2025 EV Outlook with Fresh Energy and Shift2Electric's Jukka Kukkonen

The electric vehicle (EV) landscape continues to evolve swiftly, bringing new models and changes to buying incentives. Tune into our webinar recording where Fresh Energy's Jo Olson and Jukka Kukkonen dive into timing considerations for potential EV buyers, market trends in the U.S. and abroad, the new and used EV market, updates on charging plug standards, and more.

If you'd like to see the video version of this webinar with slides, you can find it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/_lK1muBc_Ck

Fresh Energy’s mission is to shape and drive bold policy solutions to achieve equitable carbon-neutral economies. Together we are working toward a vision of a just, prosperous, and resilient future powered by a shared commitment to a carbon-neutral economy. Learn about Fresh Energy's work and our bold "Vision 2030: Fresh Energy's Strategic Framework" at our website fresh-energy.org.


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Transcript

Jo Olson: [00:00:11] Hello and welcome to Decarbonize the Clean Energy Podcast from Fresh Energy. Fresh energy is a Minnesota nonprofit working to speed our state's transition to a clean energy economy. My name is Jo Olson. I'm the lead director of communications and engagement here at Fresh Energy. And today we're sharing a recording with you from what's always one of our most popular webinars. Each year, our 2025 EV outlook webinar with Shift to Electrics. Yuka Kukkonen. In this webinar, we covered a wide range of topics from timing considerations for potential buyers to market trends and beyond. And we had time to get to dozens of real time questions from webinar guests. Keep listening to get the scoop. Hello and welcome to Fresh Energy's 2025 EV outlook. This webinar today is hosted by Fresh Energy with Yuka Kukkonen from Shift to Electric. And I was thinking back, it's been a few years since we've had like an actual EV webinar. We've done blogs for the past few years, so it's really exciting to be back. My name is Jo Olson. My pronouns are she her, and I'm the lead director of Communications and engagement at Fresh Energy. And like I said, if you're just joining us, go ahead and put your name and where you're joining us from in the chat.

Jo Olson: [00:01:27] We've got great representation from all over the state and actually beyond. And I know a number of you have asked the question, Will we be sharing a recording of this webinar? And the answer is absolutely. You'll get an email from me probably maybe today, probably Monday, with a link to the YouTube recording as well as the audio version on Fresh Energy's podcast, and excited that my amazing colleague Isaac Quam will also be working his magic to turn this into a FAQ blog post as well. So I think that will be up in a week or two after today. And I know a ton of you submitted questions ahead when you registered for the webinar. We have them all written down. We're going to do our best to get through a lot of them, and we have questions that can be submitted in real time so you can put them in the chat. I would recommend using the Q&A function. It's a button at the bottom of your screen. If you click it, it says Q&A. You can type in your question and then you can upvote other people's questions. So if you see someone asked something that maybe you were thinking about asking and you want to elevate it on the list, um, go ahead and give that a thumbs up.

Jo Olson: [00:02:36] And I'm going to flip slides here. Now, I know many of you are. Well, some of you are are new to Fresh Energy. Welcome. If you don't know us Fresh Energy has been working in clean energy and climate policy here in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest for more than 30 years. We're changing the world through bold policy solutions that move us to a just, carbon free future? And we're helping everyone who lives here and dependence on fossil fuel electrify their lives and build a healthy, clean energy economy where everybody can thrive. And as you can see on the screen, we have an awful lot to cover today. Um, so let's meet our presenters. I've got a great lineup here. We've got Yuka Kukkonen from Shift to Electric. We'll also hear from Fresh Energy's Anjali Bains and Nick Hague. Anjali leads Fresh Energy's transportation team and Nick is a senior policy associate on that team and one of our newest staffers. So I'm really excited he can join us this morning. And now I'm going to turn things over to Anjali to give us a quick look at the transportation policy work in progress and on the horizon at Fresh Energy. Anjali, take it away.

Anjali Bains: [00:03:48] Thank you so much Jo and so great to see everyone online today. I'm as excited as everyone else here to hear Yuka's take on current EV trends and shifts. But as Jo mentioned, I'm also really excited to reintroduce the transportation team here at Fresh Energy, which is now its own department. Um, thanks to our new strategic framework that we'll go over in a little bit, and we now have two full time staff on this team after being somewhat understaffed for the last few years. Um, but first, a little refresh on why we are so focused on reducing climate emissions from the transportation sector. Here you can see MPCa data that's through 2020, which is a little bit out of date, but we expect the trends to remain the same, which is that the transportation sector is the largest contributor to climate emissions among all economic sectors in Minnesota. It's also true for the US and also contributes to a high amount of global greenhouse gas emissions as well. And of of that, personal vehicles make up almost 55% of transportation sector's emissions. So it's really a critical area that we still need to do more in order to electrify and get those emissions to come down. Next slide. So because of that really critical nature of addressing transportation, it is a department that has been elevated to its own team in our strategic framework that many folks may have seen at our benefit breakfast or may be seeing for the first time, but transportation is now at the same level as all the other other economic sectors when it comes to how we think about building our team and organization to address it.

Anjali Bains: [00:05:18] Zooming in on transportation here. Great. You can see here that this is a quick summary of what we're really going to be working on, which is decarbonizing the movement of people and goods, prioritizing affordable, accessible, zero emissions technology and infrastructure with precise deployment of low carbon fuels. So that really is our whole team strategy in a nutshell. Um, and because of the fact that personal vehicles make up more than half of transportation emissions, we are really honed in on using policy levers to invest in and expand adoption of personal electric vehicles and EV charging. When I first joined Fresh Energy five years ago, the focus was on things like passing clean car standards in order to get more of those personal EVs in the state. Fast forward, there are more options than ever and more EVs on the road here than ever before, as you will dive in. But as many of you are also very aware of, are charging infrastructure has not quite kept up, especially with public charging. So our team will be really, really focused on getting more EV charging built across the state, especially public charging and at home charging.

Anjali Bains: [00:06:24] Um, I'm working in partnerships like Drive Electric Minnesota and state agencies and at the state legislature. Of course, as you see here, our goal is to also make sure we're prioritizing access and affordability of zero emission vehicles. And that means we also want to work on policies that enable more Minnesotans to use electric vehicles that aren't just their own personal vehicles. To that end, we work in a group called the coalition for Clean Transportation to advance both school bus electrification and transit bus electrification. Much of our work in that group over the coming years will be to get school districts even more comfortable, and used to electric buses, and making sure our largest transit agency, Metro Transit, has a resource that it needs to electrify its fleet. We're also hoping to engage with transit providers beyond Metro Transit and identify new ways to support under-resourced customers who are spending a higher proportion of their income on gasoline to switch over to electric vehicles. Next slide. So I mentioned we worked with state agencies. We work in coalitions. We work at the state legislature. We also work at the Public Utilities Commission and with utilities to advance our electrification goals, and has never been a better nor a more important time to dig in there. I'll hand it over to our newest member, Nick, who joined us in October to share more about that work.

Nick Haeg: [00:07:44] Thanks, Anjali. So yeah, as mentioned, I've been with Fresh Energy for about two months now, and I'm really excited about the opportunities to help work on these issues. I'll be working primarily on advocating for more supportive EV policies at the Public Utilities Commission. So much great work has already been kickstarted by our Minnesota utilities, but there's also so much more room to grow. We're looking forward to seeing Minnesota Power, which is a northern Minnesota utility, bring forward a new pilot program on EV charging for multi-family unit buildings later this month. Next year, we're also expecting to have our work cut out for us, working on improving and fortifying existing pilots into more permanent programs, including things like school bus electrification. Next year is also the year that Minnesota Utilities are set to release their next round of transportation electrification plans, which we're very excited to see. Yeah.

