These are just dealerships’ fast chargers; we're supposed to have tens of thousands of similar charging stations on our roads in eight years

the car of your future is shitting on your lawn

EV dealers gobsmacked by the high cost of installing chargers

By Matt Posky on March 28, 2022

Though the best [complaints] had to be when several dealer groups piped up about how much it’s actually going to cost them to install some of the newer chargers some manufacturers believe should be mandatory if they’re intent on selling EVs. Some showrooms are finding out that not all buildings are wired for the high loads incurred by modern charging systems, requiring additional financial investments they hadn’t counted on. With automotive dealerships using product delays as leverage for unprecedented vehicle pricing, it’s nice to see them getting a taste of their own medicine. Or it would be if the costs for updating facilities weren’t guaranteed to be reflected on future window stickers. 

A recent report from Automotive News highlighted some of the NADA exchanges, offering up a few anecdotes where dealers were blindsided by how much it actually costs to set up some of their stores. In one case, the Orlando, Florida-based Starling Automotive Group said electricians doubled their estimate when they wanted to install Level 3 chargers yielding 150 to 350kW of draw. Having already reported on the exchange from the NADA event, Automotive News conducted a recent follow-up interview to see how things were progressing.

The dealer group realized that installing the latest chargers was about to become substantially more complicated after the utility company explained its buildings weren’t rated for the kind of power usage required. Starling said the company stated that they would need to upgrade building services before any chargers could even be installed, effectively doubling the original estimate to a new total ballparking at $220,000.

That’s in addition to any downtime that occurs during the installation process, which could take well over a year to complete. But the General Motors focused Starling Automotive was hardly the only example of a dealer group realizing EVs came with some hidden costs. Automotive News also caught up with A Hyundai dealer in New Jersey that had encountered similar problems:

“Rockland Electric Co. said, ‘We’ve got to get you more power’ because what we had coming in from the street wasn’t enough,” he said at the NADA Show.

DeSilva’s son, Mike, is co-owner and dealer manager at Liberty Hyundai. In a phone interview, he said the dealership is “on the hook” to pay for a new, more powerful power line from the street to the dealership.

Mike DeSilva said the utility company is still “months away” from the actual installation. He’s hoping the dealership qualifies for some local incentive money for installing EV chargers, but there’s no guarantee.

He said the dealership decided to go ahead and submit its application to get the chargers installed without waiting for the final word on incentives to avoid missing out on allocations of upcoming Hyundai EVs. DeSilva said they haven’t received an official estimate but have been told the service upgrade will be $50,000 to $100,000 in addition to the cost of the chargers and site work.

I saw a survey last week that showed that, in addition to ownership of EVs being mostly made up of rich white folks, the average miles driven per year was something like 5,000 miles, indicating that people are using them as second cars. Just wait until real people — you know, the ones without a garage to house a $10,000 charger, and who drive to work, 12,000 miles a year, find out that they must replace their existing gasoline-powered cars for a coal-fired battery ones, and there’s no way to drive them because they will be sitting useless and discharged at the curb. And wait for their creation when they’re too by their betters that it’s all there fault for not living in urban paradises and walking to work. Should be fun.