"...by merging with SPACs...all disasters." Yep, seems on point.

The largest issue is that people have no incentive to spend 30 wasted minutes charging their car, they would rather charge it while doing something useful. Unless you link the charging in with something practical, people would rather charge at home, or work.

When I buy gas, I insert a credit card. Why is it EV charge companies FORCE me to load an app, load a credit card, and in many cases transfer money to create a “balance”. If gasoline sellers used the EV charge business model there would be a nationwide protest.

Another factor not mentioned in this video is uneven demand across various times of day and seasons. In a major tourist destination, like the grand canyon, you need massive amounts of chargers to handle the peak season loads, that would see very little revenue coming in during the off season.

Those charging companies are confused about what business they are in. They think they are in hi-tech business, where they develop apps, platforms or other forms of “technology”. They are mistaken. They are in commodities business. Nobody care about their shitty apps or subscriptions. But maintaining those is very costly. Contrary to widespread belief, gas pumps are cheaper than chargers. Also, both need servicing.

I rented an electric car recently. Charging was a pain especially while driving long distance. I wouldn’t rent another fully EV car. Even with the fast chargers it’s a major inconvenience.

Don't you think that if it wasn't for all of the subsidies, grants and financial incentives, this whole EV thing would simply NEVER have got off the ground?

One key factor could be the substantial upfront investment required to build charging infrastructure.

Wow, when it comes to EV supercharger networks...this video went out of its way to NOT MENTION the behemoth supercharging network built by Tesla!

Here down under the government collects 44 cents a litre tax (Excise) on petrol and deisel. Plus 10% tax (GST) on the total fuel bill. This money goes into general revenue and ensures we can fund our roads. A key reason BEVs are cheap to run is that they avoid these high taxes. They effectively leach off the rest of society by failing to contribute these significant amounts to general revenue including to keep of roads. It is ironic that their heavier weight means that they rip up the roads far quicker.

The situation is similar in Europe. One other problem is the competition by non-specialized companies that offer charging as a service and don't need to profit from it. They have low cost, because they can hook up the charger to their existing grid connection (using smart power management so it doesn't require upgrading the grid connection), where a charging company needs to pay every month for a grid connection that is only used for charging vehicles. It is even better if they combine it with solar. E.g. a shopping mall, or office building can offer significant speeds at relatively low cost. If you have a parking lot, you can dump excess grid capacity into the type 2 chargers when demand for fast charging is low. This allows you to optimize the use of your grid connection capacity from morning rush hour, all day until evening rush hour.

0:58 "Merging with a SPAC/ SPACs" should get an ominous organ chord at this point.

I don’t understand how a charging station only lasts three-to-seven years. What wears out?

This is quite a good video, i was speaking to someone who is in the fuel station business (Petrol Station or 'Servo' in Australian speak). Number of big issues with EV Chargers is why you don't see big fuel stations putting in EV charging spots. 1. The EV super chargers themselves are hugely expensive to install and maintain 2. The simple reality is that an EV Charger makes a pittance of revenue compared to a fuel pump, there's a limit in how many vehicles they can service in a day 3. Electricity, which is becoming ever more expensive, means that it will soon cost more to 'fill up' your EV than it would a pickup truck with Petrol 4. Space, these things can't be installed anywhere near tanks, refueling ports, anywhere that a tanker tuck will park, gas tanks and so forth for safety reasons (EV Fires), so most sites have limited options. Add up these and other points and this is why in Australia you will rarely see any EV chargers at Fuel Stations. They simply don't make enough money to warrant the cost.

I'm only about halfway through the video so far, but I feel like the obvious solution here is for gas stations to just add in their own charging stations, replacing or adding to their gas pump stalls. I have no idea why these charging companies thought that people would rather charge up in the back of a parking lot, instead of at a convenience store where they can get food, snacks, drinks, etc and use the bathroom.

Correction: Many gas stations operate without staff present while the convenience store is closed at night.

The kiss of death: merging with a spac 😂

Interesting issue I hadn't considered before. A gas station company has a lot of worker bees making minimum wage and small number of professionals and executives. An EV charging company likely has close to zero minimum wage employees and loads of professional and high-wage tradespeople, plus the executives.

