Plug-In Infrastructure

Podcast Episode: 0289
Why are charging stations limited on conenience?

​This podcast explores the current state and future potential of EV charging infrastructure, comparing it to traditional petrol stations. It highlights the need for better maintenance, security, and integration of EV stations into everyday life to facilitate widespread adoption.

​     Just about everybody has seen one, at least once in a while they're out driving about. We've all come across them and asked ourselves, why are they doing this completely different than we do for the internal combustion engine? I'm talking about all these superchargers and charging stations. Why do they set them up in all these basic locations? This is brand new technology and yet we're going at it a whole new avenue to try and make it easier for people. But really, is it making it easier?  Or is it just causing major issues? Well, today, AutoLooks is going to be taking a look at plug-in locations and why maybe the EV industry needs to learn something from the petrol station.
 
     Welcome back to the AutoLooks Podcast. I'm your host as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by, check it out, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings, go to the corporate links website page, big or small, we have them all, car companies from around the globe, all available on one direct location. That is the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks Podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at [email protected]. 

      ​So, like I said in the beginning, plug in locations. Now we get it. The EV infrastructure is something that's growing and just like petrol stations when they first started, they went everywhere. You got to remember before Shell had their own dedicated petrol refilling stations, they used to have just Shell petrol pumps. They'd find a convenience stores, general stores, hell anywhere somebody wanted to buy it and put it in. That's kind of what's going on with the EV world. We're literally just seeing these things pop up everywhere. Now I get it when you're at hotels or malls or even the hospital having dedicated plug-in locations for people while they're there, because you know, you're going to be there for a while. As the plug it in top up your car while you're wandering the mall, doing your mall walk, or just stopping in to get a coffee from good old Tim Hortons. We get it.
 
      That's why you do that there but that seems to be the only place you really find plug-in locations. Even Tesla superchargers, they put them close to places. Now we get it. They originally started putting them close to businesses and malls because if you gone back and listen to our podcast, The Electric Mall, they do that because the time used to take to charge batteries. But as we get nearer and nearer to charging, taking the same amount of time, to recharge your car as it is to refuel your car at a petrol station as EVs come in line with that and we only have to stop for a few minutes, not 30 to 40, hell even 60 minutes to recharge as we break it down a brand new lithium battery come into play and we see from the Chinese marketplace that our charging time frame is now coming down almost in line with refueling with petrol or diesel. But EVs still aren't setting themselves up like the petrol stations.
 
     As we talked about in one of our previous podcasts with fixing the plug, the issues in the electric infrastructure out there and how so many public charging stations are either vandalized, damaged or have issues with it that can literally brick your vehicle. How many cases have you actually heard of when Rivian’s first started coming out? When people went to specific charging stations that weren't properly maintained, they plugged in their vehicle, brand new vehicle, they get a backward surge and bam, that Rivian is not moving at all. No, it's literally just a giant paperweight sitting in a parking lot now because the infrastructure isn't properly maintained.
 
     Now, if you take a look at the petrol industry, and we get it, it really wasn't until the late 40s and into the 50s that we started getting these big gas stations that people started pulling up to a gas station. And a few people would pop out. They come up and they fill up your car with gas. They'd wash your windows. They check your oil. They check your tire pressure. They did all this. Not like today where you go into a gas station, you pump the gas, you clean your windows. And if you need to do anything else, well, it's going to cost you.
 
     Because hell, even today, it's like $2 Canadian to put air in your tires. But see, those are things missing from plug-in locations. Tesla superchargers are literally sitting in mall parking lots with no maintenance and no eyes over them. Sure, we get it when they break down, they may send a signal back to the station where somebody can be alerted and come out and fix it. But if those people are busy, they're not going to be out on time. Like I said, that's what we talked about in a previous podcast about fixing the plug-in, is that nobody's coming out.
 