Jo Olson: [00:08:38] Awesome. Thank you. And I think Nick and Anjali, would you be willing to put your email addresses in the chat in case anyone joining us today is interested in connecting on Fresh Energy's work and Jukka. I think we're ready to turn things over to you. Technically, you're the star of the show, and I know you have a very robust deck to share with us today, so I want to give you as much time as possible and ensure we have plenty of time for Q&A. So it's all yours.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:09:06] All right. Thank you Jo. Thank you Nick. Thank you Anjali, for all of that. Good start of this great webinar. And good morning from my perspective to to everyone. My name is Jukka Kukkonen. I'm a, uh, EV consultant with, uh, fresh Energy and, uh, my company's shift to electric. And I will share my screen to get going here with my slides because I said we have quite a bit of stuff to get through here today, so now you should see it. All right. Very good. Let's start with the bigger picture. Things here. Um, to get going. And um, Bloomberg New Energy Finance Share this kind of a graph earlier this year, and I think it's a very, very good graph for us to understand. And it's kind of like most of the people don't understand this. And it was eye opening to me even see, see the graph even though I knew this. But when you look at this and understand that we have actually hit the peak internal combustion engine cars already in 2017. 2017 was the year when most, uh, when most internal combustion engine cars were sold. And after that, the trend line has been very clear at the number of those vehicle sales dropping. And it's pretty drastic the change in recent years, it's not as drastic in the US will come back to that soon. But if you look at that overall in global level, we are beyond this. We are beyond, uh, internal combustion engine cars in that way.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:10:34] And it's clear we've been talking about this for years. Um, if another technology is if a technology is four times more efficient than traditional technology, it'll take over. It's just about time when it happens. That's that's what we are talking about. So looking at the market, then, um, what's the EV sales look like globally right now? If you look at these these numbers here, we are seeing very nice growth on EV sales globally. We've seen heard recently a lot of stories about EV uh, sales dropping even. They haven't really dropped. Even in the US. They have slowed down quite a bit uh, for various reasons, most of it to do with our economy and, um, high interest rates and other things like that. But overall in the world level, this has not happened. We are seeing very strong growth there. And when you look at this, it's interesting to see where the growth is most happening. It's in China. China is making extremely good electric cars nowadays. They have really decided that they want to be a market leader in this one, and they are doing everything they can to do it, and I think that's a very wise decision by them. I remember in 2013, I think it was when I driver for first Chinese made EV here actually in Minnesota, and it was not a good car. It was really, really, really bad, uh, vehicle at that point.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:12:01] It's not like that anymore. These cars that they make right now in China, all the EVs are comparable to any, uh, Western made EVs, so. And they're selling pretty well in Europe already. So we can see them putting a lot of effort into this. And if you look at the number, they are selling over 10 million EVs this year in China. That's 50% of their market, roughly a little over 50% of their market. Uh, and and if you look at the Chinese car market in general, uh, we here in the US sell about 16 million, uh, light duty vehicles this year. In China, the number is over 20 million. So they are bigger car market already than we are in here in the US. And half of their sales are in EVs. So that tells very clearly where things are going. And just remind us that it would be foolish for us to try to slow down the progress, because we will be left behind when other countries are developing their competitive advantage in this space, which will be the future. So that's a good thing to remember when thinking about these things. If you look at what has happened in the US market this year, we can see that this Alliance for Automotive Innovation there, their crafts, and this is a true Q2. So it's just this summer's numbers. Um, they are showing that EV market has clearly slowed down. There's still some development, but it hasn't hasn't grown the same pace that it had before.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:13:39] As I said, one of the biggest reasons for that is the higher interest rates and other things, um, that has hit all the vehicle sales, but especially with EVs, because if you have more, uh, more, you have to put more money into it. Uh, and there's some uncertainty in the market. Usually people regress into the traditional choices in the. And that that has kind of happened a little bit this year. But we will have a very strong December. I know that for many reasons, EV sales in December here will be the strongest that we've ever seen. And that will definitely take us over 10% line. So 10% of the new vehicles sold in the US this year will be electric Minnesota EV sales. Where are we with that? Well, um, this is again first two quarters, uh, numbers. So so don't be alarmed by looking at the bar on the 2024 saying, oh, that's too low. What's happened? Well, that's just half of the year. So we have at that point we had 60,000 EVs on Minnesota roads. And um, the same thing there. If you look at 2018, you're like, why is the 2018 bar there so high? Well, that's because in this setup, they put all the six year first six years into that 2018. I don't know why. Um, that was done that way. But that's a good comparison point for us because if you look at the first six years from 2012 to 2018, when we started to have EVs here, 9000 electric vehicles were sold in Minnesota.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:15:14] Now, if you look at 2024, in the first six months, 10,000 electric vehicles were sold in Minnesota. So we sold the same amount in the first six months than we did the first six years. So that gives also a good comparison point, as here we have left. So the if you want to look at the market share then the purple graph is the right crap for you to look at. Last year we were at 6.8%, um, market share in Minnesota. This year, if you look at that graph, we sold 10,000 already in the first six months. You can expect that that to be over 20,000, uh, easily this year. So we'll will be definitely higher, um, on a market share, maybe close to 8% or something like that. And right now, at this point in a, in a middle of the year, we were just four percentage points behind Illinois. So we're very close to taking the the top level, I mean, top spot on the Midwest, uh, EV market share. And I think we might do it. So I'm looking forward to when we start to see the numbers at the beginning of next year. What happened with this year? So if we did beat Illinois or not, but it's the competition is on. So that's that's what's happening.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:16:32] Us Department of Transportation Um, shares this kind of a graph. This summer, I thought this was very useful for us, to us to kind of understand and really look into you look at on road passenger trips by trip distance in 2022 and under ten miles. That was 73% of our trips were under ten miles. 92% of our trips were under 25 miles and over 150 50 miles. Only 0.6% of our trips were over 150 miles. I think this is a very clear example of what our driving looks like in real life. When when we start, start to think about it. Range has been a big discussion point over the years when it when you talk about EVs and and it used to be a bigger, uh, challenge when we had a shorter distance EVs available now when average new vehicle, new EV range is over 270 miles. It's much less of an issue in that. But when you look at this graph, you're like, wow, how often do we actually do long trips? It's not that often. So I would read this that way that if you have more than two cars or if you have two or more cars in your family, you should always have at least one EV. One of those should be EVs. That's at least A11 reading, because then you can choose the right car for right trips. And many people are just fine in being full EV household like our household.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:18:06] So that's not an issue either. But if people are concerned, you still keep one EV, one internal combustion engine cars, but start to move into EVs one car at a time and that's the way to do it. All right. Well let's go to DC. Fast charging side of things. Talking about the longer trips here. And we've been talking, um, about standards charging standards in previous years And, uh, last year, um, all the manufacturers started to announce that, okay, we are moving into Tesla standards. So we used to have CCS standard and Nak standard. That was Tesla standard. Um, those were the two biggest standards in the US. And um, at the end of last year manufacturers started to sell. All right. We are starting to move all to the same standard, which will be the next standard nowadays is CJ3 thousand 400 uh standard. So let's see where we are with that transition right now. So right now the following vehicle manufacturers have access to next uh supercharger. So Tesla Superchargers with next connector. And those are Ford, Rivian, General Motors Polestar and Volvo. And this list is growing all the time here. Polestar and Volvo just got the access last month. I know that Hyundai and Kia are expected to get that very soon too. And many others to follow. I think they already announced Nissan a couple of weeks ago that, hey, Nissan has an access. And then they pulled that back, said, oh no, no, not yet, not yet.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:19:38] Still something to work out, but that will, uh, people different companies will be added to that list, uh, all the time here. And I'm expecting that before the end of next year or. Yeah, the end of next year. We will have pretty much everybody on that list. So then we are talking about the same standard for everyone. Everyone can use the next connectors and the supercharging stations. So they have access to all DC fast charging infrastructure in the US. Um, for those vehicles that still have the CCS connector, there will be these adapters that you can use, uh, for your charging. So, um, some of the manufacturers have actually given those to the drivers that you can get this or some of them have to buy it, and it's about $300 cost that it seems to be, I would recommend buying it from the manufacturer if possible. Then you know that it's approved by them. There are third party uh connectors adapters also available, but be just, uh, be considerate when you think about those options to make sure that they are meeting all the safety standards and that if they are even approved by the manufacturer, then that's possible too. But using the adapter will enable you then to use the Tesla supercharging station. And there's a picture of the supercharging stations there. What? The older ones are the ones on the right there. They say that there's a black color.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:21:00] If you find black color then you can use that. The new ones that are there in the picture are also available for everyone. Well, you don't necessarily have to go to the each station and find if it has the black color there on the connector there you just use your apps. Um, so I've been talking with some of the EV owners recently about what are the apps like. They used to be a little clunky in the past, but they have improved a lot in recent years. So you just use your car display and say, I never need to find a DC fast charger. Tell me where it is. And I, for example, spoke with one, uh, Chevy Bolt EV owner yesterday and asked what his experience has been. He's like, yep. Nowadays I just use the car app and my phone app and that's all I need. I'm not necessarily have to have to use Plugshare or others anymore the same way as I used before. So that has helped a lot. So no need to check everything. You can just use your apps and and you can find the right connectors there and right stations that you can use. Um, Tesla stations, just to give you an update on where we are with that. Uh, in in Minnesota, they have 32 about, I think 32 locations in Minnesota. And out of those, 20 have been upgraded so that they can be used by all of these, uh, other makes and models.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:22:19] So and Tesla keeps updating them all the time, upgrading them to a level that you can use those. Then when we think about the car side is if we're right now using adapters, how about what happens in the future. And these same manufacturers that are now have now access are going to also be building their cars in the future just using the J 3400 plug next plug. And good example of that is the new 2025 Kia EV6. Kia just announced that their new Kia EV6 will have natively the 3400 plug or outlet. They're in the car and can use the use the station natively there, and they are actually moving the plug also to the drive. It was on the back panel on the right side of the car. Now they are moving the left side to the driver's side because that's where these Tesla plugs are at Tesla's. So then they use the same way the charging structure as Tesla have worked. So it starts to work better for everyone. So good development there. Um, and going forward. Looking at the DC fast charging infrastructure in Minnesota. Um, we were at the end of 2023. We were at 468 plugs. And now in the summer, this summer we were at 634 plugs. I was kind of when I when we wrote the EV outlook for, for this year, I was kind of assuming and hoping that we would get about 800, uh, till the end of this year.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:23:53] I don't know if we get all the way to 800, but I my best guess is that we will be over 700, uh, which starts to be a pretty good number. That is, that actually starts to starts to provide a good, uh, reach for, for DC fast charging in Minnesota. You still have to think about your driving, uh, when you are in, in rural Minnesota. No question about that. It's not like, okay, I just start driving and I'll just go to International Falls and don't have to think about that. No, you have to do some planning. That's that. That's how the life still is. But I think the numbers where we are is starting to get quite cute. I would say if we would be about 1200, uh, then it would be good. Compared to where? I mean, really good. Uh, ideally that's what I would like to see a number compared to the vehicle number of the vehicles we have right now. So we are behind, but we are making good progress. And when we compare to the whole us, I would say we are above average, which of course, as Minnesotans, we always want to be. Let's look at some examples of DC fast charging locations and talk about how this has developed and how it will continue to develop. Tesla Superchargers have been in the past, located in and still continue to be located, and where there is some kind of other services restaurants, grocery stores and other things.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:25:19] And they have kind of set the gold standard of how we should do this. It has been very, very good to see. And here's a good example of that. This is actually in, uh, on the parking lot of Midway target here, closest to closest to my home. And, um, you can see that they have a good number of, uh, DC fast charging stations. They even have a couple of, uh, level twos there to add that. And, uh, this this is what we will be seeing more and more when you look at how the things have developed in Europe, uh, where this there are a few years ahead of us when it comes to adoption. All the biggest grocery store chains, for example, are starting to install, uh, DC fast charging on their parking lots. That can be very visible. For example, my country of origin, Finland, where they have about 300,000, uh, EVs now on the road. So they have 6000, six times more EVs on their roads right now than what we have here. It's a good way to way to look at what what where we are going and and very similar in, in driving. Uh, ways, ways and size wise and as a country. So there in my small hometown, which has 30 000 people lives there. The biggest grocery stores just a couple of years ago, maybe one of them had a DC fast charging on them.