It's really shocking how bad EV charging is when compared to gas pumps.

Australia has 24/7 unmanned service stations in remote country towns. No one is ever on site. This is quite unusual however and you won't see one in larger towns and cities.

I find them to be expensive for charging purposes... almost cheaper to put in gas unless you charge at home. I am suprised that they don't have a cell phone link in their stations to monitor them.

I feel like the main issue is they don't understand their place in the EV ecosystem. I see these things all the time at shopping/strip malls. But most people there are coming from home and have no need to charge. Their core customer is the roadtripper - a much more niche market. Ideal placement would be close to cracker barrels imho - and they should provide some way to monetize the customers standing around for 30 mins.

Really great analysis per usual. The EV charging companies should consider going the old gas station model. Concentrate more chargers in one location and have at least one customer support person located there. They'd however need to increase their price per KwH which will have to be passed on to the customer. The revenues would definitely increase as they can also add non-charging revenue. People would definitely eat or engage in some other activity if they're waiting 30 minutes to charge their cars.

It's a pleasure to watch your channel grow, as you continue to produce SOLID documentaries that educate as well as entertain. Great stuff!

One of the great things we are always told about the "energy transition" is that it means more jobs. But the advantage of these boondoggles is they don't require a person on site... So which is it? So many similar conflicts in the dumb ev transition schemes.

Never thought about the relatively slow rate of recharging compared to gas vehicles, severely limiting profit per hour per station... I don't see any way around this 😕

The city of Seattle, Wa. owns it's own utility and supplies electricity services to Seattle and neighboring areas. A year ago, the city utility installed two unmanned charging stations a half mile from where I live. These are likely aimed at serving the neighborhood, plus they are on an arterial and so could expect to attract users traveling through the area, although it's still mostly serving neighboring areas. In that year, I have never seen a car charging. They are used, mostly by cars using them for parking but not charging! That's despite being posted "no parking except when charging." Just a casual observation of use.

They are govt funded projects, meaning the cost of building them is padded quite heavily because the Govt is paying for it... So if you try to build or maintain them without that funding it's pretty high. Every one cares so much about building more chargers as well they don't maintain the ones they have. Tons of cities have chargers all over the place broken or out of service, because no one wants to fix them. Instead they rather build new ones in other locations...

It might be effective to set up charging stations at restaurants or entertainment venues. Some place where people can have fun or rest while their car is charging.

I leased a Ford Mustang Mach E, and put on about 10,000 miles a year. I don’t think I even averaged once per month at a public charging station, thanks to a charger in my garage. I’m now looking forward to leasing another EV. However, if I didn’t have home charging, I wouldn’t even consider an EV unless it was a Tesla. The public charging stations usually had half the stalls out of service. Once I was nearly stranded on the far side of the state, when only one of six stalls at an Electrify America station worked, and another time it took me about 20 minutes to disconnect my car from the ChargePoint charger in the middle of the winter when the charging plug froze into the side of my car!

To ad to all the other problems, think about the cost to supply the roughly 1 megawatt of power these charge stations require. Depending on location that ranges from really expensive to you can't afford it

Where I live, they charge 9 times more for electricity, than it cost at your home. Still losing money.

THIS is why going electric is going to be a heavy financial lift. The IC vehicle grew up alongside a parallel gigantic industry (oil extraction and refining) ready, willing and EAGER to fuel IC vehicles. The big sleepy electric companies have little or no interest in that market. Indeed, they know that reduced electricity consumption will save them money in reduced power plant costs.

This video would have been more interesting if you compared the EV charging companies to Tesla's Supercharging business model. Additionally, it would have been more interesting to include travel centers like Buc-ee's and Texas Best who offer Tesla Superchargers to their customers. We have two EVs in our household: A 2023 Tesla Model Y LR and a 2023 Ford Mustang Mach-E Extended Range. The experience traveling long distance in these two EVs is night and day. We traveled from Dallas to Jackson, WY this summer in the Tesla and the charging was effortless. Traveling long distance in the Mustang was not pleasant - it often meant arriving at a Walmart with 4 charging stalls, not all of them working, and a long line of EVs waiting their turn to charge. Lastly, most EVs are charged at home and/or the workplace, unlike ICE vehicles that refuel at crowded gas stations. This convenience and time savings typically offset the time spent fast-charging on road trips. And, it greatly reduces the demand for metropolitan charging for local driving. The relatively small volume of non-Tesla EVs results in a small demand for non-Tesla EV charging companies. With Tesla opening up their Supercharger network to most other EVs beginning in 2024, I wonder if non-Tesla EV charging companies will lose even more money? Note: Most gas stations don't make their profits from selling gasoline but, instead, make their profits from selling products in their stores. EV charging companies don't have this benefit.