     They're concerned with getting these things into the ground, not maintaining them, having a physical presence of at least one person at these charging stations, similar to that of petrol stations. You can make so much more money. Convenience stores. How many convenience stores started adding gas stations to it? And then the gas companies started realizing if they took over the convenience portion of it, they make money off the convenience store portion of it Couch Tard from Quebec.

​     One of the largest convenience store chains in the world and essentially the largest in North America. Yes, it still beats out 7-Eleven, not globally, but North American owned Stat Oil. Stat oil basically is just pumping stations, utilizing other people's oil, kind of like pioneer around here. So, the electric stations creating a dedicated charging station, similar to that petrol stations, they can utilize better infrastructure.
 
     Sure, you can still have them at a mall where people can just park it, walk in, go and hang out at a store and spend some more money. That's what our podcast, The Electric Mall is all about. Why not create these stations in areas where they know people are going to hang out? And because it was an electric car, once it's done charging, it'll literally just stop and not charge anymore. It's not like pumping your gas. You got to stay there because sure, the thing may click, but then it's just going to sit there and somebody can go by and move it. But creating a dedicated charging station.
 
     So, taking these supercharger stations that Tesla has and adding a roof over top of them and on those roofs, being able to shield the vehicles underneath them, keeping them shaded, keeping the batteries cool so they don't overheat. So, the charging infrastructure doesn't overheat. So, the charging infrastructure isn't fully out in the elements. You got to remember, petrol stations, those gas pumps aren't exposed to the elements. Yeah, they're outside, but if it's pouring rain, they're far enough underneath of their canopies to not be fully exposed to the climate outside. Which means those pumps don't have to worry about getting too much water build up, too much ice build-up, too much snow build-up because they're not 100 % exposed to the elements. Where the charging stations, the closest supercharger station to my house is literally in a mall parking lot.
 
     There is no canopy over top of it. Just this past week, we got over 40 centimeters in less than eight hours. That's a lot of snow. So, until the plows got out, that charging station was literally landlocked. And because it's in a mall parking lot and because there's nobody that permanently works at it, nobody cared about going and cleaning it.
 
     Unless the mall was paying somebody or Tesla was actually paying somebody to come out and plow it to ensure that guests could come in and recharge their vehicles at those ports. Nothing was getting done. Now, had it been a covered canopy with somebody there, you have to remember the convenience store aspect of the petrol station was added. So, there's permanently somebody watching those pumps. They learned from when they first set up the infrastructure that when they put these petrol pumps out at standard convenience stores in middle of the night and people running those stations would close the station but the pumps still out, people would try and use them. You get damage, you get breakage, and again you get elements.   By having somebody there permanently 24 hours a day watching those gas pumps, there's that extra security. And if you want to know something about security, all you got to do is go to your neighborhood Walmart. They have a greeter at the front.
 
     Now what does the greeter do? It actually keeps you, well, not everybody, but most people truthful. Yes, public greeters at Walmart decreases theft within the store gas stations that are manned by somebody 24 hours a day, you're still going to have people that do, you know, the fill and take off. That's why you have gas stations now that make you prepay for your gas. But with electricity, you have to prepay for it. Essentially put your credit card into the system before it even allows electricity to come out and go into your car. So, you don't have to worry about people plugging in and stealing your electricity. They can't do it. They have to turn on the system. So, we kind of get like they don't need somebody there permanently and there's not enough electric vehicles. No, not at every single one. The one close to me, you're lucky if you see one car there a day, but there are a lot of locations. 

​     I remember reading an article in one of the automotive news places that I keep in touch with and they were talking about a charging station in New Jersey that had lineups sometimes for over an hour or longer for people waiting just to get in line to recharge their vehicles. Now, if you had somebody there, one, by having that extra security, you're less likely to have fights. Two, that extra security is somebody permanently being there. People are less likely to just throw the charger down. You have to remember, reason why so many of these chargers are damaged is because people don't put them back properly. They literally just toss them there. So, these things are completely exposed to the elements outside because there's no roof over top to keep rain and snow somewhat off of them. And people just literally take the charger sometimes and throw them down on the ground.
 
