There are several breakthroughs that are expected to evolve from EV technology. They concern improvements in transportation infrastructure; environmental justice victories; and expansion of economic opportunities that include YOU. The electric vehicle infrastructure is as important to the sustainability of the EV ecosystem as the cars we expect to energize.
So, what exactly is building the Electric Vehicle infrastructure? I’m glad you asked. Quite simply it is installing EV charging stations where people live work and play. This strategy is the industry’s most effective offensive move to combat Range Anxiety. We need Electric Vehicle charging stations in public and private places, so that the average EV driver will travel without the fear of getting stuck on the road. Range Anxiety encompasses the emotions of anger, abandonment and/or inadequacy that coincide with the fear. For EV’s become mainstream transportation, we will need more than hundreds of thousands of charging stations to keep zero emissions drivers RA free. And nearly 10 million charging units by 2030 to for the EV charger network to replicate its fossil fuel predecessor.i When you are driving down the road and compare the numbers of EV chargers to the United States’ gasoline station network for traditional cars, it appears as if the EV infrastructure has not gotten out of the starting blocks. I know from boots-onthe- ground, hands-on experience the EV infrastructure is up, running and expanding every day.ii
The beauty about EV infrastructure is that we don’t just count the number of stations that have been developed in settings like gasoline stations. We count the chargers in public parking lots and garages where we work and play. We count the EV chargers in multi-family communities like apartments and condominiums where most of us live. And, DaiTechCorp also counts the EV chargers that are operating in singlefamily residences whether for reserved parking spaces, garages, or carports. The infrastructure not only includes the EV charging equipment (EVCE) that you see, it also encompasses a backbone, a network of power equipment that is not visible. Underground, behind walls then ultimately connected to electrical rooms are miles and miles of copper cables and the pipes they run through. Infrastructure also includes the electrical grid that is run by our local utilities that deliver the power to the transformer, to the meter (EVCE owners usually pay for kilowatts), to the switch-gear, to the electric panel and terminating at the EV charging station.iii That’s the physical nature of the EV charging infrastructure.
There are also investments, research and brain power, business modeling and policy making on the front end that influence, yet not necessarily determine, where EV charging stations be installed. At DaiTechCorp, our mission is to ensure urban and urbanized communities have equitable access to EVCE. Our job at DaiTechCorp is to execute on EVCID (EV charging infrastructure development) so that all of us may conveniently use battery- charging stations. As with most disruptive technologies the white male demographic is the group of choice to help mainstream new industries. We saw it happen in telecom with mobile phones, we saw it with the Internet and social media, and now we’re facing the same paradigm with EV adoption. If it’s business as usual, the implications would mean Black communities whether in working class OR affluent professional neighborhoods will once again be dead LAST to get any traction for EVCID. I believe, perhaps naively, the situation doesn’t have to be the way. Which means, we (you and DaiTechCorp and other Black industry forerunners) have a lot of work do to get our communities to the front of the trend.
Why you want EV charging infrastructure in your backyard— Without convenient access to EVCI our neighborhoods will continue to be overwhelmed by problematic health disparities and environmental injustice issues that plague our communities.iv Our families suffer the most from poisonous carbon emissions that flow from the exhausts of every gasolinefueled car that rolls through the neighborhood. This happens everywhere there are cars, but according to studies Black folks get a higher dose of the exposure.
How did this become an issue? I credit Robert Moses’ systematic brand of urban planning. He sold politicians on the notion that chopping up Black communities and urban green spaces for roadways was the best move for economic development in major cities. And they bought it over a halfcentury ago. And his influence continues to play out today.
Therefore, Black communities are more likely to be located in major thoroughfares where there is more highway traffic and major artery congestion. More traffic, the more carbon particles we inhale, the more probabilities to contract asthma and chronic respiratory illnesses. Black urban residents are more likely to utilize diesel powered mass transit buses, again more emissions. Then our children are the most bussed to “good schools”. The results are a trifecta of concentrated exposure to carbon emissions, gases and lead particles that stack negative health and environmental outcomes. Our public health issues cascade downward from the inequality of air we breathe. The impact of the pandemic on our communities has demonstrated this fact.v
There is a stop to the cycle of environmental abuse and second-rate transportation policies that we’ve been subject to for decades. Our neighborhoods require EV charging stations and clean mass transit to create a new paradigm. Each of us can do ONE thing to bring the EV charger infrastructure to our neighborhoods. In my next article, I’ll explain how the collective we can get on the leading edge of the EV ecosystem. Then, in a holistic manner empower ourselves to influence if not fully participate in the development of the EV charging infrastructure.