A quarter of chargers broken/down is consistent with what I've seen around me.

A single gas pump could service 12-15 (i.e., full tanks) cars effortlessly in 30 min, i.e., giving these cars a range of 400-500miles or more. A single charging station could service only one car in 30 minutes with questionable range (depending on the electricity demand). You see, how infrastructure problems arise for EVs.

I like the idea of gas stations adding fast chargers, like Shell or Circle K do. Currently they have 2 charging stalls vs 8 or so fueling stalls, but eventually they could expand further. This gives the same conveniences, including available bathrooms, snacks, warm food etc., increases revenue via sale of merchandise, and reduces per-charging stall costs to the gas station, e.g. potentially using already available space instead of renting space, if someone needs assistance, they can ask the person who already works at the gas station instead of the company having to hire a ton of customer service representatives to be available via the phone, and maybe workers who repair fuel pumps could potentially be trained to replace charger parts (as long as there are no electrical specific issues requiring specialization).

Why not install four or five at existing gas stations and set up a waiting area they can spend more money in or encourage the customers go have lunch at a restaurant next door? That way the employees who were watching the pumps and registers who were there already can assist customers on-site and more money can be extracted from the customers. This doesn’t have to be complicated. No silly apps, no remote tech support, just periodic maintenance.

Gas stations are also unprofitable if we're just talking fuel. The trick is that they have added a store to sell all sorts of quick and convenient items, that's where the profit is. And that's where EV charging needs to go. I've long advocated that fast food chains along major highways should install chargers to draw people to those locations.

I I used to have to 'recharge' my horse every night on cross country trips. The model changed when gasoline power came in, and I was able to do longer trips, at higher speeds, with multiple refills. The cost to the taxpayer was enormous, in creating an asphalt covered road network. It also marginalized every other transportation mode. The transition to EVs is another different model, but requiring a whole lot less extreme adaptation than the previous shift. We can still use the same taxpayer subsidised road network. We also have the convenience of doing 80-90% of 'refilling' at home, for a whole lot cheaper than gas. The fact that EVs are still a small market, and drive-by recharging on highways is a small part of the usage pattern means that such chargers aren't going to be cost effective until there are a whole lot more EVs on the road. I tend to look for destination charging, where I can use my time for something else while the car is charging. Like shopping, or eating or sleeping. The fact that there is so much more flexibility in how you charge compared to how you have to gas up means that the 'gas and go' model you've been used to for 100 years is no longer viable. I'm adapting, not whingeing.

Think about the turn around time. Pumping gas is fast, they can pump many cars per hour. Verse EV, takes longer to charge per car and less money they can make per hour.

Why wouldn't they put Starbucks or Panera's at every location, maybe even at big-box stores where people sit for more than 20-30 minutes. Malls and grcoery stores should be where these chargers are being put so they recieve a portion of the profits.

There needs to be an Indy 500 for EVs. Racing technology spured the ICE development more than anything else. Yes, the first races would be extremly boring and slow. But hot swaping batteries should be like changing tires.

... and on top of charging co's losing money, most car manufacturers are either not making much or losing money manufacturing them. Now, you can read about the inability to sell them in quantity. We'll see how this pans out. Not looking good.

Tesla charging stations are amazing had a Tesla for 2 years no problems and seamless.

You made a case study of one company. They sound like an absolute disaster. How the hell can they not know when their chargers are offline? How can their customer service and related systems be so bad? How can their maintenance costs be so high? The answer to all the above is “incompetence”, and that’s not a reflection on EV’s but on folks who obviously do not have a background in engineering or any other appropriate discipline. No one who is actually serious about creating a sustainable business goes via SPAC.

