It’s still the wild west in the EV charging equipment segment. There’s growing demand for infrastructure builds now that battery electric commercial vehicles are available and rolling large in short-route applications. While working with one’s utility is an issue that’s hard to speak to if you’re not dealing with that same utility, vetting charging hardware vendors and planning infrastructure scalability is a topic that can be delved.
“When we talk [infrastructure scalability], we’re always talking about future-proofing,” said John Thomas, chief operating officer at Autel Energy North America. He then posed the question: Is this product going to be the right product not only for today but in five years and 10 years?
“On-board chargers are going to get bigger and bigger so that it can provide more power, faster,” he continued. “On the DC side, we’re talking about chargers up to 720 kilowatts. The lifeblood of what happens in America happens in medium- and heavy-duty markets—how we move and ship goods around the country. Autel is already starting to orientate our product line to be able to accommodate bigger, faster charging events, not only for infrastructure on highway, but for those commercial vehicles.”
There’s plenty more to talk about in the world of charging equipment: infrastructure availability, opportunity charging, directional charging, and the view of the charging market from a new EV player, but longtime participant in the automotive world. Watch the video above for all of the EV charging equipment insight from Thomas.
