at home is enough for them.

The next big thing coming up to charging is the ISO 15118; a standard that will not require swiping a card to pay for electric vehicle charging, says Pascual. It makes other charging systems more like the Tesla superchargers. Another trend in charging is that, when people start using fast-charging, they don’t want to go back to slow charging.

“EV owners will have to start realizing that free charging won’t last much longer,” says Pascual.

In fact, with its recent price decreases on vehicles, Tesla is no longer including free charging for the Model S and X. “More chargers are required to make economies of scale and most likely there will be a spike in prices that will eventually flatten out,” predicts Pascual.

How Can Smart Software Help Deploy Smarter Charging?

“There needs to be a lot more done to support the EV revolution,” says Doron Frenkel, Driivz’s Founder and CEO, “There needs to be an entire ecosystem to meet the needs of the drivers. There needs to be end-to-end EV charging and smart energy management software.”

Driivz provides a cloud platform for charging operations management, energy optimization, billing and roaming capabilities, as well as driver self-service apps.

“The drivers want to be able to just drive. And, the worst thing that can happen is if the charger is not working ,” says Frenkel.  Driivz provides a solution that ensures charger stability and availability.  A 24/7 automated alert management system detects and resolves issues in real time. Up to 80 percent of operations issues are fixed remotely – reducing operation costs. 

There are many variables in the EV charging market including hundreds of different types of chargers. “The industry needs standardization of chargers and the introduction of new industry protocols,” says Frenkel.

Greener And More Affordable Chargers

“At ev.energy, we’ve developed an app for EV drivers that makes charging greener and more affordable through bill savings and additional cash rebates for grid flexibility,” says Joseph Vellone, ev.energy’s Head of North America.

The software firm uses APIs to connect wirelessly to vehicles and chargers to manage EV charging in real-time, using pricing and carbon emissions signals from the grid.

While ev.energy works to deliver these savings in partnership with utilities such as American Electric Power and Ameren, any EV driver in the U.S. can download the ev.energy app in the Apple or Android store, connect their vehicle and start saving money when they charge at home.

"Our business is to move electrons not to move people or cars."

A major problem with installing electric vehicle charging system is complying to restrictive electrical codes – most importantly the code that states for every charger has to be able to supply of 125% power all the time, says George Lee, CEO of PowerFlex Systems.

Commercial electricity is expensive. When Lee was at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) there were only two electric chargers for the entire campus. It didn’t make sense to ask professors to walk across campus to move their cars after a charge and also to find another parking space when the garage was already full. They looked for a company to install one hundred chargers and the price seemed astronomical – $1 million.

However, the researchers at Steven Low’s NetLab research laboratory went to work and realized there was a little loophole in the code that stated that if there is load balancing then the 125% electricity was not needed.

Therefore, they were able to install a hundred chargers at 70% off of the original estimate.

At Caltech, there are solar panels and there is a large footprint of power draw therefore the amount of energy needed for electrical vehicle charging is a small percentage of the overall energy of the entire campus. PowerFlex which was purchased by EDF Renewables, last fall specializes in the installation of chargers for large communities.

“What’s really important is that workers at community colleges, large facilities, businesses/college campuses, where they are on-site for a long time, can charge for the entire day; and, when they get back to their cars, they will be charged,” says Lee.

PowerFlex Systems provides charging without the need to upgrade the entire infrastructure. Lee puts it this way, “At PowerFlex we say our business is to move electrons not to move people or cars.”

Why Use Blockchain for EV Charging?

“Blockchain is a way of securing digital information and automating interaction between devices,” says Jonathon De Villier, research analyst at Guidehouse Insights. Basically, blockchain consists of an algorithm to order information and share data. Blockchain supplies a framework for identity for different infrastructures to relate with each other.

Blockchain could also be important for creating ways in which multiple parties could share in the revenue of EV charging as well as for the electric service operators to help with balancing infrastructure. Blockchain will be especially helpful in something such as a program such as Airbnb EV charging where an individual or business shares (peer-to-peer) an EV charge point for a fee, says De Villier.

Use case scenarios for blockchain in EV charging would be in the process of vehicle-to-grid and peer-to-peer EV charger sharing which could also spur more EV sales. When consumers are looking to buy cars and they know they could get paid $50 a month for their personal charging station or by sending energy back to the grid then they may decide to buy that vehicle.

“Blockchain is emerging as an exciting technology that can help many services work together, automate EV charging and solve problems while providing monetary incentives,” says De Villier.

Monetary incentives could be substantial; he predicts the combined market is expected to exceed $1 billion for blockchain-based EV charging and grid integration by 2029.