I considered installing e c for my parking spaces but this analysis is correct the capital and overheads costs are not covered and the more machines the more you lose

My home electrical runs 98 cents per in the summer thru winter. I get better distance with gas cost per mile and only takes 5 minutes. My car is 24 years old and I will never touch any ev

Away from home charging is generally, incredibly cheap right now. This is going to get a lot more expensive.

The fatal flaw of EV's is battery life/cost. A well maintained gas motor can easily last 25 years while batteries deteriorate quickly & rarely exceed 7 yrs of useful life. This makes EV's effectively disposable as each time it's re-sold the buyer is likely have to buy a new "motor" which makes any "green" benefit moot as you'll just buy a new one instead.

Excellent point about the profit margins on EV chargers being so slim due to the time it takes to 'fill up' in comparison to a diesel pump... and the fact that Exploding Vehicle owners do you have a technical option of home charging? Whereas it's not within most people's ability to manufactured diesel at home 😂 It's a solid point that hadn't considered: thank you very much for highlighting it.

One solution is to have 7-11s, Starbucks, etc to start installing EV chargers next to them. This will take up some parking spots, but the customers with 20-30 minutes mandatory spend time will walk in and purchase stuff. That will make the chargers a bit more profitable. Also, there can be one person in the store who can take any downtime complaints and pass it to the charging company for quicker fixes.

I think the reality of the situation is we just don't know yet what a electric car future will look like as even in the markets ahead of the curve total fleet adoption is just about into double digits.

Replacing/repairing EV car parts can be more expensive than the car itself. That’s wild bro. 😅

Good video! I switched from a hybrid and truck to a Ford Mach-e about 18 months ago. I now have 27,000 miles on the Mach-e. I made the switch because I had rented a 2021 Kia Niro EV while having engine work done on the hybrid. At the time, charging stations were reliable and plentiful here in Los Angeles. Now, I haven't needed to use a public charger for about five months. But, I see many more chargers down than up. They need to partner with fast food or convenience stores to allow people to purchase goods or take a breather while charging.

I have done 100% of my charging at home for over 8 months now. I have only used chargers that I had to pay for less than 10 times with my EV in 15 months.

Could not finish this, too many questions. Gross margin at Electrify America here in Colorado, where electricity is purchased at about $0.12/kwh and sold for between $0.42/kwh and $0.56/kwh, is off the charts compared to Murphy. I think the problem is capital cost, depreciation, and lack of use generally. Also, the adoption rate is still slow. The chargers at convenience stores that I have seen on long trips (just took a 3,000 mile trip last week) are often not in use, whereas I have seen wall to wall usage at the gas pumps (there are exceptions). It’s a catch 22. There still are not enough chargers geographically to encourage people to take EVS on long trips as much as they take ICE vehicles. And people are afraid of the occasional wait for a charger. I have an EV and an ICE vehicle, and it was a no brainer which one to take on that 3,000 mile trip. EV around town (and for going 0-60 in the blink of an eye), and ICE for trips. But as they build more chargers the take rate and useage will increase. It’s one thing to occasionally wait 5 minutes for a pump and fill up in 10. It’s another to risk waiting 30 minutes for a chargers and fill up in 45, even though the average charger useage rate is small. It’s a mess. There are gas stations on every corner. On a trip you are never more than 20 or 30 miles away from a fast refilling gas station right by the highway that has food and amenities. But you can easily be hundreds of miles from a charging station on a road trip out west. You have to plan carefully, hunt the station down, hope the damn thing is working (and if it is not, have enough juice to make it to your next alternate which can literally be 100 miles away), and wait a long time to charge, in a Walmart parking lot if you are lucky but often where there are no amenities whatsoever, not even a bathroom. Isn’t that special. To match the convenience of ICE vehicles and totally adapt to EV’s, you need to install 3 times as many chargers (along highways for people on trips) because it takes 3 times as long to charge as it does to fill up with gas. I don’t see us getting there for a very long time. My EV charges somewhat slowly. We took a leisurely 2 days to reach Orang County m Colorado in the ICE vehicle, but it would have been 3 days with all the stops in an EV. Again, you can’t drive from 100% to empty because that one charging location you were counting on just might be down that day. And it is rough on batteries to fast chargers to 100% anyway, and to deplete to close to zero, so there are a lot of stops. And there are generally no bathrooms, much less In ‘n Out it Burgers, at the charging stations. Can you take a trip in an EV? Sure. Is it convenient to do so? No. EV’s will remain around own, charge at home vehicles for quite some time. At least until the next big technological breakthrough. Sorry Elon.

