John Eichberger:
So you’ve been with us before, but I think this is the first time you’ve been a Global eMobility person for the World Resources Institute. Can you share with our audience what those big words mean? What WRI is doing? You guys are doing great stuff. Okay. Explain who WRI is.

Erika Myers:
Sure. The World Resources Institute is a global think tank focused on the environmental issues of our time. So a lot of our work is focused around sustainable development, including land issues, agriculture, ocean, forest, and energy. And within that, I focus specifically on eMobility within the context of this big global transition in our mobility space.

John Eichberger:
So clearly it is a global transition. Every time I talk to somebody, I always remind them, governments come and go. Politics…had an election up in Canada yesterday…did not know what the outcome is going to be when they went into it. But the global momentum on emobility is huge. And Paige, you know, I’m no longer up on Capitol Hill on a regular basis. What’s going on in Washington that we should bring into this conversation?

Paige Anderson:
Well, clearly President Biden, when he came in and was sworn in, in January – climate policy is the top priority of his administration – and one of his tenants to achieve those climate goals is the electrification of our transportation sector. And as you said in the intro, he has a goal of half a million EV chargers, publicly accessible, getting them out there and they have not stopped and they have not waned. Looking on Capitol Hill and the infrastructure package and even the reconciliation package. You’re seeing a lot of incentives to build out EV charging and incentives for EVs themselves. So in Washington, DC, they’re not stopping it’s EVs are a go green light for it.

John Eichberger:
So from your guest perspective, Erika, how are you guys viewing the developments in Washington?

Erika Myers:
This is a once-in-a-century opportunity to make transformative change in the mobility sector. So WRI is very supportive of the majority of the legislation going through and being considered right now, as it relates to emobility investments. We, in particular, are very supportive of the electric school bus initiative funding that would enable and unlock billions of dollars in funds for schools to help convert their dirtiest diesel buses into clean bus alternatives for students.

John Eichberger:
Now, one of the things about that – and you and I have chatted about this before – is if we’re going to charge these buses, make them electric, and they’re only being operated in a couple hours a day, they have an opportunity to be distributed in energy storage facilities. Correct?

Erika Myers:
Absolutely. We think that the opportunity for vehicle to grid with school buses is the best use case at this point in time among all the different duty cycles

John Eichberger:
Yeah. With the school buses, are you guys envisioning a charge at the depot type of scenario or are these going to be buses are going to need access to publicly available charging?

Erika Myers:
These will all be a type of…well, for the most part, a type of fleet that would be mostly charging at their bus yards, where they, for example, already have those buses deployed from central operations perspectives and they come back to the same place to refuel. They’ll also come back to the same place to recharge. There will however, be a need for us to consider opportunity charging for buses that are used for travel. So for example, transporting sports teams or other applications that, that a school might need for, for longer distances. Some of that need maybe met, if let’s say the sports example if the school that they’re going to has charging within the bus yard that that fleet could have access to, that would probably solve that issue. But, we do need to be thoughtful about how we are siting and building out infrastructure to accommodate these larger fuel or these larger vehicles, especially buses, which of course can range about 60 feet long and may not fit in most public charging spaces.

Paige Anderson:
Well, especially if you’re looking at buses that bands use, I mean, talk about your rockstar vehicles! They’re pretty cool. It’s clear, the great thing about the school bus program is there’s a real opportunity to test and learn with the technology. We’re also seeing a similar thing with the Biden Administration with federal fleets, turning them over to electric vehicles. And one of the discussions that I participated in in a stakeholder meeting is the recognition that you point out Erika, is that opportunity charging. Particularly with federal fleets, particularly out in the west where you have a lot of public lands, a lot of open space and people are driving those vehicles they’re not going to have the opportunity to go back to the home site and recharge and they’re going to need that charging infrastructure out and about. And so looking at different industries and sectors to provide that infrastructure has gotta be an important part of the discussion and what has your experience been in looking at that siting and picking the right spots and being able to help these types of fleets?

Erika Myers:
So my experience in terms of siting personally has been fairly limited, but based on the research that I’ve seen and have developed definitely thinking about all the different use cases for the infrastructure and where people would want to go to refuel is very important. Having access to restrooms, food, other things that you would want to do during those stops, is incredibly important. And as well as thinking about how much it’s going to cost to put that charging infrastructure there. So tapping into the existing electric grid system having visibility on where the cheapest options are to locate equipment. So you can put in maybe three megawatts of charging equipment for less money at this spot versus down the road at this spot, or even across a parking space, parking lot, like just having some visibility into where it’s going to be the least expensive opportunity to put those stations will save potentially millions of dollars for taxpayers. So it is really important for us to have more transparency and a number of different ways, electrical permitting, zoning there’s just so many different aspects of this that would be great if there’s a central clearing house of sorts that could help speed up those investments and make them cheaper.