     Well, if you live in an area like I do that has snow, like I said, 40 centimeters of snow, once they cleared that parking lot, if somebody went in because they'd been waiting for so long just to get their car charged, when they were done, they didn't even think about it. They just literally unplugged it and tossed it to the ground and took off. That thing's now sitting in snow people are driving by it. You're getting salt and sand on it. You're getting slush in it. You're getting snow on it. It's getting wet. It's getting corroded. It's getting damaged. And how long will it take before somebody comes by and puts it back on the mantle? That's the question you have to ask yourself. How many people these days drive past a vehicle stranded on the side of the road with the Fourways on and the hood up? Long time ago, you could sit out there and you'd only be there for a couple of minutes.
 
     Now you can be there for hours just waiting for one person to stop by and check up on you. The same thing goes with that charging plug. It'll literally sit there on the ground because even people coming in to charge see that there's eight other plugins. So, they're not going to pick up the one that's on the ground. They're just going to plug into one of the other ones, not knowing that the damage from that one could damage all of the others. So, adding petrol style gas stations to the EV infrastructure. Yes, you could still make it a double row parking lot but covering it and having somebody there would be great. Think about it, back in the day when you used to go to parking lots and you would hand your keys over to somebody, almost like a valet, where they would squeeze in your cars, bumper to bumper. And then when you went to leave, even if there were three cars behind you, there was a person at the parking lot that can come out and move those other cars to get your car out. A charging station could utilize those facts. The payment of the person there is taken from the electricity coming from the grid.
 
     So that one in New Jersey that had all these people there, some people just literally parked their car there, go into the store because they're like, oh, it's going to be, it says 35 and they don't come back for an hour and a half and their car is still sitting there. You can unplug it, but you can't move into the spot. And if you can't get anywhere near that plugin, you can't utilize it. So, what do you do? If you had somebody there on site, when you plug in your car, being electric cars, a lot of these, especially Tesla's have codes to unlock and move the vehicles. When it gets put into the system, that code is given to the person at the security booth. That person can only access that car. Now this is where programming comes into play. 

​      Programming of that, because it's at a charging station, you hit a charge button on your phone. So that means it's in charge mode. So, when it's done charging, if your key doesn't come back to open the door, and the person who is working there utilizes the system to unlock your vehicle, to move it out of the way to another parking space, make it so the programming within that only allows that vehicle to go a certain distance. say 150 feet. Now, if there's no parking spaces within 150 feet, then we're really screwed, but basically create a perimeter within that parking structure so that your vehicle can wind up somewhere. Sure. You come out of the store and it's like, where the hell is my car? Now I've got to find it.
 
     Well, you have your app, means you can do a location on your vehicle and find out where it is. Your vehicle has now been moved by the person maintaining the charging station, ensuring that only the amount of people is at the charging station. And when your vehicle is done, it is moved out of the way to allow for other people to get access to it, which also means that all of those charging ports are properly put back onto the pedestals, which means they can last longer. So, if there 10 charging stations, those 10 will always be working.
 
      How many people out there who drive electric vehicles listening to this podcast have gone to a charging station just to find out that the charger is broke and you're like, I only got 30 more miles and the closest one is 10 miles down the road. Let's keep our fingers crossed that there is one, nobody at it and two, it's not broken.
 
     See creating an electric infrastructure and dedicated stations. Somebody is there to maintain the system. Somebody can unlock the charging stations, which means you can't access it until it's been paid for and unlocked by somebody who basically is the gatekeeper. We have the technology for all of this already. Creating dedicated charging stations is the next step of EV evolution.
 
     Now Chinese marketplace has gone one step further to the swappable battery packs, which we'll be talking about in a future podcast. Now those create essentially a brand-new charging infrastructure where you bring your vehicle in, but they're still unmanned. You need somebody in it in case the system fails. Having sensors and everything alike is great. You can alert so many people, but what happens if you're in a city like where I live?
 