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:26:41] Nowadays, all of them do. So all and even midsize grocery stores just start to have DC fast charging on their parking lot. So when we think about the refueling, we will start to see grocery stores, convenience stores, and others really pick up this and start to go with it because it makes sense for them to provide it. Uh, looking at other, uh, setups here in Minnesota, here's a picture of going from Twin Cities to Duluth. This is in Pine City. Uh, there are actually three different DC fast charging locations in Pine City. This is one of them. Electrify America has installed these stations on the parking lot of a Walmart there. So again, grocery store chain there, um, having DC fast charging there. And the idea there's more than one station. We used to have just one station location. That's not good enough. You have to have redundancy there. And this is a good example of that. Here's another, um, interesting installation which will be very popular. This has been waiting for a long time. This is in Duluth. Duluth has been a little, uh, they have they haven't had too many DC fast charging stations in Duluth in the past. Now, things are changing quite fast there. And here's one of the first ones that have opened there. This is on menards parking lot just south of downtown, um, Duluth.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:28:08] And as you can see, that's an interesting, interesting setup that they have there. They have more than this. They have, I think like eight stations or something like that there in that, that location. But these stations are set up so that they are dry. So-called drive through. So you can go and drive there. Even if you're hauling your boat or other trailer behind you, you can just go there, park and just charge your car and continue without having to do any extra, extra steps. So those are very valuable, especially in rural Minnesota where you will be pulling trailers much more to have these kind of drive through options. Then we can see the convenience store chains adding DC fast charging. Here's a good example of of QuikTrip starting to add their stations. This is on the other side of the border, uh, in from Wisconsin, this installation. But I know that QuikTrip will be doing the same kind of installations in Minnesota next year. So this is just a good example for us to see how they are. They are doing it. I think that's a that's a very good setup. Even with under the canopy there circle K on the holiday stations has already started to do installations in Minnesota. We have several of these installations already. So DC fast charging as part of their um, offering their at their uh, lots. And then one of my favorite locations, this is uh, here in Twin Cities Metro on Como Avenue, there's this retro gas station called Nelson Autoworld, and they added 400 kilowatt charging infrastructure, their DC fast charging on their small lot.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:29:45] They were able to do it. That's a kind of cool spot. So go check it out if you haven't seen it yet. All right. Going from DC fast charging then to the other way around. How about powering your house or your roads or even providing power back to grid from EVs? Another interesting thing that we've been talking for years are like, okay, it's coming soon, you can do this and this and these things with it. Great. But now we are actually starting to see the real, real options for us. And I was actually a little surprised about how many of them I knew that many of them have the capability. When I started to put the list together for this webinar, about almost a third of our new EVs that are sold can provide vehicle to some something capability. So vehicle to everything Vtx is the is the idea. So you can use your car or truck as a power bank to power something else. And uh, just your imagination is a limit how you can use this setup. So some terminology here. So VG means vehicle to grid. We don't see too much of this yet. So that the grid providers, utility companies would be taking advantage of this one. In the future. We will probably start to see more of that.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:31:08] But right now not too much of that. We're starting to see some vehicle to home video age, uh, setups where you will be connecting your car to provide a power for you if there's a power outage. That's a very, very good way to do that. And then vehicle to load is probably the most easiest way to use this, where you can just power a number of things with this setup. So some of the examples here we have a Chevrolet Silverado there. Um and that one has that truck has 720 and 240 volt outlets in it. Seven think about that truck has seven outlets in it and providing a total of 7.2kW of power. Um, so you can power quite a bit of different things with it. And it also has a vehicle to home capability of 10.2kW that could also be used for vehicle to grid if needed. But that truck has over 200 kilowatt hour battery pack and 10.2kW. I was just thinking about my own house. That could easily run my house for a week over a week very easily, without me doing anything different from my house, just running everything as is, even charging my cars probably. But it's amazing how much how much power it has there. And then you look at Ford F-150 lightning that has 11, 120 or 240 volt outlets, up to 9.6kW, and then also vehicle to home capability. The middle picture here shows a picture of that.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:32:38] If you are, for example, contractor or working with different kind of tools, you just go to your job site, take the tools out, start using them, plug them in, start using them. And you don't even know this. Probably at the end of the day, maybe a few percent is have what you've lost, but not much. You really can't run down the battery too much. And by using those and then Lucid Air, that is the lower lowest picture here. For example, in that one you can use the charging cord by buying a separate little adapter for it, and you can charge another EV with it. So you can point nine provide 9.6kW power for it. So if someone is low on, uh, charging, you can just plug your car into that car and provide them about 30 miles of driving range in an hour by that with that setup. So that's pretty handy too. And even smaller key Iv6. Well, it's not really small, but smaller than some of the bigger trucks, uh, can provide, uh, vehicle load, uh, capabilities. It can have 120 volt outlet inside, and then you can plug in a small adapter to it where you can provide 120 volt, uh, 3.6, uh, kilowatts of power out of it. And then, of course, there's a list of others. And that list keep keeps growing. So we get we just have to think about how we are going to use this in the future.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:33:53] It's very, very useful feature for many things. All right. How about the vehicles. What do we have right now available in the market. Um, Anjali already talked there about the clean cars rulemaking that went went through a couple of years ago. And that has really helped for us so that we can see a good number of models and a good availability of them also here in Minnesota. So we have now in our EV info list, we have eight pages and 94 models. Just looking forward to getting to 100 here. Um, over 1500 data points. 92% of the EVs EV models are available with all wheel drive. That is a very important thing. People say, well, can this how does this work in the winter time? Well, 92% of the models are available with all wheel drive. So they're very, very good. From that perspective too, 44 models can provide towing capacity. Six pickup trucks are available ten three row SUVs or minivans, and then average 0 to 60mph. Acceleration is 5.3 seconds. Of course, everybody remembers that. The most important thing, uh, number that you use to choose your car is to 0 to 60mph acceleration. And it's really good in these EVs. I'll give you one perspective to this one. When I was growing up in the 80s, we were all looking at like this magical, the best supercar in the world. That was Lamborghini Countach. And we were like, oh, that would be so fast and quick and so dreamy.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:35:25] Car for for everyone and and really, really our dream car. Guess what? The 0 to 60mph acceleration of that car was 5.3 seconds from 0 to 60. So nowadays, your average, uh, family EV has the same kind of acceleration as the coolest supercar did in the 80s. So just to give you a perspective there. All right. Why now is a very good time to get an EV either new or used. It really is. Uh, first of all, we have very good availability of new EVs. Uh, we already I already mentioned that there's, of course, uncertainty about tax incentives. What happens to those next year? Who knows. I don't have a I really don't don't don't know. It doesn't look very promising. They might go away. So you have one month here. That's that. Take advantage of here. There are some leasing deals also information about that in the next next slide. There there's also a much improved availability of used EVs because we have been increasing sales of new EVs to use. The number of used EVs on the market has increased too. That's that's one thing that is clear. You always have to sell the new EVs first to get the used EVs. And many people are afraid of high mileage EVs. And if you know what you're doing, you know what to what to buy. High mileage EV might not be a bad, bad choice.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:36:50] So you might have get a really good deal on those ones. I've kind of tried to take advantage of that myself with with my car and always remember it. No matter what you drive your drive when you switch to getting a new or used EV. Your current vehicle will take a really bad polluter out of the road. So even if you're driving like a newer Toyota Prius and you say, this gets so good mileage and I want to keep it till the end of the end of the time. I mean, as long as I can. Like, don't just change to a new EV, new or used EV. Someone else will get that car. They will be replacing some bad, bad polluter and put that on the road. And it's just a it's just a very positive cycle. So changing car to a new one, you should do that rather than try keeping that that same car for ages because it's not going the way someone else takes, takes advantage of it and takes that polluter out of the road. And sooner you get an EV is better for you, for your neighborhood, for Minnesota, definitely for us and the whole world. That's just how it is. All right. Awesome leasing deals. There are some incredible leasing deals right now on EVs. I have leased two EVs in our family. Uh, we leased 2012 Nissan Leaf and 2016 Nissan Leaf. For both of those, we paid over $400 a month, which we thought was a very good deal, and it was a very good deal.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:38:21] We actually ended up doing better with the leasing deal than if we would have purchased those cars. So leasing was a better option for those. But when you look at this now what we have available, this is just ridiculously good. You can get Kia EV6 or uh, Hyundai Ioniq five for like less than 200 bucks. Of course, if you start to add some some features there, you might go a little higher. But still the base price is really, really, really good. Their new Chevrolet Equinox EV that is brand new, uh, model in the market, $300 a month. Same with the with the Nissan Aria and even the Rivian R1t's $620 starting per month. Really awesome deals here. And this is true for all the EVs. These are just examples here. So check out the manufacturers websites and find what kind of deals they have. And then talk with the dealers who can provide you the these deals. But if I have any inclination, I mean, anyone who's have any inclination in looking at the new cars, this is what I would go for. I would just leave something right now because if the tax credits go away, leasing deals will will not be even close to this. Good. Because why the deals are so good. Leasing companies can take that tax 7500 tax credit for all EVs.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:39:37] And that's why they can provide really good deals. So that's that's how it is. There's also a very good used market as we spoke. More models available I would start with the Facebook Marketplace. Look at that. What the Cars.com might have for you. Those are mostly for the dealers cars there. Then one tip here Hertz is actually lowering the number of EVs on their fleets. So they have very good EVs, uh, available on their website. So check also what they have to offer. And then our favorite, uh, used car dealership here in town, GS Motors in Hopkins, where Pavel Ignatovich has been selling used EVs for probably ten years now. And the good thing about that is that you can go there and test drive different EVs. Like here we have Chevy Volsky and he usually has Kia EV6 is there, Volkswagen ID4 and Hyundai Ioniq five and stuff like that. You can just go and test drive different ones and see which one you like the best and then make your decision. And of course, Pavel's customer service is great, so he's always happy to help people. Um, so think about that too. And then our story very quickly, I'll share a quick story about how what we have done in our family recently with EVs. We bought this Nissan Leaf 2013. Five years ago, when our daughter was getting her driver's permit, we paid $7,500 for it. My daughter drove it for two and a half years.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:41:06] Then when she moved, moved to, went to college. Then my our son actually got the driver's permit and he has he has been driven driving it ever since. So we have used this car for five years now. I now sold it for $4,000. I could have probably gotten 5000 for it, but I didn't want to push it. And it found a really nice home with the family that hadn't owned an EV before. So they were new to EV. So good example. Someone who didn't even know much about EVs decided to get one, and I explained them very clearly that this is a shorter range car. That's. But that was fine for them because they have other vehicles in their family, so that'll probably be used by their youngsters for, for uh, in the future. And then we, uh, got a Chevy Volt Bolt 2019 for our family. This car has 140,000 miles on it, so it's one of those high mileage EVs. But I went through it and technically it's in great shape. No, no problems whatsoever. So I'm pretty happy with this. We paid $8,500 for it. So moving from Nissan Leaf to this one was $4,500. We have six years newer car and over 200 miles of range. Excellent. Excellent for that. So just to give you an example of of this, and I had when I was selling our leaf, we had had discussions with many people who didn't know much about EVs, but they realized that this is actually going to be a good option for them.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:42:33] So affordable used EVs are are a great option for many people. And then one more thing. Electric vehicle. Electric school buses to rescue. This is an important thing that I think we should always keep in mind. Right now there are nearly 5000 electric school buses on US roads, and more than 250,000 students are already riding these buses. That means that they are free from toxic fumes of diesel burning school buses. This is really, really, really, really important. If you're interested in the topic. Look at more information from the Electric School Bus initiative. Org and our local rm350.org. They have electric school buses program there too. In Minnesota we have dozens of electric school buses already and uh, already signed over 100 deals. So we should we should see those in service very soon. But very important development for everyone. And then I'll just give you a little, uh, teaser what we are going to do this spring. We already agreed that we'll be doing a spring time webinar. Electric Watercrafts. This is a very exciting thing that I've, uh, toyed around a little bit. I've, I that's my boat there on lower, lower right corner there. And I'm looking forward to sharing with you how electric Watercrafts are now used both in public transportation and then for recreational uses too. And how you can do that yourself, right? I think that's it, Jo.

