White House Announces Sweeping Plan To Increase EV Charging Stations

Megalith

Megalith

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The idea of going electric is slowly but steadily becoming easier to swallow, with the government establishing new charging networks that will ideally put a station within every 50 miles. It was thought that we’d be past a million EVs on the roads by now, but we have only managed to hit half of that goal.

The White House said on Thursday it will establish 48 national electric-vehicle (EV) charging networks on nearly 25,000 miles of highways in 35 U.S. states. The Obama administration said 28 states, utilities and vehicle manufactures, including General Motors Co (GM.N), BMW AG (BMWG.DE) and Nissan Motor Co (7201.T), and EV charging firms have also agreed to work together to jump-start additional charging stations on the corridors. The corridors were required to be established by December under a 2015 highway law. The Federal Highway Administration on Thursday unveiled new roadside signs to help motorists find charging stations. The White House said drivers can expect either existing or planned charging stations within every 50 miles.
 
I don't see a need for the white house to get involved. Private parties seem to be expanding these on their own based on need and the ability to sustain themselves.

just because not everyone has a station doesn't mean they need one. As more and more buy pure electric cars the demand for stations will increase and they will spread on their own. While I am not super rural i am not in a major city and yet multiple stores have ev parking spots to charge your car in my area and the local power company is putting in 2 dozen fast charge stations.
 
Exavior said:
I don't see a need for the white house to get involved. Private parties seem to be expanding these on their own based on need and the ability to sustain themselves.
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In years past, infrastructure expenses are typically handled by the government for new technologies.

The government is not some separate entity that rules this country. It's made up of people you vote for. If you do not want money spent on these types of projects then vote for representatives that make your voice heard to not spend money on this type of stuff.

I will vote for representatives that support EV technologies because it's the future and we need government investment to get enough of it out there

just because not everyone has a station doesn't mean they need one. As more and more buy pure electric cars the demand for stations will increase and they will spread on their own. While I am not super rural i am not in a major city and yet multiple stores have ev parking spots to charge your car in my area and the local power company is putting in 2 dozen fast charge stations.
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Some people might say that if charging isn't available then they won't buy an EV. See how that works? While some charging exist, it's not enough for mass transportation. The ratio of gas to electric charging is probably several thousand to 1. Thus the reason for government to spend on emerging technologies.
 
It would be easier to just ban internal combustion engines. No need to solve a problem, just get rid of it.

Hope these charge stations have ergonomically correct chairs.....and meal services.
 
bigdogchris said:
In years past, infrastructure expenses are typically handled by the government for new technologies.

The government is not some separate entity that rules this country. It's made up of people you vote for. If you do not want money spent on these types of projects then vote for representatives that make your voice heard to not spend money on this type of stuff.

I will vote for representatives that support EV technologies because it's the future and we need government investment to get enough of it out there

Some people might say that if charging isn't available then they won't buy an EV. See how that works? While some charging exist, it's not enough for mass transportation. The ratio of gas to electric charging is probably several thousand to 1. Thus the reason for government to spend on emerging technologies.
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The problem is that his is NOT infrastructure. Roads are infrastructure, gas stations are not. And yes there is a case of people don't want to buy many cars that are electric only till there are more stations but at the same time there are not enough stations because there aren't enough people with the cars. That is a weird balance that will tip one day. However this is no different than the government paying for there to be gas stations every 50 miles. We don't need the government to subsidize everything under the sun just because it is not good enough to make it on its own. We do that enough as is. I can't buy anything for my windows phone without driving 100 miles to the closest Microsoft store. Maybe the government needs to start paying for Microsoft to build more stores.

Some things need to be left to natural progression. This program is going to pay to put stations on major highways. However these already exist. you can drive around the county. This program only cares about major highways not the people that live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. So this will NOT help you or anyone else that doesn't already have a station in their back yard. This is just a waste of money to pad the pockets of people that already have money.

http://www.chargepoint.com/

if you look at a map like this you will see that the number of stations actually isn't really that bad in a lot of places. And this isn't all networks so it doesn't include all stations but for the few it does for allowing natural expansion over the course of a few years that isn't that bad. Companies are handling the building of new stations just fine.
 