John Eichberger:
I’ll tell you, though, NACS has really taken this issue extremely seriously as invested a ton of money in research and outreach, try to facilitate the deployment of chargers and a couple of projects they funded through the Fuels Institute is looking at how many chargers do we need? Where do we need them? When do we need them? What type do we need, what use case scenarios? So we can optimize the CapEx investment, looking at programs, see what kind of incentive programs are most effective and get things out. But the other thing we’ve done, we’ve put together a calculator. And we look at what the, the capital expens is to install a viable DC fast charging system with a 450 kilowatt chargers, or what are the operating costs are. And most of the conversations I’ve heard coming out of Washington, how do we offset the investment costs, the CapEx, but the break-even, the profitability really comes from that operating costs. How do you balance throughput? So demand, how many charging events do you have with the demand charges, do the utilities need to charge in order to keep the system operational? Has there been any discussion that you’re aware of this kind of looking at? How do we – from the time the station is put in operation – how do we bridge the gap between not having enough people come to charge? So we’re getting our lunch handed to us on demand charges up until the time we have enough demands of volume can offset those extra costs?

Erika Myers:
Yeah. So I’ve given some thought and how we can make demand, charges less punitive and help support a very young industry. Especially while we have very low volumes of electric vehicles, it’s a situation it’s like a chicken and the egg situation, right? We can’t get more people to invest in an electric vehicle until we have more charging infrastructure, but we can’t have more charging infrastructure if we expect all of our charging station owners to take a really big hit on demand charges. So we are in this situation, we have to be creative. And, so a lot of discussions I’ve had with utilities are, how can we support this young industry in an intermediate basis and some public utility commissions, like those in California have acknowledged as an issue and have implemented what’s called ‘demand charge forgiveness programs.’ So for a very limited duration of time where they approve utilities to rate base those demand charges and give some relief to fleet owners or charging station owners and until we know that there will be more demand for those stations and then they can recoup those costs for demand charges. Another way to think about it is maybe we can only charge like a little bit. So maybe instead of charging the full hundred percent of the demand charge, we could have a percentage of it. So maybe 25 or 50% of that demand charge is charged to the station owner. And then the remainder is rate-based or recouped in some other way. So, there’s certainly some ways we could work around it but I do think that ultimately will largely depend on support from the utility regulators to approve these innovative options.

Paige Anderson:
So, in looking at the future I know that when we have looked at introducing new liquid fuels and other energy technologies into the marketplace, the convenience industry really tries to future proof. In looking at putting in the infrastructure needed at a site for EV charging, obviously some of the technologies are changing and improving each and every day. There’s so much innovation in this space. Are there things when you’ve looked at the different models and scenarios, are there things that fuel retailers should be looking at that, though there may not be the demand now but they still…they’re at a new site, they want to make sure that they would be able to install efficiently, take advantage of some of the new, the incentives programs that are going to be out there. Are there things that they can do now, even though they may not have the demand to farther in the future.

Erika Myers:
Absolutely. So I think that there’s things that if a retailer wanted to dabble in a charging station to see exactly what the demand might be, what the value to the site might be, they could put in temporary charging infrastructure and you could potentially work around some of those long timelines that you would have for interconnect with a utility. So there’s companies like In-Charge for example, that will provide equipment as a service or that can help locate onsite utility power, what they call ‘grid on a skid’ which is essentially an integrated power center that will temporarily provide the level of power that you need for a fast starter, but that can be easily removed in the event that that system is no longer needed. So there are ways around some of the permanency of this as retailers want to explore options. But another way to think about it as far as future-proofing is we know that utility that electric vehicles are coming right. And we know that more and more of these vehicles are having larger and larger battery sizes and that they’re being able to power at higher and higher levels. It used to be a fast charger, was considered a 50 kW unit which would be about an hour for a Tesla for today to charge fully. Now some of the newer vehicles are charging at 150 kW to even some bigger duty cycles, 350 kW and larger. So we know that the power demand is going to be here. That’s going to be a very intense proposition as you’re starting to locate multiple chargers at this level next to each other. The reality is that not all of these chargers will be utilized at any one point in time, except maybe during holiday seasons when we know that there’s the majority of the travelers are on the roads. So maybe bringing in battery storage units, storing those high-intensity times could help provide that additional power that you need on demand, but don’t necessarily require such a major investment.

