If we're serious about making EVs a viable option for the greatest number of people, then we have to be a lot more serious about EV infrastructure accessibility issues. While I've personally been saying some variation on this theme for so long, I almost feel like a broken record, I also know that I'm far from the only one.
See, while I may live in a place now where I have a garage, I definitely didn't always. Instead, I grew up in a succession of apartment buildings, moving from place to place because rents kept going up. And again, I know I'm not the only one.
In fact, I'm sure some of you reading this may also live in apartments right now. And maybe you're even frantically nodding your head in agreement.
My family didn't own any type of vehicle then; car or motorbike. But if we had, that would only have complicated matters. Families who watched me after school had cars, and so I remember being peripherally aware that there was some kind of upkeep involved, and that you had to make sure to move them in time on Chicago street-sweeping days or face a fine. And yes, dibs were totally a thing in the winter, but the one great thing about not having a car and just take the bus everywhere is that you don't have to think about them!
While EVs weren't yet a thing, those formative experiences could only serve to make me particularly aware of how lucky I am that I was able to simply plug the Zero SR/F I had as a long-term loaner bike in at home.
Sure, household charging is comparatively slow (especially if you only have 110V and not 220V in your situation), but if you're at home and plugging it in overnight, it's not really a big ask. Most of us in 2024 already do this with our cell phones, and our computers, and our Nintendo Switches, and any other electronic devices we use on a regular basis.
But if I was still living in an apartment anywhere, I might not have such easy access that I didn't even have to think about it. That's true even if the building I lived in had its own enclosed parking garage, because only those built pretty recently might even have EV chargers (and even then, certainly not always).
Now, if I was serious about owning an EV, I'd probably want to upgrade to at least having a 220V charger at home. And because I live in a house that I don't rent, that is at least an option. The only obstacles in my case would be whether I wanted to expend the money, time, and effort to do so. If I still lived in an apartment, that might not be an option, because the landlord or building management company might shut down any such suggestions with a simple "yeah, no, sorry."
But if you live in an apartment, you're at the whims of whatever your landlord or building manager will allow. And so, that fact can have an outsized influence on whether you choose to even consider an EV as your next vehicle or not. And thus, without adequate public access to EV chargers, that's how things will stay.
Part of adequate public access to EV chargers is, indeed, building out the infrastructure so that there are enough publicly accessible EV chargers in a given area to meet demand. But an additional hurdle is maintaining any EV chargers that exist, so that they remain accessible to users. And that's a thing that the Philadelphia City Council is attempting to address with a new bill that it just passed, and that's sitting on the mayor's desk as of October 10.
If signed into law, this bill would apply to the installation of EV chargers at all properties in the City of Philadelphia, as long as they have 10 or more parking spaces and are either built or have "significant upgrades" after the date this ordinance goes into effect.
The bill as written states that all EV charging equipment must meet safety regulations, and that contractors installing and maintaining such equipment must have appropriate permits to do so, in order to ensure safety and adherence to regulations. Permittees must be licensed electricians.
But most of all, all EV charging equipment must be kept in good operational order. If it is vandalized, or is otherwise not working, it should be reported and addressed in a timely manner.
A previous ordinance levied fines against EV charger owners if their chargers remained non-operational for over 30 days, but if you're in an area where there aren't sufficient public EV chargers around, 30 days is already way too long for the residents and travelers in that area.
This new bill, if passed, would see a $300 fine if EV charger owners don't maintain their chargers and keep them operational. On its face, that seems like a positive step in the right direction, although it still doesn't list a specific deadline that EV charger operators must meet in order to comply.
While I loved my time with the Zero SR/F, I've never had range anxiety with a gas bike like I did with that bike, no matter how far down a tank of fuel that I've run any gas bike.
The reason for that is simple: There are gas stations everywhere, even seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The same just can't be said for EV chargers at this point in time.
That may change in the future, as public EV charging infrastructure improves. I hope that it does.
But the problem is, even with the extremely helpful crowdsourced nature of apps like Plugshare to help you find stations near you, there's absolutely no guarantee that when you get to the right charging station for your vehicle, it will be in good working order.
Or maybe some strange fluke will happen, like after Shell took over Volta in the Chicago area and seemingly made it impossible to charge. Crowdsourced data in busy metropolitan areas can be helpful to a certain extent, but you're still left with a vague, gnawing sense of unease. And the way things are now, you can't just go a block or two over and expect to be able to fill up if the first charger you stop at isn't working correctly.
If moves like the City of Philadelphia's new bill can effectively work to persuade building owners to do better EV charger maintenance and upkeep, and if more cities and towns adopt similar measures, it could do a lot to ease EV charger accessibility concerns. And thus, also do a lot to encourage greater swathes of the American public to consider even getting on the EV train in the first place.
To be clear, it's not the only solution. There is no single solution, but there are several, layered things that we, as a society, can do if we really want to make this technology more viable and accessible to more people.
