How will the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure affect road design and, equally importantly, road use? Will road design, construction and concession companies be responsible for laying out charging infrastructure? And just who will pay for it all?
The answers to these questions and more are now to be found on the just-gone-live new website EV Charging and Infrastructure - evcandi.com a sister website to World Highways.
Evcandi.com is published by Route One Publishing, the organisation that publishes World Highways magazine, Aggregates Business Europe and ITS International. With evcandi.com, Route One has it all covered through offering news, feature and interviews.
ROPL’s editors are all recognised experts whose writing is widely trusted and who are regularly invited to moderate at leading industry conferences. Liam McLoughlin*, managing editor of evcandi.com, is among them and he brings 30 years of journalistic experience to job. “There are a lot of publications that report on EVs and cover the charging issue as part of that but none that are specifically dedicated to the topic of EV charging and infrastructure,” he says.
Host of new players
What makes evicandi.com a relevant read also for readers of World Highways is that it is a rapidly evolving area that will undoubtedly touch on the core issues of concern for the road design and construction sector. “A host of players are vying for a stake in the sector - traditional fuel companies, energy utilities, car manufacturers, electronics giants, tech start-ups. The list goes on,” he explains.
“How much will be left to the private sector, what will be the level of government and local authority involvement/ownership, how important are partnerships going to be? The business models have not been established so there is no shortage of exciting new developments for us to report on and analyse.”
McLoughlin believes that EV charging will undoubtedly affect the way that roads are designed, constructed and used. “In countries such as the US, taxes from fuel sales are a central part of the funding for road construction. With the advent of the electric vehicle, this revenue is shrinking and new sources need to be found. Will road users have to pay a tax on the distance they drive, rather than the amount of fuel they purchase?”
What the new website will not do is sell the reader a new electric car or truck. “However, if a new vehicle has some impact and relevance for the charging infrastructure sector - an increased range, new battery technology - we will be reporting on it.
“The content we provide is interesting and relevant to a wide variety of people - EV infrastructure companies and providers, those in the public sector who are responsible for EV deployments, fleet managers migrating to EVs and anyone with an electric vehicle or considering one who wants to keep up with the latest developments,” says McLoughlin.
Latest business moves
Meanwhile, evcandi.com will be reporting on the latest business moves of many well-known major companies, including Siemens, ABB, Schneider Electric, BYD, Tesla and Shell. This is in addition to the emerging EV charging players such as Chargemaster, Vattenfall, ChargePoint and Webasto.
Many trends are emerging that up to this point have failed to get the coverage the they deserve. “For example, the V2G (vehicle-to-grid) sector is set for major expansion and we will be watching it closely,” he says. “V2G allows various types of electric cars to interface with the power grid in order to provide demand response services by delivering two-way electricity exchange. Precedence Research predicts the V2G sector will increase from US$1.8 billion in 2021 to be worth around $17.4 billion by 2027.”
McLoughlin believes there will be increasing collaboration between EV charging market players including utilities, car manufacturers, traditional fuel companies and renewable energy providers. The importance of brands in EV charging is likely to come to the fore. “Electric mobility company Virta states that a range of consumer businesses – from shopping centres and restaurants to hotels and from energy companies to petrol stations – may offer EV charging as a part of the overall customer experience.”
World Highways readers can click here to see the latest developments in the work of electric vehicle charging and infrastructure: www.evcandi.com
*Liam McLoughlin has nearly 30 years' experience in the media, ranging from regional UK dailies (the Nottingham Evening Post), broadcast journalism (the BBC) and feature writing for trade magazines. Much of his career has been in business-to-business journalism reporting on subjects as wide-ranging as payments systems, supermarket retailing, money laundering, loyalty schemes and quarrying. He hails from Nottingham city in the East Midlands of England and holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and Public Policy.