Jo Olson: [00:44:06] Yeah, I'm I'm really excited for the boat webinar. Um, just for everyone on the call today. Um, Yuka gave me a sneak peak at the presentation, and it's pretty cool. There's a lot of video, um, which I love. Um, cool boats doing cool things. All right, I'm going to share my screen quick. We're about to launch into the Q&A, but I wanted to remind people you can sign up for updates from Fresh Energy. Just go to Fresh Energy. Org slash subscribe. And for those of you who love getting an inside scoop on the legislative session, we are having our second ever Loggers and Legislation party on January 14th. This year is going to be at Utepils. It's actually on the first day of session, which is kind of perfect. Um, so we don't have anything on the website yet. I just wanted to make sure this group kind of mentally saves the date and looks for more information from us soon. And then of course, you guys, it's the end of the year. You could support Fresh Energy in your end of the year giving, but I bet you already knew that. So, um, you can scan that QR code or visit our website to make a donation today. And gosh, with that, I feel like I'm ready to get into questions. Are you ready, Yuka? Because there's a lot I think we're in like, you know, 30, 30 to 40 question zones. So we'll we'll try to do some lightning round style questions.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:45:34] I'm not very good at lightning rounds, but I do my best, you know.

Jo Olson: [00:45:37] Well, we'll do our best. Um, so let's let's start with, um, Lynn M says I've seen a large increase in fast chargers at auto dealers in Wisconsin. Do you expect this to continue? And what can you tell us about what these charges are open to the public? Um, Lynn says they found some open and others closed, but not noted as closed on plugshare, which is problematic.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:46:06] Yeah, dealers have done investments. Other manufacturers did put a big requirements last year and year before for dealers to add some charging infrastructure in the in those places. So a good portion of dealers have done that. The challenge, of course, is that they don't really tell how they are using it. There might not be most of them don't have a payment option. So that's a challenging thing there too. So you don't really know how how they are used. So I would say recommend that if you would consider using them, go walk inside and ask if there's a permission for you to use them. And then you know what their idea with those are. But it's a little gray area there in many ways.

