Interesting article in the NYTimes this morning exploring the push by several major electric utilities to enter the EV charging business.
And it's not just California:Pacific Gas and Electric recently became the last of California’s three big utilities to file a proposal with regulators that would allow it to install 25,000 public chargers — costing $654 million — in a state that has about 6,300 public chargers, at about 2,000 stations. In all, three major utilities envision building as many as 60,000 chargers in California in the coming years.
These plans meet opposition on two sides. Firms like ChargePoint object to having to compete against rate-based investments by utilities. On the other side, EV skeptics raise cautions that these investments may be abandoned in a few years if the auto industry goes in a different direction.In Kansas City, Mo., for example, the main utility is building a network with more than 1,000 charging stations for the metropolitan area.