The proverbial road to Electric Vehicle (EV) rollout is paved with numerous challenges. Among these speedbumps is the preeminent question of how the infrastructure to support nationwide EV charging will be financed and developed. Another question, perhaps not asked as much, revolves around the unintended consequences of a concentrated race to transition away from gas-powered vehicles to EVs, however well intentioned, may cause unforeseen impacts on the economy and even the environment.

 As to the infrastructure development question, one obvious answer may be that electric utilities should take the lead and primary role. A recent piece in Utility Dive notes the position that the current frustrations of EV owners related to the lack of reliable charging stations could be easily fixed by investments in electric utilities which “have an essential role to play in the future of driving.” After all, regardless of who owns EV charging stations, electric utilities will necessarily “provide the electrons that charging companies resell.” This positions utilities well, as the entities with electricity infrastructure experience and existing obligations to supply dependable service, to establish performance metrics for EV infrastructure “reliability, safety and technology futureproofing.” According to the writer, utilities could also use their existing prominence to collaborate with other EV charging entities to “plan and build an optimal EV ecosystem” that “can quickly respond, grow and adapt to the changing pressures placed on it.”

But a counterpoint to that position is that the utilities’ presence as incumbent, monopoly service providers may be hindering the rollout toward EVs by increasing costs and holding back the free market. Regardless of the “win-win opportunity for utilities” highlighted in the previous article, as Utility Dive also revealed last year, electric utilities have protected profit earnings in the form of authorized returns on equity that can have the effect of undercutting competition by “selling power to EV drivers at rates no private business can match,” thus “discouraging entrepreneurs and innovators from ever opening an EV charging station.” As this writer notes, the potential elimination of competition “can also eliminate any sense of urgency.” This piece concluded that rather than vesting electric utilities with control of the EV market, we should instead “encourage the utilities to focus on their strengths – generating and distributing electricity” while promoting the private market, “free from utility-driven market interference.”

As to the potential unintended consequences of EV transition, one significant concern is what this headlong transition may mean to the broader national economy as policymakers heighten mandates toward a preference for EVs over gas-powered vehicles while the consumer transition does not proceed apace. One snapshot of this concern was recently highlighted in an article by Time, that focused on the industry costs of our current “stop-and-go” EV transition. Specifically, while the large auto manufacturers obviously incur massive costs in transforming their fleets, the impact is even greater for the “thousands of companies that directly or indirectly supply automakers” and who “operate with less access to capital than major car manufacturers.” These supplier companies, employing nearly a million people in the U.S., struggle to keep up with the changing auto market.  As noted in the article, while “more than half of value of internal combustion engine vehicles” are supplied by these companies, only around “35% to 45%” of an EV’s value will come from these suppliers.

And lastly, while a transition to EVs may promise environmental benefits, it is also true that the batteries to operate these EVs require significant amounts of earth metals such as lithium. Another problem attendant to this technology is what to do with these batteries when they are no longer useful. As highlighted in this article, there may be some significant good news on the horizon. Specifically, researchers at Rice University recently conducted “flash heating” experiments on spent lithium-ion batteries and may have discovered a method to recover 98 percent of the valuable metals in the battery, thus opening avenues for a potentially sustainable recycling process, cleaner EV batteries, and a more economic EV market structure. So while the questions of how the EV road may be paved with infrastructure and a sustainable economy may not yet be fully answered, at least one speedbump may have been lowered.