The term “range anxiety” is heard so often when contemplating the purchase or lease of an electric vehicle that one might start to wonder if an anti-anxiety medication should be prescribed with every vehicle delivery. Thousands of non-residential charge stations have been deployed in public locations over the last year, with thousands more in the pipeline. But how will an EV driver ever feel confident that a charge will be available where and when they need it? If we could focus on deploying charging infrastructure where it’s needed the term range anxiety can be completely removed from our nomenclature. And where it’s clearly needed is at the workplace.
Research strongly supports the need for workplace charging. According to the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), 54% of non-residential parking occurs at the office and a recent study conducted by the Power & Energy Society of the IEEE concluded that workplace charging is the best place for EV drivers to get a non-residential charge because the average stay time is over four hours long.
These same studies show that a much smaller percentage of non-residential parking (15%) occurs when someone is shopping or doing similar activities and that the average stay-time of these activities is less than 2 hours. Yet this is where the majority of non-residential infrastructure has been deployed to date – not at the office where we know with a high level of predictability the frequency and duration of our stays, but rather at locations we visit sporadically and with brevity to run errands.
Deploying working charging solutions will not only help alleviate range anxiety but it also helps businesses meet corporate environmental responsibilities, create an environmental friendly company image and attract and retain top forward thinking talent. For property owners it can lead to LEED credits and certification, which ultimately enhances property value.
Brett Hauser is Chief Operating Officer for EVConnect.
