When it comes to EVs and EV charging, there’s a big chicken-and-egg problem, or perhaps better put, a Catch 22. EV chargers are expensive, especially for fast chargers . A decent charging station can easily cost a million dollars, and then cost thousands per month to keep running. So, when a business is deciding whether to spend big bucks on putting a station in, the obvious first question is whether they’ll get that money back, and hopefully more.
Part of the solution is government spending on EV chargers. By putting in enough chargers to get the process started, government breaks the stalemate and allows a normal market to develop. But, despite Uncle Sugar’s ability to print money , it’s still impossible for the government to do the whole job by itself. Just getting enough money to cover most major highways with a very basic level of service cost the federal government around $7 billion.
It’s worth noting that these numbers are showing up at the busier stations, which tend to be either in cities or along the major highways connecting cities. This is because those are the first places where EV ownership started to take off, and those are the places where EV charging stations first popped up. Now, after years of available charging, EV ownership and use where the stations are is starting to catch up.