To explore what some of the biggest electric vehicle (EV) trends might be in 2018, I captured the insights and predictions from 14 industry experts by having them answer this question: What will be the biggest electric vehicle news story or development in 2018?
One of the top electric vehicle fast-charging networks in the US, EVgo, has announced a new, cheaper pricing system, as revealed in an email sent to CleanTechnica.
EVgo had a banner year in 2017. It expanded it network of fast chargers to more than 1000 charging stations and provided enough electricity to power its customers’ cars more than 40 million miles.
If 2017 was about VTOL aircraft, 2018 is so far shaping up to be about EV charging station companies and the juggernaut progression that is building infrastructure for electric vehicle (EV) mobility.
The largest operator of public fast-charging stations for electric vehicles, EVgo, has just opened its 1,000th DC charging station in the US, according to an email sent to CleanTechnica.
In an email just sent my way, ABB has announced that it is about to launch its first 150–350 kW high-power charger, the new Terra HP High Power Charge system. You can’t touch the Terra HP in an IKEA parking lot yet, but you can check out the breakthrough charging product at EVS30 in Stuttgart, Germany. The dates for that event are October 9–11.
What would it take to get a person to buy an electric car? The debate rages about range, environmental issues, performance, size, looks, and repair issues. All important topics, but what’s occurred in just 5 years? In 2011 practically zero EVs were available. Five years later, Nissan has sold a quarter million, Tesla has roughly 200,000 sold and 500,000 ordered, and the Chevy Bolt appears to be selling about 1,000 a month. The Fiat 500E sells in the tens of thousands despite CEO Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Chief Executive, Sergio Marchionne, begging people not to purchase his car. Don’t even mention the EV capital of the world, China.
Electric cars — great, fun, quick, clean, smooth, quiet, convenient to charge at home and work. But wait, what’s life like with an electric car? How do you charge? Where do you charge? What do you need to charge? How do you protect the most valuable component of the car — the battery?
For years now, we and many others have been saying that no company can compete with Tesla in the electric car market until they offer a good network of superfast charging stations for their drivers. One year ago, there was no solid information anything like this was in the plans, but one had to think it was. Today, we have news of a coalition of automakers working on it in Europe and ChargePoint and EVgo developing such stations in the US, but it seems that every other automaker is years behind Tesla in this regard. That said, it seems Nissan may be the first to try to compete.
The idea for this series of articles came one night while discussing with Zach (Director of CleanTechnica) my upcoming trip to the Northeast of the USA to visit relatives, he asked me…