It cost $10-15k for the optional larger battery for the sonata to get 27 electric miles...
Anyone want to figure out the return on investment time?
Say 2 bucks per 27 miles, and free electricity. The engine would fall off before it would be worth it.
 
nightanole said:
It cost $10-15k for the optional larger battery for the sonata to get 27 electric miles...
Anyone want to figure out the return on investment time?
Say 2 bucks per 27 miles, and free electricity. The engine would fall off before it would be worth it.
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Things are getting better. GM is supposed to release an SUV (Bolt) early next year that should get about 200 mile range, and cost about $35K. The problem is, what do you do when it finally runs out? You could make it 600 miles, but you still have to sit for hours and hours at the end of that. My Honda Fit is a bottom of the barrel internal combustion car and it gets 42 miles to the gallon. I get over 300 miles per tank, and it takes 1 minutes to fill up (8 gallons). 1 minute to get another 300 miles. And it really isn't a dangerous form of energy storage. Storing electricity has always been a cautious thing.
 
westrock2000 said:
Things are getting better. GM is supposed to release an SUV (Bolt) early next year that should get about 200 mile range, and cost about $35K. The problem is, what do you do when it finally runs out? You could make it 600 miles, but you still have to sit for hours and hours at the end of that. My Honda Fit is a bottom of the barrel internal combustion car and it gets 42 miles to the gallon. I get over 300 miles per tank, and it takes 1 minutes to fill up (8 gallons). 1 minute to get another 300 miles. And it really isn't a dangerous form of energy storage. Storing electricity has always been a cautious thing.
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Yup you hit the nail on the head, the GM will be a $35k "honda fit", aka its gonna have a $15k battery tax on it.

If i was car shopping, i would have no problem paying 10-20% more for the EV version with a 200 mile range. But for some reason its always 100%+ or more

The chevy bolt is going to be $35k, and have the same quality as the $15k compact. Or worse, there will be no $35k version, because who in their right mind would buy it, when they can get the luxury version for $45k with leather.

Im still trying to figure out how prius sells...
 
Exavior said:
The problem is that his is NOT infrastructure. Roads are infrastructure, gas stations are not. And yes there is a case of people don't want to buy many cars that are electric only till there are more stations but at the same time there are not enough stations because there aren't enough people with the cars. That is a weird balance that will tip one day. However this is no different than the government paying for there to be gas stations every 50 miles. We don't need the government to subsidize everything under the sun just because it is not good enough to make it on its own. We do that enough as is. I can't buy anything for my windows phone without driving 100 miles to the closest Microsoft store. Maybe the government needs to start paying for Microsoft to build more stores.

Some things need to be left to natural progression. This program is going to pay to put stations on major highways. However these already exist. you can drive around the county. This program only cares about major highways not the people that live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. So this will NOT help you or anyone else that doesn't already have a station in their back yard. This is just a waste of money to pad the pockets of people that already have money.

http://www.chargepoint.com/

if you look at a map like this you will see that the number of stations actually isn't really that bad in a lot of places. And this isn't all networks so it doesn't include all stations but for the few it does for allowing natural expansion over the course of a few years that isn't that bad. Companies are handling the building of new stations just fine.
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Bullshit. Try to drive from L.A. to Florida. Here let me link to the map. There's nothing for Tesla (the only car that's conceivably going to be used for a long trip right now).
As for bumfuck, you don't need it in most (all?) cases because for local driving, you just charge at home. It's only on long trips that this infrastructure becomes critical.

And of course, your map doesn't help either, not that anyone would want to use anything other than a super charger like station.
 
nilepez said:
Bullshit. Try to drive from L.A. to Florida. Here let me link to the map. There's nothing for Tesla (the only car that's conceivably going to be used for a long trip right now).
As for bumfuck, you don't need it in most (all?) cases because for local driving, you just charge at home. It's only on long trips that this infrastructure becomes critical.

