Almost Nobody's Ready to Make EV Charging Stations in America Yet

Requirements to immediately start assembling the chargers at U.S. factories and to use U.S.-made iron or steel enclosures have caught many in the EV charging industry off guard, according to company executives and industry experts. [...]

Companies and some state officials who will manage the federal funds are warning that the country currently lacks the domestic production capacity - particularly on high-speed chargers - and that strict enforcement will slow the rollout, drive up costs and possibly hurt the industry Biden seeks to nurture.

“Everyone was hoping that there would be a waiver on the Buy America and Made in America,” said Aatish Patel, co-founder of XCharge North America, which imports chargers from its manufacturing plant in Beijing. “That throws a wrench in a lot of people’s plans.”

A requirement to source 55% of the cost of components from the United States was deferred until mid-2024, but executives expected deferrals in other terms as well.

Patel said it typically takes 12-18 months to move production from another country, adding that XCharge, one of the largest sellers of EV fast chargers in the European Union, was accelerating setting up a U.S. facility to comply with the rules, which could push costs up by about 25-30%.

EVgo Inc, a charging network operator with more than 850 fast-charging locations, said there is a process to individually request for a deferral of the “Made in America” rules but it is unsure if the government will allow that. Its South Korean charger manufacturer, SK Signet Inc, is planning to open a Texas factory to produce up to 10,000 direct-current fast chargers annually by 2026.

But EVgo Chief Commercial Officer Jonathan Levy said there is risk that 2023 projects could wait while the supply chain catches up, and it is difficult to plan.

“You have this uncertainty. Am I going to get that waiver? Do I need to hold off? What does it look like?”

Shares of EVgo jumped nearly 10% on Feb. 15, when the U.S. government announced the new rules for chargers. Since then, they have lost about a quarter of their value. Rivals ChargePoint, Wallbox, Blink Charging Co and Tritium have dropped about 30% over the same period compared with a drop of near 5% in the S&P 500.

Detroit is getting $2 million for sensors to create smart intersections by using existing traffic cameras to deploy artificial intelligence software solutions to “predict and prevent traffic accidents” in the city, Michigan’s largest. [...]

New Jersey has won $2 million for sensors to address wrong-way driving events while New York is receiving $2 million for an app to allow visually impaired New York subway and bus customers to safely navigate their transit trips.

Los Angeles is receiving $2 million to integrate transit trip planning with event ticketing for major activities, including the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Cleveland, Ohio will get $1.8 million for smart traffic signals to provide the right of way to emergency vehicles, and Harris County, Texas is receiving $2 million for sensors for a new flood warning system.

Three tribal nations in North Dakota are receiving $2 million for drone technology for medical care and equipment deliveries, while a project to use drones to deliver medical supplies in Virginia’s Eastern Shore will get $1.9 million.

Massachusetts is receiving $2 million to use drones and sensors to monitor and analyze railroad infrastructure threatened by ground water variability while New York will use $1.5 million for drones to inspect infrastructure along a major highway.

Registrations jumped 12% in February to 902,775 vehicles, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said Tuesday. Sales of battery-electric vehicles surged 34%, expanding more than any other type of powertrain.

Shortages of semiconductors and other components are becoming less of a problem, but automakers are still contending with logistics snags, slowing economies and inflation. Order books remain full for now but carmakers are growing more pessimistic about the outlook, a survey of German manufacturers showed earlier this month.

“Supply-chain constraints have abated, though tightening consumer budgets amid inflation and rising interest rates are a risk to pricing and the auto-sales recovery,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Gillian Davis and Michael Dean wrote in a report Monday. They expect sales to expand at least 5% this year based on pent-up demand.

China is providing a window into a future where these Japanese titans — which did more to bring cars to the masses than any other automakers — fall from their pedestal, potentially upending the global auto-making landscape for good. Tesla is the world’s top EV maker by vehicles sold, followed by companies including China’s BYD and Volkswagen AG, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. No Japanese carmaker makes the top 20, leaving them on the sidelines of the auto industry’s fastest-growing sector.

“If the Japanese automakers continue a conservative and indecisive approach to their EV strategies, it’s only a matter of time before they fail in the global market,” said Yale Zhang, managing director of Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight.

In China, Japanese cars are mostly produced and sold through joint ventures with local partners. Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. has partnerships with Toyota and Honda, while state-backed Dongfeng Motor Group Co. has ventures with Honda and Nissan.

The ventures have long excelled with good value, reliable gasoline vehicles in the mid-range category — cars priced between 100,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan ($14,000 to 43,000). Nissan’s compact Sylphy sedan, the Toyota Corolla and Honda’s Civic are known in China as the “three musketeers” of popular Japanese cars. Sylphy was the second-best selling model in China last year, with deliveries of 393,500 units. Corolla was No. 10 at 191,610.

Tesla is poised to report one of its best quarters in China, the latest retail sales data showed, after becoming the first electric vehicle maker in the country to cut prices in a bid to defend its market share.

The U.S. EV maker’s retail sales in China totaled 106,915 units from Jan. 1 to March 19, or 1,371 units per day on average, according to data from China Merchants Bank International, which tracks car insurance registrations.

That was slightly higher than the 1,327 units it sold daily on average in the fourth quarter in China, when Tesla sold a total of 122,038 cars, its best quarter so far, the data showed. [...]

Bulwarked by its higher profits per car than other electric vehicle makers, the U.S. automaker slashed prices of its best-selling models by up to 13.5% in China in January, triggering a price war with BYD and several rivals following suit over the next two months.

In 1965, King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) decided to make the small town of Selma the focus of their drive to win voting rights for African Americans in the South. Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, was a vocal opponent of the African-American civil rights movement, and local authorities in Selma had consistently thwarted efforts by the Dallas County Voters League and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register local Black citizens.

Although Governor Wallace promised to prevent it from going forward, on March 7 some 600 demonstrators, led by SCLC leader Hosea Williams and SNCC leader John Lewis, began the 54-mile march to the state capital. After crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by Alabama state troopers and posse men who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to turn back.

Several of the protesters were severely beaten, and others ran for their lives. The incident was captured on national television and outraged many Americans.

King, who was in Atlanta at the time, promised to return to Selma immediately and lead another attempt. On March 9, King led another marching attempt, but turned the marchers around when state troopers again blocked the road.

On March 21, U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National Guardsmen escorted the marchers across Edmund Pettus Bridge and down Highway 80. When the highway narrowed to two lanes, only 300 marchers were permitted, but thousands more rejoined the Alabama Freedom March as it came into Montgomery on March 25.