Opinion
Bowe: EV charging future is about affordability and reliability, not breakthroughs
“I do think it's going to be a little less about totally fundamental breakthroughs on new kinds of charging, and as I said, just charging that gets out there is cheap, affordable, and it works.”
Opinion
Bowe: Debating EV Charging Type Allocations Is Counterproductive
“I actually kind of think it's a counterproductive debate to be having when we're thinking about where should we be putting policy dollars and where should we be putting investment dollars. We need it all.”
Opinion
Bowe: EV charging hardware is nowhere near commoditization
“We're just not even close to a commoditized hardware environment, I don't think, out there yet. Especially not for DC fast chargers.”
Assertion Supported
ChargerHelp survey found 30% to 50% of 5,000 EV chargers underperformed
“They did a survey of about 5000 chargers and found that, Again, 30 to 50% of them had substandard performance.”
Disclosure
Bowe: Energy Impact Partners does not treat AI as a standalone sector
“I think we see it, ah, in a number of ways, but not in its own category, largely. So we see our existing companies leveraging it to make their businesses more efficient. We see new companies who, it's a fundamental of their product, and then, you know, we obvi…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bowe: Seamless, Gas-Station-Style EV Charging Is Still Far Off
“Third phase, I think, is going to be very much akin to everything's as easy as the gas station model. So the infrastructure is out there and working in all the right numbers, but it's also in all the right places. It's working seamlessly, and it's working inte…”
Assertion Supported
US Has 120-125 EVs per Fast Charger Compared to 15 in China
“So if you look at the U.S., we're at about a 120, 125 EVs per public fast charger, and China is at 15, and China has much, much higher penetration of EVs.”
Insight
Bowe: Consumer Perception of Charging Matters More Than Target Ratios
“Because whether or not there's some magic number for charging infrastructure that in reality would make this whole system work, it doesn't matter what that number is. It matters what the consumer perception is.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bowe: EV charging stations increasingly pencil on utilization in cities and corridors
“We are seeing increasingly charging stations in a lot of places penciling from a utilization standpoint, and so some of the large owner-operators post some really tremendous statistics, especially in cities or in certain DC fast charging corridors for travel w…”
Insight
Bowe: EV charger project finance requires guaranteed utilization or fleet partnerships
“The holy grail is to have either guaranteed utilization, so you could have a counterparty who's willing to guarantee a certain amount of utilization, and if they don't hit it, that they'd be willing to make up the difference, or a partner who you can get comfo…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bowe: EV charging will not converge into a centralized gas station model
“There's no reason why for EV charging it's gonna have to be a centralized model like that. I mean, I really hope we start putting some more EV charging stations on gas stations, but I think it's gonna be a combination of people charging for EV charging in the …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bowe: Smart controllable EV chargers are largely unavailable in residential settings
“Having chargers that can communicate and can be controlled and are doing that or have a high uptime to be able to do that is something that we're not able to do everywhere today, and especially in residential, we're not able to do that.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bowe: Vehicle-to-grid adoption will only happen at higher EV penetration rates
“And then when we ultimately get to higher penetrations, that's where I would think we would start really seeing the V to G from a grid perspective, which I see as different from a vehicle to home perspective.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bowe: Co-locating battery storage with EV chargers will increase significantly
“Probably we're going to need to co-locate storage with a lot of these chargers. We're seeing some companies that are doing storage you know, integrating a storage solution from another provider, and other companies that are providing a storage and charger prod…”
Assertion Supported
Charging Logistics Remains Top Reason Consumers Do Not Buy EVs
“Historically, the number one barrier to consumers saying why they wouldn't buy an EV had been charging. No surprise in this past survey, it's still the number one reason is charging logistics”
Assertion Supported
Bowe: Charging a 60 kWh battery in five minutes requires over 500 kW
“If you have a 60 kilowatt hour battery, which is not that big, you know, most of the Teslas now are a hundred kilowatt hour batteries and that you're charging that in five minutes, that's going to be over 500 kilowatts of load.”
Assertion Partly supported
Bowe: EV Share of New Car Sales Is ~30% in Europe, 5-6% in US
“You know, we're almost up to thirty-ish percent of New vehicle sales in Europe are EVs. We're more kind of five, six percent in the U.S.”
