Climate

Red tape is holding back the EV transition

Charging infrastructure is getting held up by local bureaucracy, creating a conundrum for would-be EV drivers.

An EV charger in a parking lot with the text altered on the LED screen to say "EV charging has (sorta) arrived."

Lengthy administrative processes are causing significant delays as EV charging companies and local businesses seek to provide access to charging.

Photo illustration: Kena Betancur/VIEW press/Getty Images; Protocol

Building out charging infrastructure as quickly as possible has never been more critical to getting people in electric vehicles.

Yet as states and the federal government embark on ambitious plans to transition from gas-powered to electric vehicles, local government bureaucracies often stand in the way. From acquiring multiple permits to zoning requirements, lengthy administrative processes are causing significant delays as EV charging companies and local businesses seek to provide access to charging. That could slow down EV adoption at a time when the climate crisis depends on getting more of them on the road.

“Internal combustion engines, in California, cannot be sold after 2035. The same [is true] for Massachusetts and New York, so we have a necessity to speed it up,” said Brendan Jones, president of EV charging company Blink Charging.

While some permitting delays are of legitimate concern, such as ensuring that charging stations comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, others can be due to multiple municipal agencies reviewing permit applications sequentially instead of simultaneously, the absence of a permitting checklist detailing the process and even stalling approvals that have used electronic signatures instead of ink.

According to a forecast from Boston Consulting Group, up to 68% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. could be battery-electric by 2035. That forecast was made before the Inflation Reduction Act passed the House and Senate, which would extend EV tax credits for new vehicles and introduce ones for used vehicles. Policies aimed at expanding EV charging are also tipping the scales.

The Biden administration is set to dole out $7.5 billion in funding for states to build out charging infrastructure as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law. The administration has also set a goal for EVs to make up 50% of new vehicle sales and to have 500,000 chargers in the ground by 2030.

There are various types of charging infrastructure, each with its own level of complexity. A Level 1 charger — that is, the slowest type of charger — can be installed in about an hour in someone’s home without requiring complex permitting applications. Relatively faster Level 2 chargers often found at office complexes, parking garages and condo complexes generally take up to four weeks to gain approval before construction begins.

But the lengthiest wait times are for permitting direct current fast charging infrastructure, such as Tesla’s Superchargers. It can take several months before local officials give construction the green light. Those also often require a separate administrative process to be cleared with a local utility company because a transformer might be required. After that, it is a multiweek process to get that infrastructure in the ground.

Tesla cars line up to wait for an open charging bay.Tesla cars line up to wait for an open charging bay in Nephi, Utah. Photo: George Frey/Getty Images

“Typically with a DC fast charger, if you get one done in six months, from site identification to installation, you're doing a good job. It is typically about nine months and sometimes 12 months, if you have delays in permitting,” said Jones. “You have some jurisdictions that are just diabolically long in permitting, and you have to deal with it. California, New Jersey, parts of Florida, it takes a really long time to get permitting through them.”

DC fast charging is essential to combatting range anxiety, a top factor keeping people from taking the EV plunge. The Biden administration has touted DC fast charging — which can add 100 miles of range in an hour — as one of the keys to ensuring drivers can get from coast to coast without having to worry about being stranded.

An executive at a leading EV charging company told Protocol that a charging station project in a Virginia town was still languishing in permitting “for over a year with 13 or 14 rounds of comments, each one after the other and each coming up after a new office has had to review and give their stamp.” The executive did not want to reveal the name of the town because the company was still doing business in the area. “Each jurisdiction has their own rules and interprets national rules and codes their own way so we just have to kind of go with it,” they said.

States such as California have taken some steps to cut red tape and reduce delays. In 2021, the state legislature passed a new law to ensure that “local agencies [do] not adopt ordinances that create unreasonable barriers to the installation of electric vehicle charging stations.”

The new law requires local authorities to vet applications within five business days for sites where 25 or fewer charging plugs are to be built. Applications are deemed complete if there are no responses in that time frame, and the project is considered approved if local officials do not communicate any concerns to applicants within 20 business days.

Some cities are also racing to address permitting issues. A new bill under consideration in New York City would require all new parking lots and garages to have at least 60% of their spaces be capable of charging an EV. That would provide regulatory certainty for new garages and speed the build out of charging infrastructure there.

Ramping up permitting speed for chargers is critical to bringing about mass EV adoption. While the first generation of EV owners were relatively wealthy, could charge at home and were willing to endure inconveniences that came with owning a novelty car, the next wave of EV buyers will be looking for convenience. And without it, switching from vehicles powered by gas to ones powered by electricity would be a “more difficult sell,” said Marcy Bauer, senior vice president at EVgo.

“We have to have chargers where people need and want to be,” Bauer said. “We have to have them there just before they need them. Otherwise, they are not going to purchase the car or lease the car at all.”

The EV transition hinges on clearing up administrative kinks to infrastructure installed where it’s needed. “We have the tools we need to accomplish it, but we don’t have time,” Bauer said.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

Latest Stories
Bulletins