President Biden’s goal for half of all new vehicle sales in the U.S. to be electric vehicles by 2030 will mean updating charging stations to ensure the technology keeps up with demand. EVPassport CEO Hooman Shahidi joined Cheddar News to discuss.

President Biden’s goal for half of all new vehicle sales in the U.S. to be electric vehicles by 2030 will mean updating charging stations to ensure the technology keeps up with demand. EVPassport CEO Hooman Shahidi joined Cheddar News to discuss the future of EV charging stations and why some may become outdated soon.

Industry Experts Fear EV Chargers Need Major Updates Before Going Mainstream

okay as the U. S. Is pushing ahead with its adoption of E. V. S. It's also crucial to build out charging infrastructure across the U. S. President biden has set a goal to make up to 50% of all vehicles sold in the U. S. Electric by 2030. And last week the administration said it has approved plans to build charging stations in all 50 states covering 75,000 miles of highway. The plan is part of the $1 trillion $5 billion e. v. charging network across the country. Our next guest says a lot of these stations could become useless within the next few years though as technology continues to improve and change. Joining me now is human Shahidi Co Ceo and president of E. V. Passport, thank you so much for joining us. How many charging stations are there in the U. S. Currently and what technology is being used in the chargers that are being built right now, There's actually, you know, hundreds of thousands of chargers out there across the United States. But the biggest problem in front of us is that 20% of the chargers that are out there don't work and as we try to curb range anxiety, that's a serious problem. Yeah, 20%. About 1/5 of all of the chargers out there, especially as we're looking towards mainstream adoption. It's funny, I was just talking about the Tesla semi truck being unveiled and how it was a bit skeptical about adoption just because thinking about the journeys of semi trucks. We don't have quite the logistics in place at this point. Um, I digress a little bit, but sticking with Tesla, is there a difference between charging stations built by companies like Tesla and those that are public? That's right. Well, most every car except Tesla and maybe one other, you know, traditionally used what's called the J 1772 connector, which is a universal connector that most level two charging will use the pole star that we just talked about actually has that Tesla has their own Tesla adapter. So that's why their Tesla network is a really exclusive for Tesla. There have been talks about them expanding it, but nothing is really concrete around that. So we're really bullish on the fact that we need to make things universal and easy for the general public to go out and be able to charge their car with comfort and know that they have the right plug. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of the key when we talk about mainstream adoption for the electric vehicle space and really all sustainability. But when we look at that fact that you had said earlier or at least your opinion and that you expect a lot of these chargers to become obsolete within the next few years. Can you break down why? Exactly that is? Yeah, well, you know, think about technology, right. I mean technology is evolving at such a rapid pace and really the connective tissue is being able to keep up with that pace and designing infrastructure. That one gives us visibility into that hardware into that firmware, but more importantly, being able to adapt to it. One of the powerful pieces of this moment is being able to react to the needs of our drivers or customers or the constituency that we're offering this and being able to offer them the latest and greatest without ripping and replacing it. So when we think about some of the pioneers that launch charging in this space, those companies are going to be quite dated very quickly because of that very fact. I mean, there's a giant charging company that is actually having an outage for quite some time because they want to upgrade their infrastructure. That's a problem, You know, because for example, imagine if you couldn't get gas for a few days, right? So we have to be able to react in real time. It's almost like we can't afford to have this learning curve, but it's a new industry. So speaking of these chargers that are inoperable at this point, what happens next? And what are some of the solutions to kind of get this technology up to speed where it needs to be? Well, software really is the key part in all of this, right? That's the connective tissue And I think for us, you know, we've centered our approach, our innovation, both product and business innovation around software. Now we can really make things convenient. It's, you know, the frictional driver experience is really how we can move the needle and drive infrastructure to be easy for drivers, You know, we have a running joke here, it has to pass the grandma test and if your grandmother can use it then anybody can, you know, theoretically use it because uh those technology laggards are usually a little bit on the, on the, you know, older side. So we want to make sure that everything passes are quote unquote grandma test and when we think that's a pretty good strategy in making things easy, when you say software is the key, I think that kind of hones in on one of the major solutions when it relates to infrastructure. What does that mean moving forward for this? Not only just as a sector but also when it comes to jobs creation and initiatives that have come from the biden administration. You know, it's such a great question and a great point. It's really around how do we create engagement through this necessary piece of infrastructure? You know, the behavioral shift that we're seeing is that gas station models debt. So it's around how do we take this necessary piece of infrastructure and create other ways that we can make life easy for the communities in which we serve and so software is how we're going to do that. So imagine a world where you're able to arrive at the, you know charging station and parking lot at work and then maybe potentially have your groceries delivered at the end of the charging session when it's complete right timing that leveraging software to be able to deliver further convenience in the way we live, work and play. All right. It sounds like a very visionary future and we're looking forward to it. That's human Shahidi Co Ceo and president of E. V. Passport. Thanks so much for joining us.