 We are going to talk today about generally electric vehicles and their future in Hawaii, their glorious future in Hawaii, and in specifically about electric vehicle chargers. But before I introduce my guests, let me give a little bit of an overview all of our viewers know that Hawaii leads the way in the nation in declaring that 100% of our electrical energy will be clean. No fossil fuels by the year 2045, which is not far from now. And Governor E. Gay has also declared a goal of 100% clean ground transportation by 2045. Now that is a real challenge. How are we going to achieve that? Number one, we're going to have a lot more renewable energy, photovoltaics all over the place, farms on the rooftops, and most of that photovoltaic energy stored in big storage batteries so we can use it at exactly when we use it. We will have so much of that, though the dream goes and our efficiency will have brought down the consumption of electricity such that the photovoltaics can make up for the difference and that will include enough electrical energy to charge electric vehicles and trucks and buses. How's that for a dream? Well, to hear two very renowned experts on achieving that dream for Hawaii, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Jim Burgess, CEO of Aloha Charge and Ember Stone, Vice President of Business Development. Aloha Charge, welcome and thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having us. Why don't one of you just launch right in too? I've done a little feature of electric vehicles, start there and then segue into the products that you're offering and how you will promote them and how they will turn us green. Sure. I think the big point that everybody watching should make is that electric vehicles are inevitable. Countries all over the world are saying that they're going to stop allowing the sale of gasoline diesel vehicles by 2025, 2030, 2035, et cetera and now even some cities are getting into the act where Amsterdam said just last week that no more petroleum-powered vehicles will be allowed in the city after 2025 and San Francisco said the exact same thing about 2040. Even the automakers are now saying they won't make any more gasoline vehicles after a certain point. The city's Benz, for example, is 2039. This is the wave of the future. There's no way around it. It's just a question of how fast are we going to be ready for it? What are you guys going to do about it? We work a lot of hours to try and put as many plugs around the state as we can. Does this say Hawaii franchise of a national organization? Division. Division. But yes. And you, as I understand it, you represent a lot of different brands of electric vehicle chargers. Yeah. At Aloha Charge, we represent six different brands of charging stations and one of the reasons why that's so important to us is when we're dealing with a customer or client who has a charging need, we can address their need directly. So it's not necessarily about pushing our particular product on someone. It's really addressing what their needs are, how can we fulfill it with the best product possible. And that's why I think Aloha Charge, we're really great in that way. And that segues right into a very important question for those of our few viewers who are not sophisticated. I understand there's a level one, a level two, and a level three. What in the world is that all about? Sure. A level one is really a trickle charge. It's based on 110 power. Every car that you get off the lot has a charging cord in the trunk that you can plug into your garage or any other 110 that you find, but it's slow. You're going to get maybe three to four miles of range for every hour you're plugged in. What is much more common in commercial settings and also in most people end up putting them in their garages is level two. And that's going to be about four times faster. So 20, 25 miles of range in an hour. And then from there, we go to DC fast charging. And HECO, for example, has quite a few DC fast chargers they put throughout the state. And those are 200 miles of range an hour and are getting faster and faster. So we're starting to see technology where the fill time is almost what it is with liquid fuel car. Real fast. Real fast. Yeah. Almost not enough time to stop and buy a soda, buy a pizza. Okay. So I happen to be the energy building codes guy for the state. And in just a few days, like today's Monday, three days, as you're well aware, the Hawaii or Honolulu City Council will be hearing a bill to adopt a new energy building code. And we have managed to slip into that building code, the requirement that for residences in their garage, they shall be EV ready. And for multi-story buildings, high rise apartments and so forth, they shall be EV ready, electric vehicle ready. Would one of you like to explain the benefits of having a, well, having a dedicated spot on your electric meter or the electric vehicle and then having running a conduit right to where you anticipate the charger station is? So all you have to do is unscrew a plug, and there is a receptacle, plug it in, and that's it. Well, maybe not quite that simple. So is there any benefit to having this done before the concrete is late or the asphalt is late? Yeah. I'd love to speak to that. I think one of the biggest challenges that I see here when we are trying to install electric vehicle charging stations is the infrastructure upgrade. Specifically when you're talking about a tall high rise, a multi-unit dwelling, a condominium, an existing office building. I'd like to compare it to data about 20, 25 years ago. We were building buildings without any capability for data wiring. And it was because it was only kind of up and coming thought. It wasn't a real big thing. Can you imagine a building now without data cables? You know, it's not anything that we can even imagine. So it's something that we had to go back and retrofit. If you look back and you look at the cost of all of that, it was fairly extensive in most buildings. And so when you think about electric vehicle charging stations and the goals