The US Southeast has for decades been the choice destination for automotive assembly plants. The industry is undergoing unprecedented changes as it migrates to electric drivetrain vehicles.
This shift in vehicle architecture has led to a change in manufacturing needs for the automotive assembly supply chain. This is great news for The Hollingsworth Companies. We have seen a spike in interest for new Tier 2 and Tier 3 parts manufacturers setting up new operations. We are currently working on three projects for companies adding capacity to service the new EV architecture of vehicles.
Because they owe their business opportunity to the surge in EV’s, those clients have been demanding that we make provisions to charge EV’s at their factories. That certainly makes sense to us.
We were surprised at the level of infrastructure investment required to service the employees at a facility. One of the hardest things to get a straight answer on is, “How long does it take to charge an EV?” There are many variables. How big is the battery? How drained is the battery? And how full do you want to get the battery? What is the car’s onboard charger rating? Those are all “in-the-car” questions. Then there are the charging station questions, is it a Level I, II or III? All that being said, you can charge your typical Tesla about 50% in four hours at a Level II charger in rough round numbers.
Charger companies have good software to help manage the utilization of the chargers. Assuming an average range on the EV battery of 250 miles and an average commute of 25 miles round trip, then it could theoretically last you two weeks on a charge.
So how many charging spots do you need at your factory? If you are getting about two charges to 50% per station per 8 hour shift and they only need to charge once every other week and you have 200 employees, it works out to about 10 charging circuits. That is an ideal case, but even companies that build EV’s for a living will not have all employees using EV’s.
But just those ten charging circuits represent a 400Amp electrical panel dedicated solely to EV charging. This is significant. This is the way of the future and if we don’t accommodate the EV’s now, it will only be more difficult and costly later.