     The city of Greater Sudbury in the province of Ontario is 190,000 people spread across an area that's nearly over 200 kilometers wide and 350 kilometers long. Rough estimate. We have nearly 4,000 kilometers of paved road within our city. Now you put a centralized location in downtown Sudbury just for our area and because we have a large landmass roadside of this, goes all the way up to the watershed and then it goes all the way out to Massey on one side and Verner on the other side and as far south as that's a Magnetawan. So that's a huge area. Well, if a charge report breaks down, you have to have somebody that can go out and fix it right away.

​     And a centralized location, for instance, like I said, the Greater City of Sudbury, even from a central point to the furthest point out, you're looking at two hours worth of driving just to get out to it on top of having to fix it. And if you get all the way out there and the code's reading that one issue and you get out there and realize there's a second issue and you don't have the parts to fix it, then you got to drive back and get your parts. Then you got to come back and fix it. It's going to take a day or two before it's finally fixed. Now I get it, with petrol stations, same thing. Somebody's there, somebody calls the maintenance guy, tells him what's the problem, they have to come out and the same thing could still happen. So, what's the difference? The difference is that call is made immediately.
 
     Sensors can break down and malfunction. They're an electrical system. If the power goes down, how do you put a call out? It'll alert the system that there's no power in it. But even if it comes back on six hours later and there's an issue with it, that's six hours, somebody could have been out there and fixed it. So, by not having somebody at the location of these charging stations, you're literally depriving the EV infrastructure of the one thing that could keep it running smoothly. And that is the personal effect.

      Creating a convenience store having specialized car wash stations dedicated just to electric vehicles so that they can wash them without and without that human aspect You're going to run into issues and that's the problem. There is no human aspect in the EV charging world So like I said, you're missing out on money from car wash and you're missing out from convenience stores EV charging stations essentially when they were first created should have been put in at gas stations to begin with
 
     We get it, you know, you don't really don't want electricity that close to something that's explosive. So, in a lot of new cases, when you're building new ones, have a double gantry. That's the overhead unit. One side of the building is for petrol and diesel. The other side is a charging station and have your gases because gas stations are usually pretty close to a lot of restaurants and malls as well. So, we get it. It still has to stop and park there. But like I said, the person inside can work both sides of the equation. So, creating a brand-new petrol station that are petrol and charging infrastructure. In Canada, Canada actually has this in place. And in a lot of cases, Tesla has teamed up with ESSO gas stations to put superchargers in non busy areas. Just outside on highway 17, let's say the town of Espanola. Now Espanola is just over about 6,000 people. There's a charging station on highway 17. That charging station is right next door to the ESSO gas station.
 
     So, it's all centrally located right next door to it, a Wendy's Tim Hortons. Now the charging station does not have any cover on top of it and it's at the back of the property. Snow plowing it is an issue. Getting the people inside to shovel them out. Well, that could be better than some of the other charging stations that you would find out there.
 
     By having them included at gas stations and in areas where there is somebody, a paid parking lot, make it so that, yeah, you got to come in and charge your car in a paid parking lot. You come in, you pay like the $5 to get into the parking lot and you charge it. Scan your ticket for the payment of how long you're going to be there before you leave. They deduct the cost of coming into the parking lot, right off of your electric bill. Why not do stuff like that? Make it so that there's somebody nearby when they see.

​       A charging port thrown to the ground. gets picked up, it gets cleaned off and it gets put back properly. Proper stations are what the EV infrastructure needs. If we're going to stick with the standard charging ports that we have now, we have about three different main variations of it. We need to create stations that are also accepting of all ports. Now, gas pump is pretty universal. Diesel is slightly bigger gasoline. Yeah, you can pour gasoline easily into a diesel vehicle, but you can't pour diesel into a gasoline vehicle. Most people will know that, but there's less diesel out on the road than there is gasoline. So, you just kind of kind of watch for those things. But the three different main ports for electric stations can do that as well. get a Tesla supercharger stations would have their own dedicated system, the NCAS charger ports, more essentially North American standard.  But when you go with someone like Ionity, they can have all three of those ports charging stations. You're going to have 10 pumps. You're to have three, three, and four of the last one. You make it easier and more in control.
 