of our state and where we're trying to head with transportation, we're going to need charging stations in every single building that we have in order for people to get to work, go to school, think of their kids, whatever it is that they need to do in their daily lives, they're going to have to be able to charge. Whether it's at their home, if it's a multi-unit dwelling, at their home if it's a residence, or at their workplace when they do travel to work. So I think it's really important for building codes moving forward because obviously in existing buildings, existing residences, there's nothing we can do. We need to go back. We need to retrofit. But for anything up and coming, it's so important that we have that law in place so that we're not going back and spending millions, if not billions more, later to retrofit a building that could have been, a problem that could have been solved from the beginning. Just as an example, let's keep it real simple and do a single family residence, compare a single family residence without EV ready. What would you need to do to get it, EV ready, versus the dirt is on the ground and trenches are being thing, wire conduits are going everywhere on the bare ground? What is the, compare A to B, what steps would you have to go to if you had an existing home with no EV ready accoutrements? Approximately 10 cents on the dollar to do it at new construction versus to retrofit, whether it's commercial or residential. Commercial is really where it makes a big difference though. And this is not something that's new to Hawaii. A lot of other markets around the country have done this, especially in California. Just last week, I had a chance to visit a property in Palo Alto, California. And they've had this law in place for a couple of years now. And so I visited a commercial office building that had electric raceways all around the perimeter of the garage. And in the electric room, they had a massive panel ready for electric vehicle charging, a transformer that was dedicated to it. But then next to it was an empty pad for another transformer and an empty service panel for when the entire garage really was full. And one thing that isn't really talked about very often is when you have these codes that forces the architects and designers to think about, where are they putting the electric core room? Are they putting it in a place that's going to be a lot easier to access, as opposed to buried somewhere deep in the building that's going to be very difficult to get to? And just to kind of address as well your question about the residential, I mean, I think when you asked the question, you painted the picture right there, you know, all of the things that you would naturally do prior to building in order to get a home EV ready, you would do, if it wasn't, if you're retrofitting, you would have to do. So you'd have to dig up your driveway. You'd have to figure out if you have enough power capability. And if not, how are you going to get enough power capability? And let's say your electric box is on the other side of the property from where your parking garage is or where you're going to install your charging station. You're going to have to dig up a lot of cement, landscaping, even running, you know, wires through your home. So there's a ton of work. I mean, it could be as simple as changing a dryer outlet to an EV outlet, or it could be a ton of work and a lot of investment. And if you're looking at a residential home, that's one person, that's you yourself having to, you know, bear all of that cost. So it could be pretty substantial. And I'm gathering that Honolulu, assuming it passes this bill, is not the first city in the nation to have a requirement like this? No, not at all. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Denver adopted it. So we're seeing this all over the country. And reading about other proposals in other cities also. Typically the developers squawk a little bit. And then a couple of years later, they come back and say, wow, that was really smart to do. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the hearing on Thursday. It is. We will be there. Let me read something from the New York Times. For car makers and utilities, synergy in energy, and this has to do with EVs. Smart Charge, a company in California, you're probably familiar with it, is beta testing with Honda fit owners in Southern California. Car owners download a free app and select referred charging times. The software computes the best time to charge, considering the car's owner's preference, how the electricity is being generated, and pricing signals from the electric grid. It goes on. This is really futuristic. And Hawaiian Electric is beta testing, time of use pricing right now. And what we're getting currently is the fact that we have so many PVs out there, photovoltaics, that in the middle of a sunny day, the electric generation from them exceeds the ability of the utility to absorb all of that. So just for your information, I chair the Hawaii Building Code Council. And we quickly passed the 2017 National Electric Code because it has four provisions specifically regarding storage so that the plan checkers and feel safe that this charging station is being properly sized and properly cited, no danger to anybody. And Hawaiian Electric is seriously considering time of use pricing because they want the customer to absorb as much of that midday electricity as possible and then not use it at night. At night, all the school kids and homeowners are coming home, putting everything on. And in a tourist society, all the tourists are coming home from the beach from shopping. All the hotels and the bars and restaurants are going to great guns. We need to smooth that peak. Absolutely. And what we've seen around the country in both surveys and experiences is that consumers do respond very positively to time of use price signals. Even a small differential will change the behavior of my brother plugs in his car at 3 p.m. when he gets home from doing his job. And then he waits until 6 p.m. to