If you can't charge at home, hopefully in a driveway or garage Ev's are really hard to justify imo. The prices of most fast chargers are nuts, and the time out of your day to charge your car once or twice at them is pretty bad, especially if you don't get the advertised speeds on the chargers. Starting every day to work with a 20 minute charge is not a good idea.

Even if EV charging station reliability is perfected and they never break down, the length of time required to charge will never charge. You can fill up a 20 gallon tank of a Cadillac Escalade in about 90 seconds from pump start to stop. Even Tesla's fastest fast charging will take 30 minutes to completely recharge a Model X LR battery to 100%. Further increasing the charging speed will increase temperature, reduce charging efficiency, and greatly reduce the longevity of the battery. That is a disadvantage that EVs will never overcome relative to an ICE car.

I've owned an EV for just under a year and a half. In buying it, I got a three year deal for free charging at Electrify America, whom Genesis, the manufacturer of my EV, undoubtedly compensates. But I have yet to use any EV charging station. I pay about $0.17/kWh at my house, and the convenience of coming home, plugging it in, and being ready to go the next day makes it worth the cost to me. My typical day uses about 19 kWh, costing about $3.29 to drive my typical 62 miles. That said, I've not taken a long trip in the car for the reasons you mentioned (lack of charging station availability and reliability). I have an IC pickup truck that I use for the rare long trips.

May I also add another problem of EV charger, adding a station will be put strain on power grid. Let's say a charger take 150 kW to charge a battery to full in 20 mins. At full capacity a station with only 8 charger will take more than Megawatt of electricity. How can power grid manage fluctuation on demand?

The charging stations should have convenience stores, restaurants & other stuff attached which would hopefully subsidize the charging & help not bore the driver waiting 20-30 minutes for the thing to charge OR just have existing gas stations have an EV charging section to go along with the usual gas pumps

hey, maybe do a video on a business u think is working. i like hearing about the failures, your content is good. but would be interesting to hear about some wins too.

In my country, we have a lot of petrol stations that are completely self service, no onsite staff. Some even have car wash equipment. And with several petrol companies now offering EV charging on-site so no overheads other than the equipment cost. Even one power company offers same rate as home charging at one company which means instead of 80-85 cents per kwh it costs just 15-34 cents per kwh depending on time of day or night.

Your video didn't mention Tesla's Supercharger network. It's definitely worth including in the discussion about EV charging companies, as it stands out in several key areas: Uptime: Tesla boasts an impressive uptime record for its Supercharger network, with reports suggesting over 95% of stations operational at any given time. This reliability is a major advantage for Tesla owners, as it reduces the risk of encountering a non-functional station during a trip. Profits: While specific financial details are limited, Tesla has hinted that its Supercharger network is profitable. This could be due to many factors. Number of chargers: As of December 2023, Tesla boasts over 1,974 Supercharger stations and 21,852 individual charging ports in the US alone. This extensive network provides widespread coverage and reduces range anxiety for Tesla drivers.

Because EVs are luxury items that only people with multiple cars ever use.

One thing you should also have pointed out is states with pay by the minute. This worked fine when all EVs charged at 50Kw, but todays cars charging as fast as 350Kw means they pay far less to than the value of the electricity.

I'm not stopping after a 400 km drive in an unknown city in a charging station in the middle of nowhere, maybe at night, I'm getting in, putting gas, and driving away as soon as possible.

Τhe root of the problem is that several of these companies started from government funded research projects, where snake-oil salesmen wrote proposals to develop charging systems just aiming to get the grant. When they develop the product and present the results they either beautify the operation or even hide the shortcomings. All these products presented as the new planet saving solution in the proposals are evaluated in lab conditions for a short time just to end successfully yet another gov/EU-funded R&D project. When deployed in the real world, their real shortcomings show up. Typically research grant IT products require continuous maintenance because something breaks all the time. Sometimes the product doesn't work even when demoed before the evaluation committee haha. These maintenance costs from training and paying the maintenance personnel that needs to be in standby pile up and you show what happens in the video. But even though the product and the spin-off company fail, the snake oil salesmen researchers get rich with the tax payers' money.

