Lessons from an EV road trip

Presented by Equinor: Your guide to the political forces shaping the energy transformation

Mar 21, 2023 View in browser   By Arianna Skibell Presented by Equinor The Colorado Front Range provides a backdrop for the electric Ford F-150 Lightning. | David Ferris/POLITICO's E&E News The U.S. government and private companies have spent billions of dollars in recent years to expand the nation’s supply of electric vehicle chargers. But a road trip still takes more planning and provokes greater anxiety in an electric car than it does in a gasoline-powered one. At least that was the experience of POLITICO’s E&E News reporter David Ferris, who drove 2,888 miles across six states in a borrowed Ford electric F-150 Lightning — one of the veteran automaker’s most deluxe electric models. David wanted to see if the nation’s investments in EV charging stations has improved the experience of long-distance driving since 2019, when he and eight colleagues took a much more sprawling cross-country electric drive. “Honestly, the biggest surprise was that so little had changed,” he told Power Switch. “You'd think that after all of the money and attention dedicated to the charging network that it would look and feel different, but it really doesn't.” Between 2019 and 2022, U.S. spending on EV infrastructure from public and private sources topped $6 billion, and the number of fast-charging ports more than doubled, from about 14,000 to almost 30,000. Despite this, David found that, much like 2019, he couldn’t just drive where he pleased; instead, his route and stops were almost always determined by which highways and hotels had charging ports. Worrying about finding a charger — and whether it works, whether it can connect to your vehicle and how quickly it will charge — added “a layer of anxiety to a journey that would be carefree in a gasoline-powered car,” David wrote in a story about his experience. Plus, he actually had to wait for a charger to become available at one crowded station outside Salt Lake City. While the number of stations still felt sparse, David said they were easier to locate. The F-150 dashboard, and the Ford phone app, provided real-time information on where to find charging stations and how long each would take — a feature increasingly popular in electric models from other automakers as well. Back in 2019, malfunctioning charging stations derailed David’s trip on more than one occasion. This time, fewer chargers were flat-out broken because of neglect or vandalism, but many still malfunctioned in different ways, he said. That could be about to change. President Joe Biden has allocated $7.5 billion to build out a national network of 500,000 charging stations. The idea is that there will be a charger every 50 miles along every major highway in the country. And last month, Tesla said it would open up 3,500 highway ports on its exclusive charging network to non-Tesla electric cars.   It's Tuesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@eenews.net.   A message from Equinor: The energy transition is the defining opportunity of our time. We all have a role to play. At Equinor, we’re doing our part by growing our renewable energy portfolio and lowering emissions from production. By the time the global population reaches 9 billion in 2050, our goal is to have net-zero emissions. Discover more about Equinor at www.equinor.com/USA.   Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Annie Snider breaks down the Supreme Court case that pits the Navajo Nation against the Biden administration over the tribe’s rights to the Colorado River. national monuments Avi Kwa Ame is the Mojave name for Spirit Mountain, pictured above from inside the proposed monument boundary. | Alan O'Neill/Courtesy of the Honor Avi Kwa Ame Coalition Biden on Tuesday announced the creation of two national monuments in Nevada and Texas, and directed the study of a possible marine sanctuary southwest of Hawaii that’s so large it would allow the administration to meet its goal of conserving 30 percent of the nation’s waters, writes Scott Streater. Biden used his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to establish not only the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument on lands considered sacred to Yuman-speaking Native American tribes in southern Nevada but also the nearly 7,000-acre Castner Range National Monument in northern El Paso, Texas.   A message from Equinor:   Power Centers House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other GOP lawmakers during their retreat in Orlando, Fla. | @HouseGOP/Twitter GOP retreat Republicans have gathered in Orlando, Fla., to refine their messaging on the economy, inflation and energy — but they're going into overtime while hashing out issues behind closed doors, writes Kelsey Brugger. “It’s always more challenging when you’re the majority, because you’re expected to put ideas forth and be able to pass them,” said House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.). “And when you’re in a slim majority, it makes it that much more difficult.” 1.5 degrees Celsius The likely failure of the world’s most ambitious climate goal just went mainstream, writes Chelsea Harvey. Scientists have urged the world for nearly a decade to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, beyond which the planet is expected to face increasingly catastrophic climate impacts. Now, they’re warning — in the starkest tones yet — that the world is all but certain to overshoot that threshold. France-Germany feud A growing row between Germany and France risks crashing into a crucial EU summit later this week, writes a team of POLITICO reporters. EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss economic competitiveness and ammunition for Ukraine, but the clash between Germany and France over combustion-engine cars and nuclear energy now looms disruptively over those talks. In Other News Impacts: A new report says an estimated 43,000 people died amid Somalia’s longest drought on record last year, and half of them likely were children younger than 5. Oil: With the Willow oil project on the horizon, some Alaska Natives are worrying about how it will affect hunting and fishing.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Russian President Vladimir Putin. | Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool/AP Photo Despite sanctions, significant quantities of Russian hydrocarbons, particularly oil, are flowing into the European market, earning payments that fund President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Two states are seizing on the Biden administration’s Supreme Court support for climate cases waged by local governments against oil and gas companies. A major liquefied natural gas export project along the U.S. Gulf Coast is advancing toward construction. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.       A message from Equinor: The energy transition is the defining opportunity of our time. Our world needs energy to keep moving forward — but it must be affordable, reliable, and accessible. We all have a role to play. At Equinor, we’re doing our part by helping accelerate the energy transition. We’re growing our renewable energy portfolio and lowering emissions from production. We’re already on the way to powering 2,000,000 New York homes with energy from the Empire Wind and Beacon Wind offshore wind projects. We’re creating jobs, building tomorrow’s infrastructure, and sparking new economic activity. But for us, that’s only the beginning. By the time the global population reaches 9 billion in 2050, our goal is to have net-zero emissions. Discover more about Equinor at www.equinor.com/USA.     Follow us on Twitter Arianna Skibell @ariannaskibell   Follow us

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