And of course, your map doesn't help either, not that anyone would want to use anything other than a super charger like station.
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Ahh he got you! He said county :cigar:

<I know he meant country>
 
What's the charge rate going to be? Because chances are its still too slow for most people to do cross-country trips with an EV. Basically if they don't do Telsa-like supercharger stations, its not worth a whole lot. No one wants to go 50 miles then charge for 90 minutes and keep that up for a long trip.

That said, its a step in the right direction. The lessons learned from these charging stations will enable future station proposals to make better design decisions. That's a good role for government.
 
EODetroit said:
What's the charge rate going to be? Because chances are its still too slow for most people to do cross-country trips with an EV. Basically if they don't do Telsa-like supercharger stations, its not worth a whole lot. No one wants to go 50 miles then charge for 90 minutes and keep that up for a long trip.

That said, its a step in the right direction. The lessons learned from these charging stations will enable future station proposals to make better design decisions. That's a good role for government.
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I think something along the lines of a Supercharger is the likely may it will go. IMO, slower chargers only make sense in places like a motel.
 
As long as the government forces other people to pay for this, it sounds like a great idea!
 
Supercharging is still way too slow. What needs to happen is battery swap stations, with all car manufacturers standardizing to the same type of batteries. Until that happens (very unlikely with everyone using proprietary EV technology), I wouldn't ever consider an EV to be viable for long range driving.
 
c3k said:
As long as the government forces other people to pay for this, it sounds like a great idea!
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The best part.....it's people that aren't even alive yet! So you don't have to feel bad about it. Genius!


Some type of conductive charging embedded in the roads would be sweet on highways.
 
nilepez said:
Bullshit. Try to drive from L.A. to Florida. Here let me link to the map. There's nothing for Tesla (the only car that's conceivably going to be used for a long trip right now).
As for bumfuck, you don't need it in most (all?) cases because for local driving, you just charge at home. It's only on long trips that this infrastructure becomes critical.

And of course, your map doesn't help either, not that anyone would want to use anything other than a super charger like station.
Click to expand...

You are moving the goal post. I stated that it is possible. I didn't say that you could drive any path that you wanted. I didn't say that you could charge a car in 1 minute. Which from how it sounds supercharge is a Telsa only thing to start with so people have no choice but to charge by other methods. Those are the current charging stations that people use so I don't know what there is anything wrong with the map. They are already built and already in use. So why do I need to pay more tax money to have more just like those built if I am not driving an EV car? I am already paying more in taxes for people that do drive them to get tax breaks. That aside going back to your new issue with my statement. I stated the facts, you can drive from one side of that country to the other by some path.

https://www.wired.com/2014/01/father-daughter-tesla-roadtrip/

2014 a father & daughter drove from NY to LA. That is the east coast to the west coast, meaning my statement holds true and has already been done to be proven it could be done. Trip added an extra 20 hours to what would normally be a 40 hour drive. (not counting charge time). There was also a path from NY down to Florida at that time. So that would have been possible also to then drive back from LA to NY then down to Florida. That was before all the new stations your map there shows. From your map there, if you wanted to go from LA to Florida. Just take US15 up to US40, take that east to US35, then head south to Dallas, from there take US20 over to US59, take that down to US10 and get to Florida. Is that the most direct path? No, but it is possible to make it from LA to Florida by some means. You just have to plan your trip correctly.
 
I own a volt for the reason that the infrastructure isn't (fully) there. I love driving electric, but I just got done driving 250 miles and was able to do it without stopping for gas or charging. Best of both worlds.
 
If I didn't have to spend so much on taxes paying for these subsidies I'd be able to afford a Tesla who in turn would be able to afford to build more stations. All the government does is add middle men to bring the overall efficiency down actually making things worse. I'm the target audience for an EV car and I'll vote with my wallet.
 
Exavior said:
I don't see a need for the white house to get involved. Private parties seem to be expanding these on their own based on need and the ability to sustain themselves.
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Because this is how he can use massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to payback all the rich people who made massive donations to the Democrats this year.
 