Feel like them depreciating their chargers is a write-off method. I can only imagine the actual plug itself ever requiring maintenance, power delivery electronics are tried and tested for over a century.

In the time it takes to charge an EV, a gas pump can fill six cars for about 6X the revenue. Plus it has a convenience store, RR, food, snacks, and an attendant for a little help.

Really great channel keep up the good work 👍

I have a Toyota RAV 4 Hybrid. Best decision I ever made. A hybrid engine is the best of both worlds - the electric and gas engines talk to each other, using gas only when necessary and no need to worry about where the next charging station is and if it works. I get 900 - 1100 km (560 to 685 miles) per tank. Even when it's -20 (-4F) out I still get 600km (370 miles) per tank.

Does all include Tesla?

"Cars last a long time, 12 years on average." OP be like that and not see how short-lived and wasteful that expensive metal can really is.

I paid $47k for a Tesla Model 3 earlier this year. No $7500 Fed Tax Deduction since I'm over $150k income per year. Best purchase i ever made except the 7,000 shares of TSLA I bought ($219 basis). Quit Cryin' and start Buyin'

It's still an impossible dream, no country can produce enough electricity to power vehicles let alone industry

it's a bad sign for the future of EV's that .40 cents/kwh is a losing proposition for the charging companies. not knowing about charger outages is perplexing. you would think that networking the chargers in each location and have them report outages and usage data over the cell network, wifi or through a cable would be a no-brainer. if it was a problem that the charger couldn't detect, like a broken connector, they should know it's out by the usage data. EV's will never grow like everyone is expecting if the charging infrastructure is hard to find, more expensive than gas, time consuming and way less conveinent.

I wouldn't be surprised if EVgo is also getting a government stipend.

I have an EV, Volvo C-40. Had it for a year now and love the car, but I'd never own one if I had to rely upon public chargers. I have a 50 amp 220V charger at home and top the car off every time I'm there. I go to the gym starting at 90%, get home at 81% and plug in. An hr later I leave for my appts and often come home for lunch. Might be a 65% but I plug in and top it off. Same at night, ready to go in the morning. Most of my driving is local and that's why it works. We have a Lexus w ICE for family trips. Don't buy an EV unless you can install a home charger.

Doesn’t even mention the largest EV charging network… 🤔🤔

I’ve owned 2 EV’s and I have never used a public charging station.

Good Presentation. Looking at these same issues against Starlink, the same conclusion can be reached.

You fail to mention the largest EV charging company! It is profitable, has over 16,800 chargers, and their chargers had .05% downtime in 2023! Can anyone tell me the company im talking about?

These cars are a dud more dangerous to all and the environment than gasoline, especially if fossil fuel makes the electricity

You overlooked a few things: (1) No, gas stations don’t require attendants to sell gas. Only to operate the actual store. (2) ICE vehicles can carry gas cans if going to travel further away from gas stations but EVs cannot carry additional fuel/energy outside of their battery packs and if the power goes out at home like during a snow/rain storm, they are screwed. (3) When you park an electric vehicle, it’s still consuming a charge depleting the battery so 2-4 days of idle parking would eat up most of your range but with an internal combustion engine vehicle, even if you let it sit for 3 weeks or more it would still have the same gas/range as before so worry free. (4) There’s a high chance of an EV catching fire inside a garage while charging. (5) You need to own/live in a house to have an electric vehicle charger at home or a designated parking spot where you reside which is rare for most people. That’s why ev adoption won’t work as implied. All those people you’re mentioning would need to have their own chargers at home. (6) Most businesses don’t want to spend thousands installing EV chargers on parking lots only catering to a handful of customers which would take away normal parking for regular guests with ICE vehicles. They already have designated handicap parking spaces by the front of the building and fire lanes so taking away extra real estate for ‘rich snobs’ wouldn’t be ideal for their businesses if parking is already very limited. (7) EV adoption is not widely sustainable thing because existing infrastructure would need major overhauling as things were traditionally built around gasoline powered cars like apartment complexes. There’s the *major risk of an uncontrollable fire* setting up ev chargers right next to regular vehicles which scares everyone. I for a fact try not to park beside electric vehicles of any manufacturer.

