EV charging solutions for businesses, fleets and drivers

The Path to Drawdown: EV Infrastructure

Internal combustion vehicles still dominate transportation today, but electric vehicles (EVs) are poised to transform that landscape. According to the IEA, there are now 11 million electric passenger cars and vans on the road thanks to supportive policies and falling costs.

The difference in impact on the climate is remarkable. Compared to petroleum-based vehicles, CO2 emissions drop by 50% if an EV’s power comes off the conventional grid. If powered by solar energy, emissions are cut by 95%. Once households purchase EVs, the operating costs for those cars are often cheaper than gas-based cars, too.

But just like ubiquitous gas stations enable internal combustion engines, one critical factor for EVs to become the primary transportation method is a wider adoption of EV charging infrastructure. While most charging of EVs is done at home and work today, publicly accessible charging needs to be rolled out to encourage households without access to private chargers to opt for EVs.

For now, the ratio of chargers to EVs is far lower than where it needs to be in most countries, with the US near the bottom of the ranking among developed countries at 0.06 chargers per EV. Companies and governments around the world are currently implementing policies and incentive programs to expand EV infrastructure networks.

To achieve an all-electric transport sector in line with keeping global warming under 1.5ºC of warming, the IEA projects a dramatic increase in the number of EV chargers globally between now and 2030:

There were 10.3 million EV chargers in 2020
There need to be 215.2 million chargers by 2030
35.5% CAGR between 2020 and 2030

About

ChargePoint Holdings, Inc. provides electric vehicle (EV) charging networks and charging solutions in the United States. It offers a portfolio of hardware, software, and services for commercial, fleet, and residential customers. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Campbell, California.

CHPT's Role in Drawdown

ChargePoint sells EV charging solutions like smart charging stations for electric vehicles, which can be used by fleets or individual owners. Their charging hardware can accommodate passenger cars, delivery vehicles, buses and more.

ChargePoint's charging stations are networked through the ChargePoint Operator Network, allowing fleets to charge at any station by any driver.

For business that own Chargepoint EV charging stations, their cloud services make it easy to operate and customize charging stations to meet specific requirements.

CHPT: What We Like

ChargePoint shares some impressive metrics about their contribution to a cleaner future:

They've delivered 98 million charges to date
3 billion miles have been driven on electricity from their EV chargers
Their chargers have helped avoid 120 million gallons of gas to date
And all of this has helped avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to capturing carbon in 869,000 acres of US forests

CHPT: What We Want to See Improve

Disclose Sustainability Metrics

We're excited that ChargePoint is helping the adoption of EVs across the United States and Europe through their charging stations. But as for ChargePoint's own carbon footprint, there is very little information available on their website or reports. We'd like to see them publish an annual sustainability report that discloses ChargePoint's greenhouse gas emissions, sources of energy use, waste generation, and what they're doing to make their business more sustainable.

Set Clear Targets

Once they disclose sustainability metrics, we'd want to see them set clear targets for reducing their carbon footprint over the next decade to three decades. The goal for all companies at this point in the fight for climate change should be, at the very least, to become carbon neutral. For companies in some sectors (dare we say EV chargers), carbon negative should be the target. We want to see how and when ChargePoint can achieve these goals.