UK to fast-track vital grid connections

Electric Vehicle Charging Costs and Times explain kWh usage, electricity rates, Level 2 vs DC fast charging, per-mile expense, and tax credits, with examples by region and battery size to estimate home and public charging.

Key Points

They measure EV charging price and duration based on kWh rates, charger level, efficiency, and location.

✅ Costs vary by kWh price, region, and charger type.

✅ Efficiency (mi/kWh) sets per-mile cost and range.

✅ Tax credits and utility rates impact total ownership.

More and more car manufacturing companies dip their toes in the world of electric vehicles every year, making it a good time to buy an EV for many shoppers, and the U.S. government is also offering incentives to turn the tides on car purchasing. Electric vehicles bought between 2010 and 2022 may be eligible for a tax credit of up to $7,500. 

And according to the Consumer Reports analysis on long-term ownership, the cost of charging an electric vehicle is almost always cheaper than fueling a gas-powered car – sometimes by hundreds of dollars.

But that depends on the type of car and where in the country you live, in a market many expect to be mainstream within a decade across the U.S. Here's everything you need to know.

How much does it cost to charge an electric car?
An electric vehicle’s fuel efficiency can be measured in kilowatt-hours per 100 miles, and common charging-efficiency myths have been fact-checked to correct math errors.

For example, if electricity costs 10.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, charging a 200-mile range 54-kWh battery would cost about $6. Charging a vehicle that consumes 27 kWh to travel 100 miles would cost three cents a mile. 

The national average cost of electricity is 10 cents per kWh and 11.7 cents per kWh for residential use. Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Vehicle Testing compares the energy cost per mile for electric-powered and gasoline-fueled vehicles.

For example, at 10 cents per kWh, an electric vehicle with an efficiency of 3 miles per kWh would cost about 3.3 cents per mile. The gasoline equivalent cost for this electricity cost would be just under $2.60 per gallon.

Prices vary by location as well. For example, Consumer Report found that West Coast electric vehicles tend to be less expensive to operate than gas-powered or hybrid cars, and are often better for the planet depending on local energy mix, but gas prices are often lower than electricity in New England.

Public charging networks in California cost about 30 cents per kWh for Level 2 and 40 cents per kWh for DCFC. Here’s an example of the cost breakdown using a Nissan LEAF with a 150-mile range and 40-kWh battery:

Level 2, empty to full charge: $12
DCFC, empty to full charge: $16

Many cars also offer complimentary charging for the first few years of ownership or provide credits to use for free charging. You can check the full estimated cost using the Department of Energy’s Vehicle Cost Calculator as the grid prepares for an American EV boom in the years ahead.

How long does it take to charge an electric car?
This depends on the type of charger you're using. Charging with a Level 1 charger takes much longer to reach full battery than a level 2 charger or a DCFC, or Direct Current Fast Charger. Here's how much time you can expect to spend charging your electric vehicle:

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Clean Coal Technologies Pristine Funding secures investment from a New York asset manager via Black Diamond, advancing commercialization, Tulsa testing, Wyoming relocation, PRB coal enhancement, and cleaner energy innovation to support global coal exports.

Key Points

Capital from a New York asset manager backs Pristine commercialization, testing, and Wyoming relocation to boost PRB coal.

✅ Investment via Black Diamond funds Tulsa test operations.

✅ Permanent relocation planned near a Wyoming mine site.

✅ First Pristine M module to enhance PRB coal quality.

Clean Coal Technologies, Inc., an emerging cleaner-energy company utilizing patented and proven technology to convert untreated coal into a cleaner burning and more efficient fuel, announced today that the company has secured funding for their Pristine technology through commercialization, a move reminiscent of Bruce C project funding activity, from a major New York-based Asset Management company. This investment will be made through Black Diamond with all funds earmarked for test procedures at the plant near Tulsa, OK, at a time when rare new coal plants are appearing, and the plant's move to a permanent location in Wyoming. The first tranche is being paid immediately.

"Securing this investment will confidently carry us through to the construction of our first commercial module enabling management to focus on the additional tests that have been requested from multiple parties, even as US coal demand faces headwinds across the market," stated CEO of Clean Coal Technologies, Inc., Robin Eves. "At this time we have begun scheduling plant visits with both US government agency and coal industry officials along with key international energy consortiums that are monitoring transitions such as Alberta's coal phaseout policies."