Jo Olson: [00:46:48] Smart. That's a great tip. Okay, so now I've got another one. And this one's from Joshua H. So Joshua is wondering what is the best place to start for a non-techie? Uh, start with an EV or a plug in hybrid as a first time buyer. Like, what are the resources? Who should they talk to?

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:47:08] Well, my recommendation always is talk to EV owners. If you know anyone who owns an EV. Just reach out to them and say, okay. What has your experience been like owning, driving, and charging your EV? Here, that's always the best, best place to get the information. And of course we have the EV info list. We have an EV buyer website where you can find more information about about different things and resources. So check those out too. But, uh, always talking with owners is the best way to go.

Jo Olson: [00:47:36] And I think I was actually just telling Nick about this before we launched the webinar today. The EV owners user group on Facebook is actually one of the, like, robust, most robust and active communities of EV users online that I've ever seen. Um, so if you are a Facebook user, if you go to the website that Yuka mentioned, I think there's a link on there to the Facebook group too, right? Yuka.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:48:03] Okay. I'm sure there is. And and that's true. I mean, if you don't happen to know one, just reach out to EV owners that way. That's also a good way to do that.

Jo Olson: [00:48:11] Well, gosh, I've got an awful lot of charger questions. So let's see what we can rip through here I know. So Jim is asking does repeated DC fast charging have a negative effect on battery life and performance?

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:48:26] Um, for most use cases, no. And for most cars, no. Um, I think when we look at the again, some of the heavy users from Europe, we've seen that sometimes it can be challenging if, for example, that vehicle has been in a taxi usage and they have solely used DC fast charging, especially in a in a warmer countries that can have a negative impact. We don't have too much of that in the US yet, so I wouldn't be too concerned about it when you think about the US, EV, but it's always good to see if you can get a EV battery report, state of health report from that battery. Uh, again, we'll a little behind of that here in the US, but in Europe more and more options on that.

Jo Olson: [00:49:12] Mhm. Mhm. Well so then Beth K is asking where can you get those V to X adapters.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:49:23] So usually it's a manufacturer where you can get them. There starts to be some third party options too. Um but I would always start with the, with the manufacturer's uh approved systems.

Jo Olson: [00:49:38] Okay. Okay. Uh, well then I've got another question. And this one's just from a group called Research Team. So I'm pretty impressed by their name. Uh, can you talk about the state of NASA's bidirectional charging?

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:49:53] If we are talking about Tesla specifically? Um, Tesla hasn't really moved into that direction yet, but I've just read a story that someone was just third party, uh, company was just offering that option. So sooner or later, the kind of the, uh, genie is out of the bottle. Everybody has to has to offer that very soon. So that's that's what we can expect.