Exavior said:
Is that the most direct path? No, but it is possible to make it from LA to Florida by some means. You just have to plan your trip correctly.
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Because I love planning my vacations around where I can find charging stations.

I recently took a short vacation trip up the coast in my Camry Hybrid. Over 350 miles round trip.
Didn't have to look for a charging station, didn't even have to stop for gas, as I still had half a tank when I got home.
Love being able to go 600+ miles (even in the city) without trying to find a plug, or bothering with a gas station. I just fill it up on my monthly trip to Costco since they have the best gas prices.
 
nightanole said:
Yup you hit the nail on the head, the GM will be a $35k "honda fit", aka its gonna have a $15k battery tax on it.

If i was car shopping, i would have no problem paying 10-20% more for the EV version with a 200 mile range. But for some reason its always 100%+ or more

The chevy bolt is going to be $35k, and have the same quality as the $15k compact. Or worse, there will be no $35k version, because who in their right mind would buy it, when they can get the luxury version for $45k with leather.

Im still trying to figure out how prius sells...
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Hybrids have their uses. They get much better mileage in town or in slow/heavy traffic.
I previously had a 4 cyl Camry and averaged 18 mpg since most my driving is in the city in heavy traffic during rush hour. Lots of sitting at long lights and slow driving.
Replaced it with a Hybrid Camry (about $3k more than new a 4 cyl at the time), and now I'm averaging 36 mpg.
When Gas was over $4/gal it was quick payback, but with gas under $3, it will take longer.

However, the added HP over the 4 cyl is nice, plus I never need to get it smog checked.
Also the brakes will likely last 200K miles (since the electric motors are used for much of the braking), and gas motor will last much longer since it's off when I'm sitting at the long lights.
Since I keep my cars for 10+ years, the savings add up.
 
Exavior said:
The problem is that his is NOT infrastructure. Roads are infrastructure, gas stations are not.
.
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Huh? You're selling yourself short. Your tax dollars and your productivity is what finances most of the innovation within the US. You can't build crap without state and federal governments. The location of a gas station has A LOT to do with where the closest refinery is located. Where these locations can be built and the pipelines necessary to run one is largely determined / tracked by the government. They are apart of the our infrastructure. Until hover gas tankers are created, they drive on roads which we pay for. The roads are also apart of the infrastructure for distributing gas around the US.

While it's a nice thought to believe that some company is just going to come in an innovate on their own the reality is that they don't. Your tax dollars fund so much of the technology we enjoy day to day that it's just sickening. If someone wants to build a prototype of a something and distribute it they need financing. That financing comes from banks. Now guess how much of your productivity / taxes fund that endeavor? Quite a bit. The US gives billions to banks every year. How all this happens isn't too far from how it is in the Matrix. Basically what makes all this shit go 'round is your body heat, or in more current terms your productivity.
 
Do those charging stations come attached to a hotel? One of 2 things needs to happen before EV's will be successful. Batteries capable of going 500+ miles on a single charge and/or charging from dead to full in a few minutes. Otherwise, gas will be king for a long long time.
 
One thing I find frustrating is the growing pains of EV charging stations coming in a multitude of competing standards, would be nice to unify that into something more universal so we don't have to lug a buncha plugs around. Maybe this would help clean things up in that problem area I would hope.

Other than that, I'm quite looking forward to the future EVs market, quiet clean cars with less moving parts to maintain and convenient fill-up within the garage. Not to mention avoiding dealerships with the Tesla route, personally a draw honestly, I always had the means to get a nice car but went with used just to avoid that awful experience.

Seems the guy knows what I - and perhaps many other techie individuals - wanted out of a modern home and is making it convenient to try that out... I might have to replace my old roof with those solar shingles and add a backup battery setup to the mix, sounds like a fun project to experiment with.
 
