The Future is Everything

November 16, 2021

by Jon Martens, AICP, CAPP, Walker Consultants

We park cars, and cars are changing! The plug-in Electric Vehicle “EV” market continues to expand, with Rivian Automotive being the latest pure EV car company to go public. Both Amazon and Ford have an investment in Rivian, with Amazon alone hoping to have 10,000 Rivian delivery vehicles on the road in 2022 and 100,000 by 2030. All the major vehicle manufacturers have or have plans to roll out EV’s with huge investments for new factories and commitments to bring new vehicle lineups. Ford recently announced an EV conversion kit for some internal combustion engine “ICE” vehicles and highlighted a classic 1978 F-100 converted into an EV. 

Charging EV’s is likely to continue to be a hot topic and area of interest for EV Owners, even with improved battery life and improved vehicle range. The good news is that EV’s typically provide the driver with excellent information on their range. Mobile apps and the cars themselves help EV drivers know where to find the stations, and when the station is connected to the cloud can tell them if it is available before they arrival.  Parking facilities can play a critical part in keeping this growing transition rolling by providing options for potential EV owners that don’t have access to a home charging solution or for current owners to extend their driving range.  

Many communities are either starting to or have already instituted some EV infrastructure requirements for new developments. In some cases it is only to provide an EV “ready” solution so chargers can be more easily added in the future. This includes providing sufficient power and pathways to handle the load. As an extreme example, Boston, Massachusetts requires certain projects to provide 25% of the spaces with EV charging when built and the reminding 75% to be EV ready. Other municipalities have no EV requirement, and plenty fall in between nothing and Boston’s requirement.

Organizations should be proactively considering their EV strategy. Certainly, the growth in EV’s is clear and the recent passing of the Federal Infrastructure Bill provides funds to help off-set the costs of installing EV charging systems. Your strategy should start by considering your users. Are they parking all day, over multiple days, or do they tend to be short-term parkers? Are they traveling locally or coming from potentially long distances? Do they have access to home charging (estimates are that 80% of charging activity occurs at home)? 

EV chargers come in three main configurations, Level 1, 2, and DC Fast Charging (sometimes referred to as Level 3 chargers). Each offers varying levels of efficiency and infrastructure requirements:

· Level 1 charger requires a basic 120 V, 15 Amp circuit and provides 2-5 miles of range per hour of charging.

· Level 2 charger requires 240 V, 40 Amp circuit (similar to the high demand appliances like your dryer or electric oven), providing 10-20 miles of range per hour of charging.

· DC charger requires 480 V, AC input, DC output. 

The most common charger in use per the Department of Energy is the Level 2 charger, representing about 81% of all chargers in use today. 

As the EV charging discussions develop, it is important to be ready to discuss your ability to accept the power demand loads or to at least ask for funding to investigate. This may be an opportunity to complete a review of power usage and reduce current demand through lighting upgrades (if this has not already been done) and to fully understand the ability and cost to add the required power sources. 

Another factor to consider when developing your EV parking strategy, is including a portion of EV charging stations for ADA spaces as well as controlling the use of the EV space by managing the space to limit it to active charging sessions. This may include staff to move vehicles or at least monitoring the spaces more closely than non-EV spaces. 

This is an electrifying time to be in the parking industry as the EV evolution occurs. Let’s be proactive and energetic in knowing as well as communicating how our assets can benefit society as this change occurs.