"We're now able to finalize our negotiations in Wyoming where the permitting process has begun and where we will permanently relocate the test facility later this year following completion of the aforementioned tests," added CCTI COO/CFO, Aiden Neary. "This event also paves the way forward to commence the process of constructing the first commercial Pristine M facility. That plant is planned to be in Wyoming near an operating mine where our process can be used to enhance the quality of PRB coal to make it more competitive globally, even as regions like western Europe see coal-to-renewables conversions at legacy plants, and help restore the US coal export market."

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Accelerate Kootenays EV charging stations expand along Highway 3, adding DC fast charging and Level 2 plugs to cut range anxiety for electric vehicles in B.C., linking communities like Castlegar, Greenwood, and the Alberta border.

Key Points

A regional network of DC fast and Level 2 chargers along B.C.'s Highway 3 to reduce range anxiety and boost EV adoption.

✅ 13 DC fast chargers plus 40 Level 2 stations across key hubs

✅ 20-minute charging stops reduce range anxiety on Highway 3

✅ Backed by BC Hydro, FortisBC, and regional districts

The Kootenays are B.C.'s electric powerhouse, and as part of B.C.'s EV push the region is making significant advances to put electric cars on the road.

The region's dams generate more than half of the province's electricity needs, but some say residents in the region have not taken to electric cars, for instance.

Trish Dehnel is a spokesperson for Accelerate Kootenays, a multi-million dollar coalition involving the regional districts of East Kootenay, Central Kootenay and Kootenay Boundary, along with a number of corporate partners including Fortis B.C. and BC Hydro.

She says one of the major problems in the region — in addition to the mountainous terrain and winter driving conditions — is "range anxiety."

That's when you're not sure your electric vehicle will be able to make it to your destination without running out of power, she explained.

Now, Accelerate Kootenays is hoping a set of new electric charging stations, part of the B.C. Electric Highway project expanding along Highway 3, will make a difference.

No more 'range anxiety'

The expansion includes 40 Level 2 stations and 13 DC Quick Charging stations, mirroring BC Hydro's expansion across southern B.C. strategically located within the region to give people more opportunities to charge up along their travel routes, Dehnel said.

"We will have DC fast-charging stations in all of the major communities along Highway 3 from Greenwood to the Alberta border. You will be able to stop at a fast-charging station and, thanks to faster EV charging technology, charge your vehicle within 20 minutes," she said.

Castlegar car salesman Terry Klapper — who sells the 2017 Chevy Bolt electric vehicle — says it's a great step for the region as sites like Nelson's new fast-charging station come online.

"I guarantee that you'll be seeing electric cars around the Kootenays," he said.

"The interest the public has shown … [I mean] as soon as people found out we had these Bolts on the lot, we've had people coming in every single day to take a look at them and say when can I finally purchase it."

The charging stations are set to open by the end of next year.

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UK Transport Policy Overhaul signals bans on petrol and diesel cars, rail franchising reform, 15-minute cities, and active travel, tackling congestion, emissions, microplastics, urban sprawl, and public health with systemic, multimodal planning.

Key Points

A shift toward EVs, rail reform, and 15-minute cities to reduce emissions, congestion, and health risks.

✅ Phase-out of petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

✅ National rail franchising replaced with integrated operations

✅ Urban design: 15-minute cities, cycling, and active travel

Could it be true? That this government will bring all sales of petrol and diesel cars to an end by 2030, even as a 2035 EV mandate in Canada is derided by critics? That it will cancel all rail franchises and replace them with a system that might actually work? Could the UK, for the first time since the internal combustion engine was invented, really be contemplating a rational transport policy? Hold your horses.

Before deconstructing it, let’s mark this moment. Both announcements might be a decade or two overdue, but we should bank them as they’re essential steps towards a habitable nation.

We don’t yet know exactly what they mean, as the government has delayed its full transport announcement until later this autumn. But so far, nothing that surrounds these positive proposals makes any sense, and the so-called EV revolution often proves illusory in practice.