I can say I wouldn't be happy waiting 1 hour or more for an electric car to charge up while on a long road trip. And to drive up and find no stations available? Take a number? Suddenly gas stations and a gasoline engine makes sense!
 
amddragonpc said:
I can say I wouldn't be happy waiting 1 hour or more for an electric car to charge up while on a long road trip. And to drive up and find no stations available? Take a number? Suddenly gas stations and a gasoline engine makes sense!
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For me it's %99 of the time taking short (0.5hr) trips around town, so personally I'm trading, say, 25 gas station detours a year, lets say just 15-30 minutes each time per fill-up and round-trip for said detour, for a handful visits a year at an EV charging station instead.

I stop every few hours on the highway to stretch and grab a bite anyway so it's a wash more or less, and if the trip is extra long I always rent, hate putting lotsa mileage on personal vehicles.

I would really be using the car like a big cellphone charging in the garage most of the time. So it depends on your driving patterns really, figure out what works best for your lifestyle and go from there.
 
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while I am laughing at this stuff being done just as the change of office, it is acutally something that can help the country.

When tesla was getting off the ground they paid for many of the parking lots to add charging stations by simply providing the parts so that they would have a uniform charger that would work with their cars. the established car companies did not want to build out the infrastructure to allow competitors. Yet when someone did a road test of the tesla early on they still ran out of charge by simply driving aggressively or not enough, and combined with being further than fifty miles from a charging station had to pay more out of pocket for towing.

This country used to have service stations every fifty miles to fuel cars and fix them. Then cars got so that fixing them was not really a big deal, so they became mostly gas stations. then planned obsolescence came and we got stores targeted at fixing cars... then electric cars came along.

The big thing to understand is that with the power generation in the car you can use more portable fuel but you still are dragging the weight around. Tesla design uses car batteries because they already exist in the car and with everything grounded to the frame instead of internal wires the car can be shorted out then cut into by first responders to get people out of the car before they bleed to death or explode. As we move to higher density fuels and technology like capacitors like we use in our computers to store the fuel in, newer designs are going to happen. If it means we have to paint a logo near the fuel tank that shows a rain drop for hydrogen, a plug for electric and a gas can for gas engines, then that should not be a big deal. I say this knowing someone may freak out some will know they use the dreaded what ever the flavor of the month to mock is...

A single chicken wire cap bank which runs the electric up coils that increase in resistance can hold a hold fifteen or twenty gigavolts at about five hundred watts more wattage and the wires melt but your hair will stand on end at about fifty feet. I got to see one of the early designs based on the tesla coils. Which by the way is public domain and has been for years. You can rack those in ceramic boxes and fuel something like a tesla for five thousand miles... the question when I ask them about it was safety. A van der graaf generator is the same type of thing bounce the electric up a load resistor then deplete it by discharging in into a surface or fluid.

Note in many cars the transmission is actually the heaviest part after the frame, and some cars the frames they really skimp on but the transmission is usually the second heaviest my car a tib the engine and transmission together weigh more than the frame but that happens when people basically build a pace car to get people to think the car company is changing it style and biz. before the tib most people knew they made horrible cars. No attention to detail and broken parts. the tib were built as cheaply labor cost wise as they could since they were selling a car designed around ganged pistons so they could import it as a sedan instead of a sports car. That worked until they crash tested it and the acceleration exceeded that of a boring car so they made it a two door and kept the design mostly intact since they had the licensing in place. They licensed the corvette pace car engine which only covers the tibs they made up to 2008... so it was Asian influenced body and frame wrapped around a corvette pacecar engine (LS1 aka the beta 2) and Porsche 939 transmission in the autos and a really crappy manual that is not tough enough for the engine but since they did not want to admit the actual displacement of the engine half of them ended up getting bought as sleep cars for cops. But the point is cars like that show that you can buy a car that goes much faster than is safe but sensible drivers, unless their is pile up generally stop before they get into an accident out side of rush hour. I know from having taken it on a track that I can get it up to over a hundred forty miles and hour for perspective the autoban in germany where they talk about cars going two and three hundred miles and hour... that is not true, what they say is two or three hundred kph which is 140 mph plus 140 mph = 225 kph and 200 mph is over 300 kph... supercar range. my thirty thousand dollar car handles with zr rated tires which are painful to replace up to 160 mph I know guys who have gotten them into the two hundred mile an hour range over in japan. One guy wanted to race a bullet train... the tires melted then blew apart, rolling the car. I think he still has spend a month a year helping one of the farmers his car rolled through the farm of... but electric cars are just as safe but the methods are different. Many firemen will say that seconds are critical and that if they have to figure out where they are cutting into the car to save the person then the person might die or the car might explode. That is just inertia. They go on hundreds of calls a year and in each and every call they make a judgement call. Moving the exploding fuel to power plant means that only the electric is running down power lines or from home generators that as the gas and desiel bases cars before curios car design can be more about style, form and function. Style being the things that impact neither form nor function but still impact appeal. the form of the car would the body line the style being the color of the paint. More than that it is safer to deal with a car that is not burning on fire...
 
