North Carolina Bill Seeks to Make Electric Vehicle Charging Fees More Predictable

A bill introduced on March 11 by Republican Representatives John Szoka, Dean Arp, Bobby Hanig, and Harry Warren seeks to allow charging to resell kilowatt-hours originally purchased from an electric utility, in a bid to spur more private investment into electric charging infrastructure around the state and more North Carolinians to drive electric.

• Currently, operators of EV chargers purchase electricity from the utility by the kilowatt-hour but sell on a time-based pricing model, leading to discrepancies due to the different charging times of EVs. A fast charging vehicle will pay less for the same amount of electricity than a slow charging one because it will spend less time at the charger.
• The by-the-minute method is still predominant, but an increasing number of states is allowing per-kilowatt-hour sales.
• According to the DOE, North Carolina currently has 571 public charging stations with a bellow national average EV adoption of about one plug-in vehicle for every 1,000 people. California leads the nation with 8.6 EVs per 1,000 residents.