actually let it start charging because that's when the rates drop for him. Yeah. And on that cherry note, we need to take a break. This is Code Green Hawaii. Amber, Stone, and Jim Burgess, my honored guests. Be back in a moment. Hey, hello, everyone, and welcome to the ThinkTek Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of the Three Matters Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time, trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know, issues that can protect your family, protect yourself, protect our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Keisha King, host of At the Crossroads, where we have conversations that are real and relevant. We have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in Hawaii and all around the world. Won't you join us on ThinkTekHawaii.com or on YouTube on the ThinkTek Hawaii channel? Our conversations are real, relevant, and lots of fun. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Good afternoon again, Howard Wig, having an exciting discussion about electric vehicle chargers. What could be more exciting? Well, to a certain subset of the population, it is very exciting because it is the future. So we've gone into the generalities about the importance of EVs. They are coming, charging stations, pricing. What are you doing in Honolulu or Hawaii specifically? Who are you meeting with? Who are your clients and so forth? Short answer is anyone that's willing to meet with us. This is still so new. There's a lot of what we do is education and talk to people about what they need to plan for. Our biggest sector is probably multifamily, especially because there's so much density in Honolulu. But we also speak with workplaces, with municipal governments, state governments, and even some retail facilities as well. There's really not, oh, hospitality is also another very fast growing area. One thing that we're starting to see around the country is there's about a million EV drivers in the US right now. And they travel. And so rental car agencies are starting to put electric vehicles in their fleets and they need a place to charge overnight. So we've been speaking with a lot of the hotels out there saying you really need to have this to attract these drivers, not only locally, but the people that are flying in and now want to rent electric vehicles, whether it's from the traditional rental agencies or facilities like Turo, where private party that is allowing people to drive their electric car for them. Yeah, well, one of the concerns with electric vehicles is range anxiety. Am I going to run out of juice with no charger in sight? On this island, we're kind of unique because I think from Honolulu or Waikiki to the North Shore, the furthest point is maybe 21, 22 miles. And then if you go around the other side of the island, it's another 23 or something miles. We saw a report that HIKO estimated that no spot on the island is more than 16 miles from a charging station at this point. Yeah, and that's just going to get better and better. And I read that there is a charging station going up in Haleiva, which is the town way on the North Shore. Yeah, it's actually up already. Yeah, so I mean, I think range anxiety is very real. And the funny thing is just like you said, in Hawaii, it's just a matter of education. We really are never going to go anywhere where we should ever run out of charging. And it's the change in lifestyle. I think for people who are new to EVs, like Jim coined this term, which I love, it's like, what did you call it? When you buy your first EV, you should get a plug-in hybrid because it's a gateway car because you have the safety of the gas backup with the greatness of being an EV. And it can help train your habits. So a lot of people, we did an internal study at National Car Charging with some of our clients and over 80% said that they actually plan their day based on where they can charge. So they will shop at a retail location that offers charging, even better if it's free charging. And they will live in a place where there's a charging station. They will be more likely to frequent our park somewhere where there's a charging station, whether it's in the parking lot or nearby. So people really start to change their habits. So even though there is range anxiety, over time, it's something that people learn to deal with and adapt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Target actually did a study. They put in charges at a lot of their locations and they found that the EV drivers spend almost twice as much money as their non-EV drivers. And so the first two hours are free and then they charge $2 an hour after that. But for those first two hours, it's a very small amount of money and electricity to get them to spend a lot more in the store. Wow, I was about to ask, why free? You just gave a great answer. Are you aware that there are some shopping centers in Honolulu? Oh yeah, absolutely. It's a small joke. Well, and that's a really great point as well because there are several shopping centers on Oahu, one of the really big ones that offers completely free charging. Now what Target has done is really great because it offers free charging, which incentivizes people to shop there. But at the same time, after two hours, it starts charging. So it doesn't allow people to just sit and park there. So I mean, if you're an EV driver, I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that if you go to one of the bigger shopping malls, there might be free forever charging. And it's like the lottery if you actually get the opportunity to charge there. So it's really important that not only are we installing charging stations, we're installing smart charging stations so that we are encouraging driver, positive driver behavior and turnover so that everyone has the opportunity to charge. Yeah, we've run into that problem at the airport. It was quite a bruja. Where people were sitting there forever, free airport parking, as opposed to $18 a day. So the cars were just sitting there. And we've heard stories of people that