Exavior said:
You are moving the goal post. I stated that it is possible. I didn't say that you could drive any path that you wanted. I didn't say that you could charge a car in 1 minute. Which from how it sounds supercharge is a Telsa only thing to start with so people have no choice but to charge by other methods. Those are the current charging stations that people use so I don't know what there is anything wrong with the map. They are already built and already in use. So why do I need to pay more tax money to have more just like those built if I am not driving an EV car? I am already paying more in taxes for people that do drive them to get tax breaks. That aside going back to your new issue with my statement. I stated the facts, you can drive from one side of that country to the other by some path.

https://www.wired.com/2014/01/father-daughter-tesla-roadtrip/

2014 a father & daughter drove from NY to LA. That is the east coast to the west coast, meaning my statement holds true and has already been done to be proven it could be done. Trip added an extra 20 hours to what would normally be a 40 hour drive. (not counting charge time). There was also a path from NY down to Florida at that time. So that would have been possible also to then drive back from LA to NY then down to Florida. That was before all the new stations your map there shows. From your map there, if you wanted to go from LA to Florida. Just take US15 up to US40, take that east to US35, then head south to Dallas, from there take US20 over to US59, take that down to US10 and get to Florida. Is that the most direct path? No, but it is possible to make it from LA to Florida by some means. You just have to plan your trip correctly.
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SERIOUSLY? your solution is to drive hundreds of miles out of your when I-10, one of the busiest highways in the country is a direct shot? This is the reason they're talking about doing this. Few are going to take that convoluted route to go from LA to FL.
 
All I hear is "more subsidy for the EV market".
 
Subsidy? No! See, the government is paying for it. They're not hurting anyone. And I'm sure not a penny is being transferred behind the scenes. These are good politicians who are trying to do the right thing with free money.
 
c3k said:
Subsidy? No! See, the government is paying for it. They're not hurting anyone. And I'm sure not a penny is being transferred behind the scenes. These are good politicians who are trying to do the right thing with free money.
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fiscally impossible for the government to pay for anything without first acquiring it from producers.
 
BlueFireIce said:
fiscally impossible for the government to pay for anything without first acquiring it from producers.
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Umm...is that how deficit spending works? Sure, that's how INFLATION works, which is related. It makes each dollar worth less. Almost worthless, but not quite. (After 100 years of central banking/Keynesian "magic"/unfettered spending, the dollar is worth 4% of its previous value.) But out-year debt? That falls squarely upon the shoulders of the yet-to-be-born.
 
c3k said:
Umm...is that how deficit spending works? Sure, that's how INFLATION works, which is related. It makes each dollar worth less. Almost worthless, but not quite. (After 100 years of central banking/Keynesian "magic"/unfettered spending, the dollar is worth 4% of its previous value.) But out-year debt? That falls squarely upon the shoulders of the yet-to-be-born.
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Deficit spending includes inflation, and inflation is taxation, no matter how you look at it, and if it is borrowed money it is still left on the backs of the producers, no way around it, it has to be paid at some point, along with any interest promised. The government does not create, it consumes, be that through direct taxation or through indirect taxation in the form of inflation or loans.
 