Jo Olson: [00:50:15] Okay. All right. So then Tesla aside Philip is asking what non Tesla level three charging networks in Minnesota do you recommend. Do you have a fave Yuka.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:50:28] Um different. The charging networks have have different locations. So it's sometimes I wouldn't too much think about uh, different charging networks. I would look at where am I going and what's available in those routes. You kind of have to do it that way. Right now. It's a different thing. In some places, like where we are more advanced in Europe, like in Finland, I could actually choose between two networks and I could drive through the Finland by using that. We are not there yet. We have to choose where we are going and look at, okay, what are the charging stations that are available on this trip and then use those. So sure that that's kind of my approach to it.

Jo Olson: [00:51:08] All right. Well speaking of charging stations, I have a question from Craig F asking how many charging stations have been installed with Biden administration money up to now? Um, and through the end of 2024.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:51:22] In Minnesota, we have just the first round of funding being approved or the first, uh, round control. Now, the second round is open till the January 13th, if I remember right, the first round, uh, installations Installation start this spring when the ground thaws, so we can expect next year to have the first installations going in. That process took took quite a bit of time. Uh, and reason for that is that they tried to make sure that it's technically correct, that it works for everyone. And it's, it's, uh, very good process. And I have to say that I'm very impressed by what kind of a setup they provided there. They they have the four plugs, 150kW simultaneous from all of those four blocks. And this is how you do it. So I think they have done a good job with it. Sometimes it takes a little longer to make sure that you do a really good job with it and have it available. So therefore we see the first phase of installation starting next year, uh, next spring and then continue from there.

Group: [00:52:25] Okay.

Jo Olson: [00:52:26] Let's let's take a breath from charging and talk about a few other things. We'll come back to charging, but let's have a quick change of pace. So David D Years, comments that his seven year old Leaf's battery and capacity and range, of course, is decreasing. So what would you recommend, given that Nissan only warranties for ten years? Um, what are the environmental and personal costs at the end of these ten years for either restoring or recycling the battery, um, or trading in the entire car for a new EV? And you were kind of in this situation?

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:53:01] Well, um, yeah. Our our range is lower, but we still have like 70% of the or 75% of the battery left. So that started to be a little challenging for, for our teenagers because sometimes they wanted to go further. All right. Uh, it depends if, if you just want to use it for commuting and, you know, your route, it still might be fine for you. And that's okay. But the good news is that, first of all, all the batteries will always be recycled. They none of them will go in the landfill. So don't worry about it when they will be taken off of the car and they'll go in the recycling because they're so valuable. And they will be changed into new. Used by build to build new batteries. That's a good thing about it. So I wouldn't worry about that too much. But we have now, um, starting to see the third party options for for replacing your battery. And I just heard recently that our friends at the Foreign Service in Roseville, that is a shop there, is now doing upgrades to leaf batteries. So they have they have already done a couple that they take the old battery out. They put a new bigger battery in to replace it. And you might get 200 miles range to your old leaf, which is kind of amazing.

Jo Olson: [00:54:12] Yeah, that's.Like a new car almost.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:54:13] Yep.

Jo Olson: [00:54:14] Um, okay. Well, speaking of batteries, Jennifer S is asking what special considerations do I need to have considering Minnesota's cold climate and its impact on EV battery miles per charge?

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:54:28] Well, you just have to be aware that in the winter time you will get less range. That's just how it is. As long as you're aware of that, we're fine. Um, uh, depends a little bit on how big of a battery you have in your EV, but, uh, just a rule of thumb. About 30% drop on range in a in a worst case scenario, I would say, um, usually. So, um, keep your car plugged, charge it where you need to use preheating to, to use less of the battery for, for the heating and of course your convenience too. And then, uh, learn how your car behaves. It'll be fine. Sure.

Jo Olson: [00:55:03] Okay. Well, I've got another a question here from Satish, which I think you talked about a little bit in the presentation. Like ultimately right now we don't know what we don't know about next year. Um, so Satish asks, what are prospects for EV incentives under the incoming administration? Like like I said, we don't know what we don't know, but.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:55:24] We don't. Necessarily know know know too much about it, but it doesn't look very promising if you think about that. Um, uh, Elon Musk is a big part of this new administration? And he, of course, is, uh, EV uh, a very heavily involved in EVs. And he's saying we should drop the EV tax credit. So I think that gives us a pretty good sign where things are probably going to go.

Jo Olson: [00:55:47] Mhm mhm. Um okay. Here's a question from Jim. So you highlighted in your presentation Yuka some hot EV leasing deals that are currently in the works. But Jim is wondering I'm kind of reading between the lines here. Are any of those deals like too good to be true. Are there red flags to watch for with EV leasing deals?

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:56:09] What I would do definitely is I would start from the manufacturer's website and I would look at what do they promise in a manufacturer's website, and then start calling through the dealers and see which ones actually have the vehicles that that could get the lower deal and that lower, lower deal. If you if you're just looking for the best price, um, start calling to the dealers. And when you find and this is all also good good for if you think even buying a, uh, any, any vehicle is called through the dealers find the person that you feel like is is good salesperson for this one that you like working with. And if they have a vehicle that they could provide you those deals, then you should walk in. I would not call the dealers before. I've talked to at least half a dozen dealers over the phone and decided, where do I want to go? That's the best way to do it. Then you know that no more and you've done a little bit more of your homework and see what they can offer for you.

Jo Olson: [00:57:09] And then you're not chasing around town wasting time too, because no one wants to spend a Saturday afternoon at a car dealership. At least speaking for myself.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:57:17] Some people like it, but truthfully.

Jo Olson: [00:57:19] They have cookies.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:57:19] But yeah, they do. Um, when you go to the dealership, dealership, uh, has always the advantage when you're talking over the phone, you have the advantage, so take that advantage.

Jo Olson: [00:57:32] That's great insight. Um, okay, I have a question from Michael that I think the Fresh Energy team, Anjali and Nick might have a few thoughts on, but we'll start with you, Yuka. So the question is what is the extent and validity of insurance company concerns about level two chargers in multifamily buildings? Now, we do know that this is a pain point, um, for EV adoption. So Yuka, maybe you can kick us off and if Anjali and Nick have anything to add, they can jump in.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:58:02] Insurance companies are facing tough times now from many perspectives. Um, not to the climate change impacts not being the the least of them. So they are really looking into different ways of how they mitigate their risks. And one of the things they have raised is like, what's the risk of EVs in this in this multi housing developments? Uh, we don't have any, any really cases where that risk would have materialized in the US, but understandable that they calculate their risks and try to look at it. So it's a little hard to tell. As with any insurance cases, you just have to be shopping around, find the companies that can provide you what you're looking for. And that's how I do it.

Anjali Bains: [00:58:48] And Jukka you and I were talking over text about how the way charges are installed are all outlets are installed, can also help reduce the risk of fire that these insurance companies are focused on. So it seems like understanding how best to install outlets to support charging in multifamily will be important, and then educating insurance companies on those differences.

Jukka Kukkonen: [00:59:08] Yeah, definitely professional installations for all of that. Making sure sure that and I would also try to recommend I mean, I would recommend everybody doing hardwired installations in at least even in semi-public spaces like these are because then the plug standards, unfortunately, are not the best in the US, so therefore hard wired is always the safest way to go.

Jo Olson: [00:59:31] All right, maybe Fresh Energy team wants to stay on for this question too. It's like clean cars related. Um, so Li says a staff member of Representative Finstad told Li yesterday that Rochester car dealers are complaining about having to be forced to sell EVs. So I guess, you know, big picture question. Have we seen more cooperation from Minnesota car dealers lately? I mean, we are in like what, one, two, three, three years into clean cars? Um, what does this group think about that?