would go park in one of these free spots and they get on the bus and go to work. Which kind of negates the purpose of having it there in the first place. Yeah. So important to have smart thoughts about when we do install charging stations as well. This is one of the subtleties we're gonna have to work out. Absolutely. And in terms of here on Oahu, I might be a typical example of a Honolulu driver. In the morning I drive four and a half miles to my gym. From my gym to office, one and a half miles and maybe a detour or two coming home, maximum another five and a half, six miles. So I would get along very easily with a Type 1 charger. Absolutely. Yeah. Someone just asked you this question the other day and if you're a typical Hawaii driver, a Level 1 charger is absolutely sufficient. It comes with your car and you can plug it into your existing outlet at your house. So that's really fantastic and it's good news for most people. And on top of that, there are opportunities to charge at retail locations, commercial locations. Hopefully more workplace charging will come along with a lot of the new rebates that are coming out right now. So there'll be a lot of opportunity and so the range anxiety can start to subside with that as well. And that actually brings up a good point. Right now there are some fantastic rebate programs going on. Ulupono Initiative and Hawaii Energy teamed up and they offer some pretty extensive rebates for Level 2 charging in multifamily and also at workplace. I hope they will be testifying on Thursday for the council. I'd be surprised if they weren't. Yeah, the rebates very, very, very definitely help. Our attitudes, if you have to do it at some point, you might as well get a little money back for it. And that in turn gives incentive to convert to EVs. Absolutely. I bet you've done some studies about the cost of running a gas powered vehicle per year versus running an EV per year. I bet you have those numbers in your head. My wife is a good example. She had a 31 mile commute door to door and in her gas powered vehicle, she was spending $150, $200 a month on gasoline depending on whether it was high or low. It wasn't the most efficient vehicle in the world. And when she converted over to an EV, it went to about $30 a month in electricity. So 200 to 30? Pretty much, yeah. That's an 85% savings. It made a huge difference. And now that was a Chevy Volt, a gateway vehicle, a plug-in hybrid. And then when the lease ended on that, she said, all right, I'm ready for an all electric because she came to appreciate and understand what the dynamic is driving an electric car. And I think we did kind of look at even specifically HECO numbers and if you are taking advantage of the time of use rates, you can across the board kind of say that it's about at least a third of the cost of driving a gas powered vehicle as opposed to an electric vehicle when you look strictly at gas versus electricity pricing. And what about maintenance? I, just to be cautious, my guilty gas powered vehicle, I take it into my dealership every six months and they do a soup to nudge checkup on everything, tell me if I need anything. And the cost is $60, every six months I consider that a bargain. What maintenance is involved with an EV? There's very little, essentially tires, washer fluid, even Tesla got rid of regular maintenance or the Volsen said, come in when you need it. So there's no oil changes, there's no transmission fluid changes, there's no timing belts or aircon belts. It really, there's very few moving parts compared to a gas powered car. So not a lot that can go wrong. I have an electric vehicle that I bought at 8,000 miles. I now have 56,000 miles and I've been to the dealer once and that was the fix the heater. And that's 56,000 miles? Or is that mainland miles for us in Hawaii? It's like 10 years. And eventually the battery is going to need replacing. But something I've heard is that it's the juice isn't all the way out of there, it's not dead, the way lead acid battery goes dead. It still has a lot of juice left in it. It can then be used by utilities or whoever is feeding into grids. Absolutely, there's a very fast growing market for what's called second life batteries. I had an opportunity last March to visit a soccer stadium in Amsterdam. And they have a huge room underneath the city and it looks like a server room, a computer server room. But it's actually deconstructed and reformatted Nissan Leaf batteries that no longer were good for the car. But it allows the soccer stadium to run for half an hour completely off the grid if it has to. And there's a higher demand for these batteries than supply right now. Wow. Meaning you, when we turn in a lead acid battery, we have to pay a disposal fee, but instead the EV owner would get some small compensation for the old battery or? Oh, absolutely, yeah. There's going to be a huge market for that. Wow. I think on top of that, another side of that is as an EV driver, you have to pay to replace your battery. And a lot of people are scared of what that cost looks like. And I think already where we're at, battery prices are decreasing at such a rapid rate that they're becoming so much more affordable. So it's not as big of a fear and people should start to really do a little bit of research and understand that. I mean, I think right now Nissan's running a special. I'm pretty sure that it's still going on, but the previous owners, if needed, that needs to replace their battery can replace it for $5,000. And that's still a fairly high price, but it's continuing to drop at a rapid rate. But I mean, if you consider you're getting a whole new inside of your car, so you basically have a brand new car for $5,000. It's not a bad deal. I think compared to the cost of a new transmission. Yeah, it's still not a bad deal, yeah. And on that very cheery note, we need to bid all the due to Amber Stone and Jim Burness. Thank you very much. Thank you, thanks for having us. And wish you every success in making Hawaii an EV leader in the nation. Thank you, Aaron. See you next time.