I don't own an EV. However, if I did buy one, I would certainly invest in a home charger and top off my batteries each night while I slept. Most people do not routinely take long "road trips," they use their cars around town to go to the stores and to go back and forth between work and home or school, visit friends, go out to a local restaurant, etc., so the need to use an EV charging station would not be a real concern (especially if you have a home charger.) I was always curious as to why these manufacturers keep harping on "range," when the average person really would not need to worry about that.

Very weird not to mention Tesla, as they're the biggest charging company in the world.

Insurance companies are starting to refuse insurance on homes with EV charging. The EV roll out is being rushed with disastrous results!

Part of the issue is that these companies have collectively decided that minimizing the upfront cost of the stations is a key component of their profitability, when the exact opposite is probably the case. Building these stations to be superiorly robust with heinous redundancies would lead to significantly lower amounts of downtime, and longer lifespans by far. Additionally, that would also involve giving the stations a high safety margin that could later be partially cannibalized to affect higher charging rates as supporting battery tech becomes available and widespread, reducing time per charge and increasing revenue per hour per pump. Their desire to hit the market as soon as possible with the cheapest chargers they can produce in numbers is a significant reason they are endearing these growing pains.

As an actual EV owner for 5 years, with every single mainstream coverage I find, I wonder if big Petro slipped someone a 100$ bill to put their thumb on the scales.🧐 Why would someone who uses an EV as a regular vehicle use the "Pay as you Go" plan? This increases rates by around 20% and forces one to pay a $1 session fee everytime you charge. Unless you are renting the car for the afternoon or the weekend, it does not make financial sense. I do however agree that maintaining these multi-hundred thousand $$$ DC Fast Charging locations on $5, $10 and $20 sessions might be an uphill battle combined with all the problems and phone calls for technical support.

EV's are the biggest boondoggle in automotive history.

I'm favored financially, $32,000 every week I can now afford anything I want all thanks to Jenifer Spencer

Only identified out one of the major issues at thre very end of this video (contribution per dispenser per unit time). The other issue (real estate cost in high density locations) was identified earlier. When these two major factors collide (in high density locations) the cost charged to drivers must be very high (up to 10× the cowt per mile of gasoline) in order to merely break even. Also, not mentioned is another issue in low density areas (the low contribution rate is corrected identified) is that the capex can be almost as high as the real estate cost in high density areas because it often requires extremely high costs to upgrade the local power distribution system to support the eletrical demand that DCFC chargers require. It is impossible for DCFC networks to be profitable at current retail prices. Retail prices will need to be closer to $3/kWh to become profitable. All in all though, this was a decent analysis of the primary business model issues.

Most people, most of the time, are making quite short journeys - say less than 150 mile return trips per day. In that case home charging is most convenient and cheapest. For long journeys, one should take breaks every couple of hours for comfort and safety. I usually stop for about 20 minutes to use the toilet (bathroom) and have some food and drink. During that time I charge my EV. Therefore, it makes sense to put chargers in service stations on major roads, where people can take advantage of other facilities at the same time. Chargers placed in the middle of nowhere are unlikely to be so popular. People, especially women, feel vulnerable by an isolated charger - particularly at night time.

Yeah this sounds like something that should be more of a public utility at this point not just company based

Of course most of this doesn't apply to Tesla's system; it has far higher dependability (personally verified), good real-time info on space availability, and it is (I think) not quite as expensive as the other ones. Still probably true that going down the highway and hitting DC chargers is not much cheaper than an efficient gas car, but the charging experience for me has been uniformly good. Now all the car makers have adopted Tesla's plug, other charging networks have to rewire to keep up. I'm a Tesla fan but we don't need any more monopolies.

When I bought my Tesla S in 2018 it came with free supercharging for the life of my ownership. What a sweet deal for this old couple now!!

All new businesses are not profitable at first. Companies have to recover all costs before making money. How quickly they turn profitable depends on how much use or sales they get. Part of business planning is to estimate how long before profitable is achieved.

Absolutely no mention of the elephant in the room… Tesla’s superchargers!