If the government has a vision for transport, it appears to be plug and play. We’ll keep our existing transport system, but change the kinds of vehicles and train companies that use it. But when you have a system in which structural failure is embedded, nothing short of structural change will significantly improve it.

A switch to electric cars will reduce pollution, though the benefits depend on the power mix; in Canada, Canada’s grid was 18% fossil-fuelled in 2019, for example. It won’t eliminate it, as a high proportion of the microscopic particles thrown into the air by cars, which are highly damaging to our health, arise from tyres grating on the surface of the road. Tyre wear is also by far the biggest source of microplastics pouring into our rivers and the sea. And when tyres, regardless of the engine that moves them, come to the end of their lives, we still have no means of properly recycling them.

Cars are an environmental hazard long before they leave the showroom. One estimate suggests that the carbon emissions produced in building each one equate to driving it for 150,000km. The rise in electric vehicle sales has created a rush for minerals such as lithium and copper, with devastating impacts on beautiful places. If the aim is greatly to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, and replace those that remain with battery-operated models, alongside EV battery recycling efforts, then they will be part of the solution. But if, as a forecast by the National Grid proposes, the current fleet is replaced by 35m electric cars, a University of Toronto study warns they are not a silver bullet, and we’ll simply create another environmental disaster.

Switching power sources does nothing to address the vast amount of space the car demands, which could otherwise be used for greens, parks, playgrounds and homes. It doesn’t stop cars from carving up community and turning streets into thoroughfares and outdoor life into a mortal hazard. Electric vehicles don’t solve congestion, or the extreme lack of physical activity that contributes to our poor health.

So far, the government seems to have no interest in systemic change. It still plans to spend £27bn on building even more roads, presumably to accommodate all those new electric cars. An analysis by Transport for Quality of Life suggests that this road-building will cancel out 80% of the carbon savings from a switch to electric over the next 12 years. But everywhere, even in the government’s feted garden villages and garden towns, new developments are being built around the car.

Rail policy is just as irrational, even though lessons from large electric bus fleets offer cleaner mass transit options. The construction of HS2, now projected to cost £106bn, has accelerated in the past few months, destroying precious wild places along the way, though its weak business case has almost certainly been destroyed by coronavirus.

If one thing changes permanently as a result of the pandemic, it is likely to be travel. Many people will never return to the office. The great potential of remote technologies, so long untapped, is at last being realised. Having experienced quieter cities with cleaner air, few people wish to return to the filthy past.

Like several of the world’s major cities, our capital is being remodelled in response, though why electric buses haven’t taken over remains a live question. The London mayor – recognising that, while fewer passengers can use public transport, a switch to cars would cause gridlock and lethal pollution – has set aside road space for cycling and walking. Greater Manchester hopes to build 1,800 miles of protected pedestrian and bicycle routes.

Cycling to work is described by some doctors as “the miracle pill”, massively reducing the chances of early death: if you want to save the NHS, get on your bike. But support from central government is weak and contradictory, and involves a fraction of the money it is spending on new roads. The major impediment to a cycling revolution is the danger of being hit by a car.

Even a switch to bicycles (including electric bikes and scooters) is only part of the answer. Fundamentally, this is not a vehicle problem but an urban design problem. Or rather, it is an urban design problem created by our favoured vehicle. Cars have made everything bigger and further away. Paris, under its mayor Anne Hidalgo, is seeking to reverse this trend, by creating a “15-minute city”, in which districts that have been treated by transport planners as mere portals to somewhere else become self-sufficient communities – each with their own shops, parks, schools and workplaces, within a 15-minute walk of everyone’s home.

This, I believe, is the radical shift that all towns and cities need. It would transform our sense of belonging, our community life, our health and our prospects of local employment, while greatly reducing pollution, noise and danger. Transport has always been about much more than transport. The way we travel helps to determine the way we live. And at the moment, locked in our metal boxes, we do not live well.

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DOE Battery Workforce Strategy advances lithium battery manufacturing with DOE, DOL, and AFL-CIO partnerships, pilot training programs, EV supply chain skills, and industry-labor credentials to strengthen clean energy jobs and domestic competitiveness.

Key Points

An initiative to fund pilot training and labor-industry partnerships to scale domestic lithium battery manufacturing.

✅ $5M for up to five pilot training programs.