      Electric cars eventually going to need a lot more by providing them with stations with tread wear because they wear out tires quicker than standard petrol because of their weight. By having air pumps close by. You ever gone to a supercharger that actually has an air pump at it so you can fill your tire full of air? No, a lot of electric vehicles don't have spare tires and that's the craziest thing. The Hyundai IONIQ 5 does not come with a spare tire. It comes with a pump and a seal kit. So, you can basically do a quick patch on the whole and get your vehicle to the next closest garage. You can travel upwards of like 100 or 200 kilometers on those. can't remember exactly the distance, but you can only travel up to a certain amount and then it's just going to go. So those people I like to drive around with a donut on for months on end, you can't do that with electric cars. When the tires pooched, it's pooched. So, there's something you don't there's no convenience.
 
     She's stopping off. Why not have a Wi-Fi station so people can hang out and literally sit in their car so that they know what it's done. So many people want to sit there and just doom scroll all day. It gives them a purpose. They don't want to go home and see the spouse. It's like, I really don't want to go home. My in-laws are home. I got to go charge my car. That's going to take me 30 minutes. Have WIFI. They get there. They could check the air pressure because there's an air compressor on site. Then they can go and doom scroll because of the free WIFI at the station and it's covered so your vehicle's not going to get covered in rain or snow as you're charging. Hell, with a person on site, you can have a couple convenience stores. You don't even need that person there to be the salesperson, just an extra security. They go out, they maintain the area, they keep things clean, they pop up. washer fluids and everything else. They keep the system running. There are tons of things missing from plug-in locations and the EV industry needs to take note about what the petroleum industry did when they created dedicated gas stations. wasn't just about trying to get people to come to your gas station and use your fuel. It was about creating a whole new experience. It's a place you can go to.
 
     And in some cases, like for myself, I have a circle K nearby. And if you didn't know the circle K is actually owned by Couche Tard from Quebec circle K is not American anymore. It's Canadian. So, there's a circle K nearby. Circle K has got 89 cent giant drinks. It's got pre-made food. It's got booze. It's got gaming tickets. It's got candy. It's got coffee. It's got a washroom. I get my fuel. There's an air pump. I can clean my windows. I could do everything at all-in-one stop. I don't have to go all over the place.
 
     See electric cars still have to stop at petrol stations because they can't clean their windows at a supercharger station. They can't check their air pressure at a supercharger station. They can't buy their can of Red Bull that they seriously need at a supercharger station. See, plug-in locations are missing this vital part of their infrastructure. Tesla has come to realize that by wanting to create supercharger restaurant stations that essentially act as a convenience store on the bottom and a restaurant on top to keep people hanging out on your location, spending more money outside of just charging their car. Unfortunately, it's Tesla and they work at a snail pace to get new things out there. So, if anyone else out there is listening to me like Ionity, take note, create stations and let's build the EV infrastructure so that it competes directly with petroleum because it looks like you're going to a petroleum station.

     People are creatures of habit. And if you create the infrastructure that fits into their pre-existing habit, they're more likely to jump on board. For that, that is the key to success in moving the EV industry forward. Plug-in locations. All you got to think about is how to expand upon them.
 
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     The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over [email protected]. And after that, stop by the website to read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings, go to the corporate links website page, big or small. have them all, all available at the AutoLooks.net website. So, for myself, the host, Everett J, the owner of the operator and the basically the whole big shebang behind the AutoLooks podcast and the AutoLooks.net website for myself Everett Jay, Ecomm Entertainment Group and podbean.com. Strap yourself in for this one fun, wild ride that the infrastructure of the EV industry is going to take us on.

Everett J.
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