Yes, but what do you call producers yet to be born? Do they get to vote on the financial burden placed upon them so we can benefit? Look, I'm in favor of child slavery as much as the next guy. I'm just asking if it brings any fiscal issues (since we're okay as a country with the moral quandary presented by that issue).
 
When the government spends more money than the living generation can produce, the debt falls upon future generations. Social Security is a great example. Future generations cannot vote on the expenditure and do not benefit from it, yet they must pay for it. Great system. Really. Gotta love forcing children to give their future up so I can feel good today.

That's what government deficit spending is all about.
 
LOL. Excellent (failed) attempt...if a bit transparent.

"These arguments cannot be broken."
 
nilepez said:
SERIOUSLY? your solution is to drive hundreds of miles out of your when I-10, one of the busiest highways in the country is a direct shot? This is the reason they're talking about doing this. Few are going to take that convoluted route to go from LA to FL.
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You keep moving the goal post for the argument. You can't build a house that is less than 5000 sq feet. someone builds a house less than 5000 sq ft. Well, you can't build a house that is less than 4000 sq feet. somebody does that.... at what point do you want to stop moving the goal post? No part of my statement is false, people are building charging stations today, there are charging stations out there to use, and you can make a trip if you plan correctly. Never said that there is a perfect system in place, never said that more stations aren't needed. I stated that free market is currently taking care of this on its own without the government helping. The government didn't install the 30 stations near me in the last year, that was the local power company. They didn't install them at the local Walmarts, that was Walmart. Same for Kohls and all the various restaurants around me that have them.

You set the restriction of having to use a Telsa S or X class car and telsa supercharge stations only for the trip. So that puts some limits on which way you can go. Which lets be serious for a moment, why would GM put in chargers that only work for Telsa cars? So these will not be supercharge stations that the government is pushing for. It is slow standard chargers. So that leans towards the first map. That said yes there is a gap on I-10 for that trip. That said it is a 2 hour different to take I-10 vs I-40. So you are looking at 39:45 minutes from LA to Orlando to take I-40 to I-75. Which looks like it should work. My guess at a path off the top of my head would have been 41:22 so I did add an extra 1.5 hours. So change my path. and just take I-40 the entire way instead of cutting down through Dallas to get back to I-10. So not the most direct path, but not also adding a huge number of hours either way. But the main point is that it is possible period by some method of driving to do it right now. Which completely is different that my statement of there are charging stations in the USA right now with more being built, which is where the argument came into play of no there aren't charge stations and it is impossible to drive a EV car anywhere outside of range of your house.
 
I have no issue with electric cars.

I have no problem with Tesla putting in chargers all over the place. That's great - private industry doing what it needs to kick start an industry. I think there's a lot of opportunity for other companies to come in and make that a competitive market place.

In California, at least, the Utilities want to step in. They want regulation to help them out. They want to pass on the costs of chargers to the rate payers (that's everyone on the grid), and still charge the person filling up their car for energy (at premium rates), and still get state federal subsidies for removing carbon from the road (even though they are creating more carbon than an efficient internal combustion engine based on the electrical production, transmission, and distribution). The utilities here in California, at least, are trying to triple-dip.

I don't have a problem with federal incentives, so long as they are available to private industry and not tied to utilities. I think that's a more "positive" way than something like a carbon tax, or a higher federal highway fuel tax, although they will have to pay for it somehow and that's probably where they will get the funding.

Really, my biggest hangup with EV right now is the charge time. A "high capacity" charger still takes about 30 min to get about 80 miles of charge (and a lot longer to get a big battery all the way to 100%). I stop in the gas station, it takes maybe 5 minutes to fill up and get +/- 400 mile radius. That right now is what is killing EVs for me.

From an environmental standpoint - EV doesn't solve the pollution problem. Electricity still creates carbon. Even all those pretty solar panels an wind turbines aren't entirely carbon neutral or without environmental issues. All your doing is shifting the emissions from your tailpipe, to a big power plant somewhere out of sight, and eating a whole lot of additional inefficiencies in the conversion and transportation.
 
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