✅ Builds industry-labor credentials across the battery supply chain.

✅ Targets EV manufacturing, recycling, and materials refining.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in coordination with the U.S. Department of Labor and the AFL-CIO, today announced the launch of a national workforce development strategy for lithium-battery manufacturing. As part of a $5 million investment, DOE will support up to five pilot training programs in energy and automotive communities and advance workforce partnerships between industry and labor for the domestic lithium battery supply chain. Lithium batteries power everything from electric vehicles, where U.S. automakers' battery strategies are rapidly evolving, to consumer electronics and are a critical component of President Biden’s whole-of-government decarbonization strategy. This workforce initiative will support the nation’s global competitiveness within battery manufacturing while strengthening the domestic economy and clean energy supply chains. 

“American leadership in the global battery supply chain, as the U.S. works with allies on EV metals to strengthen access, will be based not only on our innovative edge, but also on our skilled workforce of engineers, designers, scientists, and production workers,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, “President Biden has a vision for achieving net zero emissions while creating millions of good paying, union jobs — and DOE’s battery partnerships with labor and industry are key to making that vision a reality.” 

“President Biden has made the creation of good union jobs a cornerstone of his climate strategy,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “We applaud DOE for being proactive in pulling labor and management together as the domestic battery industry is being established, and as Canada accelerates EV assembly nearby, we look forward to working with DOE and DOL to develop high-road training standards for the entire battery supply chain.” 

“I am glad to see the Department of Energy collaborating with our industry partners to invest in the next generation of our clean energy workforce,” said U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “While I remain concerned about our dependence on China and other foreign countries for key parts of the lithium-ion battery supply chain, and recent lithium supply risks highlight the urgency, engaging our strong and capable workforce to manufacture batteries domestically is a critical step toward reducing our reliance on other countries and ensuring we are able to maintain our energy security. I look forward to seeing this initiative grow, and we will continue to work closely together to ensure we can onshore the rest of the battery supply chain.” 

The pilot training programs will bring together manufacturing companies, organized labor, and training providers to lay the foundation for the development of a broad national workforce strategy. The pilots will support industry-labor cooperation, as major North American projects like the B.C. battery plant advance, and will provide sites for job task analyses and documenting worker competencies. Insights gained will support the development of national industry-recognized credentials and inform the development of broader training programs to support the overall battery supply chain. 

This initiative comes as part of suite of announcements from President Biden’s Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization—a partnership among the White House and nearly a dozen federal agencies committed to pursuing near- and long-term actions to support coal, oil and gas, and power plant communities as the nation transitions to a clean energy economy. 

This announcement follows DOE’s recent release of two Notices of Intent authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to provide $3 billion to support projects that bolster domestic battery manufacturing and battery recycling for a circular economy efforts nationwide. The funding, which will be made available in the coming months, will support battery-materials refining, which will bolster domestic refining capacity of minerals such as lithium, as well as production plants, battery cell and pack manufacturing facilities, and recycling facilities. 

It also builds on progress the Biden-Harris Administration and DOE have driven to secure a sustainable, reliable domestic supply of critical minerals and materials necessary for clean energy supply chains, including lithium, with emerging sources like Alberta's lithium-rich oil fields underscoring regional potential. This includes $44 million in funding through the DOE Mining Innovations for Negative Emissions Resource Recovery (MINER) program to fund the technology research that increases the mineral yield while decreasing the required energy, and subsequent emissions, to mine and extract critical minerals such as lithium, copper, nickel, and cobalt. 

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US Renewable Energy Transition is the shift from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and nuclear, targeting net-zero emissions via grid modernization, battery storage, and new transmission to replace legacy plants and meet rising electrification.

Key Points

The move to decarbonize electricity by scaling wind, solar, and nuclear with storage and transmission upgrades.

✅ Falling LCOE makes wind and solar competitive with gas and coal.

✅ 4-hour lithium-ion storage shifts solar to evening peak demand.

✅ New high-voltage transmission links resource-rich regions to load.

Generating electricity to power homes and businesses is a significant contributor to climate change. In the United States, one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity production, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Solar panels and wind farms can generate electricity without releasing any greenhouse gas emissions, and recent research suggests wind and solar could meet about 80% of U.S. demand with supportive infrastructure. Nuclear power plants can too, although today’s plants generate long-lasting radioactive waste, which has no permanent storage repository.