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:00:04] Well, I'll start with that and saying, of course, right now with car market slowing, uh, a little bit on all the levels, um, dealers have challenges. If there's any challenges, there's, there's, there's always like, well, uh, maybe it's this because of this or that. Um, uh, car market is always cyclical. I mean, having been working in this industry for a few years now. Um, the car market is always cyclical. Sometimes things go really fast, and sometimes selling is easy and sometimes it's harder. And, and, and, and even some models go up and down and all of that. And recently, of course, we have seen slower sales of EVs. And that has probably provided, uh, little challenges for the dealers. So, um, and dealers are very, um, vocal about their opinions about things. And, uh, if next year, if, if, uh, sometime comes a really good time when they sell it, then they won't be complaining about it. But it's just it's just keep on, keeps on going up and down. So that's just normal. Normal business, normal chatter I would say in the business.

Anjali Bains: [01:01:08] I agree with you. And I will say, you know, the Minnesota auto dealers, the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association, Matta is part of Drive Electric Minnesota. So that's a coalition of groups that really focus on supporting EV charging and EV adoption through policies. So they are active member of that, and they have hired someone to lead sort of their EV charge. So they they are aware that this is a feature and have staffed up leads to, um, support that transition.

Jo Olson: [01:01:37] Great. And I think I've got kind of a related ish question from Kevin just asking about how the clean cars rule impacts car sales in Minnesota. I think we kind of addressed that. Unless anyone has any kind of final thoughts on that. Okay.

Anjali Bains: [01:01:52] Um, well, I'm just going to I was thinking that. So the way model years work is that a model year doesn't always line up with calendar year. So because Clean Cars is in effect through model year 2025, a lot of those cars were actually sold in this current calendar year. So we are seeing the effects of clean cars in that more dealers are getting those EVs on their lots. Um, and if I remember correctly, I believe clean cars required at least 80% of EV sales to be electric by, uh, model year 2025. So about this year. So you go to your graph showing that we might hit 8%. You know that is very exciting to see that that policy has come into play and actually supported some more EVs on the lots and then EVs being adopted too. So it is great to see that great result.

Group: [01:02:36] Okay. Perfect. I know we're we're three minutes over time. Sorry about that. I know, Yuka, I think you're available for 15 more minutes. Maybe the Fresh Energy team is to want to respect people's time. Like, go have lunch if you want, but we're going to keep the conversation going. If you have to hop off, remember, you'll get the recording probably on Monday. Like I said, if I'm being realistic. So let's let's keep up with the lightning round. For those of you who can join us, that would be great. It looks like we've still got about 80 people in the call, and the questions keep rolling in. All right. Fresh energy. You guys can maybe take a you can take a breather for a minute. I'm going to pepper Yuka with some more technical questions.

Jo Olson: [01:03:18] Um, Jim. Is asking if you can recommend a level two charger for home use.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:03:26] I would say that there are a really good number of good, uh, level two chargers for home use. Just make sure that you are listed and, um, and uh, and that it's and read the reviews we have, of course, one local, uh, manufacturer here, Evo charts that is Minnesota based based level two charging station manufacturer. So check that check out their offering.

Jo Olson: [01:03:50] Perfect. And another one, um, like home charging. Related from Steve, I added a 240 volt outlet in my garage to charge my Tesla via the power cord that came with the car. What are the advantages of putting in a different charging connection like Tesla or someone else supplies?

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:04:10] Um, it really works well if you have a 240 volt installation there with even with the outlet. I've used that for years myself. So there really isn't a huge amount of advantages. Um, I would say the best advantage for you is that if you are traveling a lot and you want to keep that cord with you just in case, if you have a hard wired setup at home, then you can keep that in your back of your car all the time and you don't have to take it with you. So that's that I think is the best way. I've, uh, I've. When I was traveling more, I did definitely enjoy having the portable cord in my car, just in case I needed it somewhere.

Jo Olson: [01:04:50] Sure, that makes sense. Um, well, Beth has another charging question. This one's more about networks. So Beth is asking what percent of the Dcfc network is actually working. Numbers of stations is important and functioning stations. As personally someone who's been skunked. Um, I'm I'm interested in your answer to this one.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:05:14] Definitely a good, good question. A good thing to think about here. We have had some challenges with with the older so so-called first generation DC fast charging installations where you just have one charging station in one location. And unfortunately, some of the DC fast charging manufacturers have are not selling their units anymore. They are not in business anymore. So many some of the network owners have a hard time finding parts for those stations, so we need to upgrade those old sites to a newer, newer hardware which is much more reliable, and we should add redundancy to those so that we will have more than just a 1 or 2 blocks there, four blocks to minimum, I would say so that so that they'll be they'll they are more reliable in the future. There is funding, uh, of federal funding. There has been a federal funding, and I'm sure there will be another round of that available for this kind of a upgrades of unreliable charging stations. Unfortunately, the first round we didn't have a local entity to apply for it. I'm hoping that next round we will have a local entity, because it had to be a public entity to apply for it so that we could get many of these stations replaced, that are the first generation technology that are not reliable. Definitely, definitely things that need to be changed.

Jo Olson: [01:06:37] Got it. And I see Satish had asked a similar question about the evolving reliability of those networks. Looking at the chat, I see some folks have been putting questions in the chat as well as the Q&A. So I want to go to Dan's question. Um, do you foresee an EV tax to replace a gasoline tax peer into the crystal ball?

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:07:01] Well, right now we have the head for at least five years. I think now the the $75 registration tax, annual registration tax that is in there, I think it's called fee. But the same thing. It's a tax. And that actually is comparable to what it would be when you take into account the efficiency, uh, for internal combustion engine. So we have that in place already. There has been discussion that that should be changed somehow. And, but, uh, I'm okay with changing things as long as we have it comparable to internal combustion engine cars, it wouldn't make sense to put the punitive, uh, some, some kind of a $250 for EVs, which would be way more, uh, than than internal combustion engines would be paying for the for the same kind of drive and same efficiency. So it has to be fair for everyone.

Jo Olson: [01:07:50] Okay, that makes sense. Um, I've got a question from Steve asking kind of a oh, this one's going to make you do some math. Maybe you go, so what is the operating cost difference between EV and gas cars? Steve says he feels like his EV cost to operate is about 25 to 50% the cost of gas. I know this like depends on the model. It depends on everything. But like. What say you?

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:08:17] That's math. Is there? That's good. Already. I don't have to do math. I would say that that's a very, very good calculation there. I think that rings true to my experience. And based on what I'm hearing from other people.

Jo Olson: [01:08:28] Perfect. Okay.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:08:30] Um, these. These kind of, these kind of math questions. I like when someone has actually done the math and they know and.