John Eichberger:
And we’ve been looking at the battery-backed systems and even there’s company out there with a propane generator-backedsystem, as a way to overcome the demand charge hurdle. But I think you raise the other issue is that intermittent demand in terms of when is it going to be needed, not all the time. Then you’re raising that next level is, I was in Indiana recently at a conference. And the four states that hosted the event represent less than 4% of all EVs registered in the United States. And I said, you in the audience, chances are, you may have never even seen an electric vehicle. You may still think they’re this unicorn, fanciful kind of objective of the environmental community. Let me make it quite clear. They’re not fanciful. They’re not just being made up. They’re real and it may not be in your market yet, but they will be.

John Eichberger:
And it’s that timing, and that strategy of when is the right time for me to get into it. clearly you want to avail yourself with incentives and programs and stuff like that, but you get into early then you’re like, “okay, now I’m just sitting there like a sitting duck and nobody’s coming to my store.” But if you get in too late, well, now your cost may be higher and maybe you’re outcompeted. So it’s so difficult from a retailer’s perspective is, I know eventually I need to get into this, but man, I don’t want to go too soon, but I don’t want to go too late, but I want to get it right at the right time. And that’s the biggest challenge I see right now facing the industry.

Erika Myers:
I one hundred percent agree and sympathize with those who have been through these cycles of yesteryear where, we thought that 85 would be the next big thing. And I know a lot of retailers made big investments there and that did not really materialize in the way any of us predicted. I do think that electric vehicles are different in a lot of ways, because for most drivers, the savings are real and the performance is real. And the experience is very different and very preferable to a traditional internal combustion engine. Unless of course you like the sound of a very loud engine, maybe you disagree with me, but generally speaking, I personally like the quiet ride.

John Eichberger:
I’ve heard the announcements of muscle cars are going to be fully electric. I think the Charter’s going to be fully electric. I guarantee you, they have to have a good sound system because that driver’s going to want a little noise coming out that back end when they accelerate. Now, they’re going to be accelerating a lot faster than they ever could in a traditional engine. But man, if you’re a muscle car enthusiast and your car goes, [inaudible] when you accelerate, that may not be quite what you’re looking for.

Erika Myers:
No, if you’re, if you are an enthusiast and you like the noise that accompanies ramping on the accelerator, then no, an EV may not be your thing. But for sure, for people who care about performance I love to give people rides in my Tesla. Why? Because I think they don’t really fully appreciate the amount of torque that these cars have and everyone I’ve had in there is a convert by the time they get out because they, they realize, oh wow, this thing actually can move. And you know, it’s great to have that opportunity to share that, but also for me, like the savings are real. So I’ve gone on three road trips so far this year, I just did one from DC to South Carolina a few weeks ago, and I spent less than $30 for the entire trip on charging. And if I had taken any other car, it would have been definitely triple that, possibly more. So for people who are traveling with these vehicles, they also see a real financial benefit.

John Eichberger:
You know, we have a paper and peer review right now, that’s looking at the lifecycle impact of electric vehicles and internal combustion engines and their representative fuels. And on an average, the national average EVs come out on top – in certain conditions and certain driving behaviors, not so much, but that’s all evolving as it gets cleaner. On the total cost of ownership, even when you factor in replacement of the battery over the lifecycle of the vehicle, they still come out on top. Lower total cost of ownership. The question thats going to be placed to consumers is – are they actually can calculate total cost of ownership or is that MSRP going to be the big factor? And there’s so many elements that go into a consumer’s purchase decision that its going to be interesting to watch because on paper they may look like the best option. It doesn’t always mean the instinctive decision of the consumer at the point of sale is going to go that route.

Erika Myers:
The incentives could actually be even better than what we’re seeing now, John, with the new infrastructure package. In addition to the $7,500 that folks had enjoyed before the new provisions allow for up to $12,500 per car, if they’re made by a domestic manufacturer and a union shop. So the price differential between the internal combustion engine and the electric alternative is going to shrink even more.

John Eichberger:
There’s certainly a lot of stuff going on. And I appreciate you taking some time to join us today and bring us up to speed on your perspective, what you guys are working on. I know Paige, you guys got a lot of work to do on Capitol Hill. I’m just glad I don’t have to go up there anymore.

Paige Anderson:
I know you miss it. You miss it a lot. Thanks, Erika. It’s always great to hear from you. I don’t know about anybody else, but I learned so much today and it’s always a great pleasure to have you here. John, it’s always fun to talk EVs and fuels with you. Thanks so much for being here. Be sure to tune in next week where we’re going to have the NACS GR team to talk about what’s going on with the Biden Administration, Congress and a whole host of fun issues that I know John misses very much dealing with each and every day. But thank you for listening and please join us again on Convenience Matters.

Convenience Matters Outro:
Convenience Matters is brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. For more information, visit convenience.org.

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