But the U.S. electrical sector is still dependent on fossil fuels. In 2021, 61 percent of electricity generation came from burning coal, natural gas, or petroleum. Only 20 percent of the electricity in the U.S. came from renewables, mostly wind energy, hydropower and solar energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and in 2022 renewable electricity surpassed coal nationwide as portfolios shifted. Another 19 percent came from nuclear power.

The contribution from renewables has been increasing steadily since the 1990s, and the rate of increase has accelerated, with renewables projected to reach one-fourth of U.S. generation in the near term. For example, wind power provided only 2.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 1990, doubling to 5.6 billion in 2000. But from there, it skyrocketed, growing to 94.6 billion in 2010 and 379.8 billion in 2021.

That’s progress, as the U.S. moves toward 30% electricity from wind and solar this decade, but it’s not happening fast enough to eliminate the worst effects of climate change for our descendants.

“We need to eliminate global emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050,” philanthropist and technologist Bill Gates wrote in his 2023 annual letter. “Extreme weather is already causing more suffering, and if we don’t get to net-zero emissions, our grandchildren will grow up in a world that is dramatically worse off.”

And the problem is actually bigger than it looks, even as pathways to zero-emissions electricity by 2035 are being developed.

“We need not just to create as much electricity as we have now, but three times as much,” says Saul Griffith, an entrepreneur who’s sold companies to Google and Autodesk and has written books on mass electrification. To get to zero emissions, all the cars and heating systems and stoves will have to be powered with electricity, said Griffith. Electricity is not necessarily clean, but at least it it can be, unlike gas-powered stoves or gasoline-powered cars.

The technology to generate electricity with wind and solar has existed for decades. So why isn’t the electric grid already 100% powered by renewables? And what will it take to get there?

First of all, renewables have only recently become cost-competitive with fossil fuels for generating electricity. Even then, prices depend on the location, Paul Denholm of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory told CNBC.

In California and Arizona, where there is a lot of sun, solar energy is often the cheapest option, whereas in places like Maine, solar is just on the edge of being the cheapest energy source, Denholm said. In places with lots of wind like North Dakota, wind power is cost-competitive with fossil fuels, but in the Southeast, it’s still a close call.

Then there’s the cost of transitioning the current power generation infrastructure, which was built around burning fossil fuels, and policymakers are weighing ways to meet U.S. decarbonization goals as they plan grid investments.

“You’ve got an existing power plant, it’s paid off. Now you need renewables to be cheaper than running that plant to actually retire an old plant,” Denholm explained. “You need new renewables to be cheaper just in the variable costs, or the operating cost of that power plant.”

There are some places where that is true, but it’s not universally so.

“Primarily, it just takes a long time to turn over the capital stock of a multitrillion-dollar industry,” Denholm said. “We just have a huge amount of legacy equipment out there. And it just takes awhile for that all to be turned over.”

Intermittency and transmission
One of the biggest barriers to a 100% renewable grid is the intermittency of many renewable power sources, the dirty secret of clean energy that planners must manage. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine — and the windiest and sunniest places are not close to all the country’s major population centers.

Wind resources in the United States, according to the the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Wind resources in the United States, according to the the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The solution is a combination of batteries to store excess power for times when generation is low, and transmission lines to take the power where it is needed.

Long-duration batteries are under development, but Denholm said a lot of progress can be made simply with utility-scale batteries that store energy for a few hours.

“One of the biggest problems right now is shifting a little bit of solar energy, for instance, from say, 11 a.m. and noon to the peak demand at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. So you really only need a few hours of batteries,” Denholm told CNBC. “You can actually meet that with conventional lithium ion batteries. This is very close to the type of batteries that are being put in cars today. You can go really far with that.”

So far, battery usage has been low because wind and solar are primarily used to buffer the grid when energy sources are low, rather than as a primary source. For the first 20% to 40% of the electricity in a region to come from wind and solar, battery storage is not needed, Denholm said. When renewable penetration starts reaching closer to 50%, then battery storage becomes necessary. And building and deploying all those batteries will take time and money.
 

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