Seven car makers say they will construct 30000 charging kiosks

(Update:  As of April 2024, the number of EV charging kiosks installed is … wait for it … zero.  See blog article.)

(Update:  two big steps forward have taken place for this network of thirty thousand high-speed charging station.  See blog article.)

In July of 2023, seven car makers (BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group and Stellantis) announced that supposedly Real Soon Now they will construct thirty thousand new charging kiosks in the United States. The announcement raises far more questions, of course, than it answers.

Questions that pop into mind when one reads this announcement include the following.

Why are they doing this?  To see why they are doing this, one must look closely to see what kind of charging plug the kiosks will have.  The answer turns out to be, CCS1.  Well, yes, they will also provide NACS plugs, but most notably the kiosks will have the kind of plug that has one foot in the grave, namely CCS1.   Why CCS1?  Three reasons.

Reason 1.  To collect the big federal subsidies for EV chargers, you have to use CCS1.  Yes, it is written into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that to get the federal dollars, you have to use CCS1 plugs.  So this helps to explain why these seven car makers are using CCS1 plugs.  These car makers have looked to see just how big the pile of cash is that is waiting for somebody to collect it and spend it.  (It is really an enormous amount of cash, five billion dollars to pay up to 80% of the cost of the cost of installing chargers.)  These car makers have looked to see what the chances are that others will manage to collect all of that money right away.  (The answer is, whoever asks first has the best chance of getting the biggest fraction of the five billion dollars.)  And these car makers have figured they might as well try to get a bunch of the five billion dollars.

Reason 2.  Your cars won’t sell because they (maybe) won’t ever have Tesla-type charging ports.  Suppose you are BMW Group or Stellantis (which is the company formerly known as Chrysler, which includes Jeep).  Your big problem right now is that (as of July or even October of 2023) you have failed to announce that you are going to join the Tesla club for charging ports.  This means that so far as anybody knows from your public announcements, your cars won’t ever have Tesla-stype charging ports.  But your potential car buyers have surely by now noticed that almost everybody else has joined the Tesla-plug club.  Your potential car buyers are worried that eventually there won’t be any new CCS1-type charging stations, and the ones that were already in place will gradually shut down, or they will break and won’t get repaired, or will get converted to Tesla-type plugs.  Your potential car buyers won’t want to buy your cars.

So there is no choice about it, you need to tough it out and at least pretend that you plan to construct thirty thousand CCS1 charging kiosks.  This way you can hopefully talk your potential car buyer into purchasing the EV that is sitting on your showroom floor, that has a CCS1 charging port.  You tell them that even if right now there are not very many places to charge it (that are not broken right now), Real Soon Now there will be thirty thousand new places to charge this EV that is on your showroom floor, that you want the potential car buyer to buy.

Reason 3.  The Osborne Effect.  Suppose you are General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, or Mercedes-Benz Group.  If you are one of those car makers, then your situation is that you have announced that Real Soon Now, your factory will start making EVs that have Tesla-type charging ports.  When that time comes, your future potential car buyer will presumably be glad to purchase that EV because (a) there are lots of very reliable Tesla superchargers all over the place right now and (b) when the time comes Real Soon Now to purchase that future General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, or Mercedes-Benz Group that has the Tesla-type charging port, the number of, and geographic spread of, Tesla-type charging plugs will only have improved, probably a lot.

But because you are General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, or Mercedes-Benz Group, you have the big problem of the Osborne Effect.   Why should anybody buy your albatross General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, or Mercedes-Benz Group EV that is on your showroom floor right now, given that its charging port is a one-foot-in-the-grave CCS1 charging port?

So there is no choice about it, you need to tough it out and at least pretend that you plan to construct thirty thousand CCS1 charging kiosks.  This way you can hopefully talk your potential car buyer into purchasing the EV that is sitting on your showroom floor, that has a CCS1 charging port.  You tell them that even if right now there are not very many places to charge it (that are not broken right now), Real Soon Now there will be thirty thousand new places to charge this EV that is on your showroom floor, that you want the potential car buyer to buy.

These three factors explain why these seven car makers have announced that they are going to construct thirty thousand new CCS1 charging kiosks.

Why is Ford missing from the announcement?  This is very much a question to which there is no answer.  Ford, it will be recalled, was the first non-Tesla maker of EVs to have announced that it was joining the Tesla club.  This means that of all of the non-Tesla makers of EVs that had made such an announcement, it had (and still has) the most to lose from the Osborne Effect.