Jo Olson: [01:08:35] They know. They want you to confirm or deny. Um, okay, I've got another one from Lee asking you to explain a bit more, if you can. The importance of matching level two charger amperage to car charging amperage.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:08:53] Okay, so, um, the idea here is that that car is the one who decides how they're going to charge the charge the battery. So they are always in charge of the charging, so to say. So if we talk about level two charging, usually the rates are the slowest rates that I've seen in cars 3.3. Nowadays you 6.6 to 7kW is very, very common, up to 11kW of charging. And some of the, like the Ford F-150 lightning that you can see behind me can go up to 19.2kW of power. So that's what the car might want to do. And what you put at your house is, of course, dependent. Also, what's your power capacity at your house? If you have just a 50 amp amp, uh, service available or 60 or or that, then it might be limiting, but it's never a problem from the car perspective because cars will ask from the charger is like, what can you provide? And the car charger says, well, I can provide you 6.6kW. And the car says, perfect, that's what I wanted. I'll take that. If the car says, I would like to get 11. So like I can only provide you 6.6, okay, I'll take 6.6. So they always match it. So it's not, not not to worry about that. It comes more down to how you're driving your car. If you drive, let's say 50 miles a day, you could even get get by with a 3.3kW level. If you're driving a big F-150 lightning 150 miles a day every day, then I would probably go with the higher amperage rating there.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:10:30] So I would do the math more from the perspective of how do you drive compared to, uh, I mean, taking that into account of when you choose that. And of course, the limitation is how much power you have available at your house. Of course. Um, just a quick this is, as I said, I'm not good with these lightning routes. Um, one more tidbit here. So, um, when you do the math there, just a quick rule of thumb. If you're talking about the cars, you can use it for calculation three miles per kilowatt hour. So if you drive 30 miles a day, then you probably used about ten kilowatt hours of energy. That is what you have to replace during the night time. If you drive a pickup truck pickup truck, then I would use a two miles per kilowatt hour because they are less efficient for the driving, they use more energy. So now if you did the same 30 miles of driving in a day, now you have to replace with 150, I'm sorry, 15 kilowatt hours of energy. So then if you're using 3.3kW charger 15 divided by 3.3. Now we're talking about 4.5, something like that. Rough rough numbers. So four point 4.5 hours of charging in that one. Whereas for if you're having a car EV then it would only be ten kilowatts. So then it would be three hours only to charge with 3.3.

Jo Olson: [01:11:54] I told you I'd make you do math eventually.

Jo Olson: [01:11:56] All right. You did okay. All right.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:11:58] We'll keep it simple.

Jo Olson: [01:11:59] We'll, we'll give you a chalkboard next time. Um, okay. So now looking outside. Some snow here, but I know my husband's already. Like, we got to think about winter tires. And I think that relates to Jim's question. So Jim is saying, does an EV wear out tires more quickly due to the weight than an Ice car? And that ice is internal combustion engine. In case you didn't know Jukka.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:12:23] Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Um, so if EVs are in general, maybe 10 to 15% more, more heavier from the weight perspective, that's exactly how much faster they also wear out the tires. 10 to 15% faster. So just take that into account. But it's not going to have a huge, huge impact in that way. Challenge more for example, with our Chevy Bolt is that it has 135kW of watts of power. That's, uh, 200 horsepower in there, and it tends to slip the front tires very easily. So you have to be just careful when you're driving it. You don't just always floor it. You can drive it nicely, but if you tend to follow it, you will start to lose the front tires faster. So keep rotating the tires to the back and wear them evenly.

Jo Olson: [01:13:14] Excellent.

Jo Olson: [01:13:14] Okay.

Jo Olson: [01:13:15] Um, let's close with maybe this kind of big picture question from Chris. So Chris is talking just about, um, initiatives at the state or utility level aimed at reducing the financial and operational barriers for owning and operating DC fast chargers for small businesses and fleets. Um, so Chris is wondering if there's any effort underway to address these challenges, challenges and make Dcfc development just more accessible to a broader range of stakeholders? Um, and I see Anjali put her video on too, so maybe you could you kick us off and Anjali.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:13:53] I'll start with a couple couple of perspectives first. Um, many of the utility companies provide technical assistance in this one, so they help if someone is thinking about putting DC fast charging infrastructure in place. I would first recommend them talking with the utility company because they can help them with that process. They can tell what kind of capacity is available, what might be the best location, and make it more affordable to installation. Based on that, some of the utility companies also provide some kind of a, uh, incentives for or help with the installation. They might have what's called make ready program, where if the location is right for many, prospective utility company might provide the power all the way to the where you're installing the charging station. So that's a very good thing. Other utility companies have commercial rates where they provide some kind of a incentive. Funding for that process, if they have to, has to be a new transformers, line extensions or anything like that. So again, talk with the utility company about those options. And the the last thing that I want to want to point out here is, is, is also the demand charges, which is a big thing. There is how? Because these are drawing a big kilowatt power levels. And often and very quickly these charging station owners will be hit with demand charges, meaning how much capacity you are using. And that can be a very big number, very become very expensive in a hurry there.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:15:24] But fortunately many utilities have also, uh, rate structures where they're either provide so that the demand charges can be only a certain percentage of the bill, which is a good way to limit it, where if you're not using it a lot, and it's just every now and then that it hits a high numbers, that's fine. But when you start to have a consistent usage, then you'll be paying more. And the same kind of a impact. Will is a is a is if it's if there's a percentage of the utilization and that's used somehow to lower the demand chances to. That's another way to do it. Both do the same thing, but all of those things impact the cost of running the DC fast charging stations and make it more affordable for the for those who run it. And then, um, also for the for the users. And I have to say one more thing again, not the lightning Ryan. Things to hear. Right now we are starting to see higher utilization of all the DC fast charging. That means that the station owners are starting to potentially be able to get get their cost covered, and maybe even make a little bit of money. With this and more and more EVs, we get on the roads more. This will become the the truth and they will be a profitable, uh, operations, which means that we'll be getting more of those.

Anjali Bains: [01:16:49] Great. And and you could cover it a lot of it. Um, very specifically Minnesota Power, actually, alongside its multifamily EV charging pilot program, it is actually going to be proposing make ready infrastructure, make ready rebates for workplace, fleet, hospitality, charging and public charging in there in the filing later this month. So that'll be great for those in those service territories. Excel actually does have a commercial EV fleet pilot program, um, that there will be discussions in the next year as we prepare for transportation electrification plans and how to make that permanent. That right now is only focused on public entities and non-profit entities. But we really we've made the case before to add in commercial entities, especially small businesses, and we'll try to make the case again, um, to expand that program kind of beyond its pilot phase to to consider these other barriers that you mentioned.

Jo Olson: [01:17:39] Perfect. Well, I left you, uh, we closed off, I guess, on an easy one. Right? I think we're going to end the meeting here. We have gotten through most of our questions. Um, there have been a few comments in the chat about sending slides. So on Monday, I will send the YouTube recording which will include the slides. Um, if you want the slides themselves, I can I say email Yuka.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:18:05] Email you. I'm not. I'm not taking any requests. It's you. All right.

Jo Olson: [01:18:09] If you must have a PDF of the slides, you can email me at Olson. Olson at Fresh Energy. Org and I know I, John, was asking for a saved file of the chat log. So if you want the chat log or if you want the PDF of the deck, just shoot me a note. But if not, you will get the recording and all this other good stuff on Monday with that. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Enjoy the what scant two hours of sunlight left in the day and stay warm. Thank you for being with us and thank you so much to our panelists. Really appreciate you guys.

Jukka Kukkonen: [01:18:49] Thank you very much. Thanks.

Jo Olson: [01:18:50] All right.

Nick Haeg: [01:18:50] Thanks all.

Jo Olson: [01:18:51] Bye, everyone.

Jo Olson: [01:18:53] Thank you for subscribing to Decarbonize the Clean Energy podcast from Fresh Energy. You can stay up to date on our work at Fresh energy.org, or follow us on social media. We're on blue Sky. Now you can find us at Fresh Energy at Blue Sky Dot social. You can also support Fresh Energy's work to drive bold policy solutions to achieve carbon neutral economies in Minnesota and beyond. Head to our website for the latest news and to make a donation. Again, it's Fresh Energy.org and thank you to the band Palm Psalms for providing our theme song. It's called TGIF and it's off of their album Otuhaka. Get the latest from the band at palmpsalm.com. Thanks for tuning in.