Local permitting, construction, and inspection can be a nightmare.
I signed a contract for solar panels in April of '22. I knew permitting was a problem and I was thinking “OK, worst case, July, August? Peak solar? We’ll be in good shape.”
They offered 0 payments for 6 months. October was rolling around and ZERO work had been done. So I reached out to the solar provider and told them I’m not paying for no work. They gave me more credits.
That lit a fire under someone and we had the panels up. But we couldn’t turn the system of until the city inspection signed off on it
It failed inspection THREE TIMES.
4th inspection was successful and the system enabled in March of '23.
And that’s just me, dealing with one jurisdiction.
Imagine wanting to get charging stations in 50 states? Let’s say 10 locations in each state, 500 jurisdictions? Each with their own rules, regulations and inspections?
Sure, but imagine being part of the government, having a huge organization at your disposal and being a super genius who speaks multiple languages. You should understand the process and have an organization of people who can help manage it. Private industry has placed thousands of these things, it’s doable.
Granted, there are no doubt multiple competing priorities, but obviously this wasn’t one of them.
I think that might be an overly romantic or simple view of large organizations and their ability to get work done, lest of all government work.
I don’t know the specifics of the implementation plan for this, nor do I know the governance of the chargers moving forward.
After the chargers are installed, they have the be maintained and otherwise overseen in some way. That means they have to fit in some sort of governance structure. This can take the form of delegating to subagencies, or establishing agreements between agencies so that the federal government can get these things built. If they place them at rest stops, which seems like a good place, they just have to get an MOU in place with the Dept of Transportation.
But what about underserved communities? Who determines those communities? (Figuring out not just what constitutes metrics for eligibility, but also coming up with maps indicating those areas is going to be a research project that takes time to figure out.) Once underserved areas are figured out, how do you work with them? Do you place chargers at local parks? Do you partner with local businesses to place chargers?
Each location to be installed is likely going to require contracts with whoever is in charge of the property, and then also working with city, county, and state authorities and utilities to ensure building permits, power, leasing rights, and other specifics. If these are being installed on property belonging to other levels of government, how does the monitoring device connect to the internet? Most governments don’t allow unvetted devices onto their networks, so every government at each level will need to do security audits of the hardware (even if the security audits are bullshit). If the local or state government is hostile to electric vehicles or heck, even just the Biden administration, how will permitting and contract approvals go? Will localities pass laws to prevent chargers from being built, or tax them egregiously? Will the local authorities require onerous rules to make it painful to build them? If the local utility insists that the local transmission lines can’t carry the power needed for the charger and they need either a payment to upgrade the distribution lines, or to set forward a rate case to up their utility rates, those sorts of things can take years to figure out, much less execute. And then vendors - with each player, will they require their own license agreement with the vendor? Does each vendor use only components that the Federal Government deems trustworthy? These will have to get hooked into computer networks, and the Fed may not want some random networking chips with known security vulnerabilities in any network cards. Many states require that vendors do not have an endemnity clause in their contracts, so the vendor can be sued. This usually requires serious renegotiation of every contract for every player, and that can take months for just one phase of each project.There’s so many moving pieces to this, and I guess I want to caution against viewing it as a single person deciding to do something.
It’s more like 500 or so people working with about 5k people, who may be intentionally setting roadblocks, or within the jurisdiction of others who are setting roadblocks, while also working around a complex and convoluted system that could be exploited by others for their own greed.I’ve heard the pace of this project will speed up with time. It’s just a matter of getting some groundwork out of the way. Or not! Because who knows how the election will proceed and ensuring national security via robust transportation infrastructure will be one of the first things republicans kill - likely using justification that progress wasn’t made fast enough.
An estimated FIFTY THOUSAND people work for the DoT. They should have figured all of those questions out, none of it is particularly hard.
And all of them have jobs that aren’t this one program.
It’s way, way harder than than you think it is.
I have to work with a vendor on a three year contract cycle and negotiations take so long we never stop. We just finish one 3-year ELA and start the next. There’s nothing easy or fast in any of that.
The post office should also do it. They have installed thousands of chargers for their own fleets. Just put up public chargers, it would increase business.
All the powers of heaven and earth are opposed to the USPS making money
All the powers of heaven and earth are opposed
Ok, maybe not heaven, but your point stands.
I’m kinda surprised that Republicans are so staunchly against a government service that is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. But, government itself is called for in the Constitution and they’re against all aspects of it save the ones that protect guns and imprison minorities. Are there others I’ve missed?
/s
Well yeah, we can’t allow government agencies to work properly, because then it would invalidate their claim that all government agencies are shitty and inefficient.
I kinda like this idea. Publicly accessible USPS chargers and profits are rolled directly back into their budget IN ADDITION TO current funding.
Graft. Graft and incompetence.
We’re funneling money into this bullshit while neglecting high speed rail.
The high speed rail the states keep rejecting the money the fed allocates to the rail projects? Wisconsin rejected 450mil the feds slated for rail lines there.
St. Louis to Chicago is a very, very flat 260 miles. To buy an Amtrak ticket it’s $36-43 and takes 5h.
I’m traveling to Italy soon and a ticket from Genoa to Rome is €35, about the same distance between a sea front and a mountain range, and takes a whole hour less travel time.
Amtrak is in desperate need of public funding and freight rail needs to be prosecuted for blatantly ignoring laws that give passenger trains the right of way on rails.
I don’t know if “neglecting” is right word. High-speed rail projects get a $6 billion infusion of federal infrastructure money
The US has over 160,000 miles of rail. That $6B is just $37,500 per mile and doesn’t take into account money needed to update/upgrade stations and crossings.
We sit here and dream of HSR while China has laid over 16k miles of rail since 2008. Here in Texas there’s been talk since 2010 and not a single rail laid
