28 Jan 2026
I thank the society of automotive engineers for organising a 2 day power packed conference on current status and the future of EV charging in North America.
As many of the presenters noted, EV charging is now being viewed as an infrastructure problem, not a niche technology that needs to be proven. The focus is on scaling charging ubiquity, grid-integrated vehicles and commercial viability.
Some hard problems like megawatt-scale thermal limits, urban curbside access, and standards interoperability still need to be solved but it's almost certain that they will be in due time. If we look at the history of US innovation it's clear that the country has become very good at building new technological infrastructure. Credit cards ,ATMs,internet and many more examples prove this point.
It was quite clear after listening to the speakers that US policy makers are going to go all in on EV technology. Critics often point out some notable blind spots in the policy that often get glossed over like grid capacity & interconnection reality, reliability of charging stations , uptime,cybersecurity issues at charging stations, UX,access in rural communities ,recycling and workforce availability.
While these are real challenges none of them would actually prevent or jeopardize the rollout of EV charging infrastructure by an administration that is making a steady, disciplined,sustained effort towards realising its vision.
The reason is that electrification is already an important infrastructure problem that is prioritised by the government. EV chargers don't require anything radically new. It's simply scaling technology that already works. Charging stations won't require any more security or maintenance than say ATMs. People who could afford an EV would already have electrical access at home and could easily buy an L2 charger or install a station to provide faster charging.
It was interesting to note that the industry is positioning EVs as grid assets, not just loads.
Vehicle-to-home (V2H) during storms or other disasters could provide backups. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and bidirectional charging could be used for providing resilience, backup power, and load flexibility. From a technical point of view there is nothing wrong with these ideas but would vehicle owners be actually interested in vehicle to grid /home connections? Yes, in a disaster scenario (which happens occasionally) it might be useful but electricity is so cheap that sending power from vehicles back to the grid won't lead to any substantial gains for the owner.
Nearly 25.7M ports will be needed to realise the vision of ubiquitous charging in USA.
Some ideas like Level 2 charging at parking, lampposts, curbside and utility poles and street infrastructure reuse are highly promising but will require substantial investment to repurpose the existing installations.
A key point to be noted here is that while it's true that poles and utilities have been installed in big numbers in streets and along roads, they are not nearly enough to provide charging for everyone. Considering that L2 chargers still require hours at minimum for a full charge, existing charging points can only fulfil the demand partially. New ports will be needed and how is this charging to be carried out once they are installed? Where are cars supposed to be parked when they recharge at charging points on highways? Charging time is a real bottleneck. HVDC chargers might solve this issue but there seems to be no plan to develop them at the moment.
Megawatt scale charging systems will be needed for electrification of heavy transport systems like trucks and buses. On a megawatt scale heat starts being a system-level constraint. These systems need careful engineering of wire and contact resistances as well as active cooling systems to dissipate generated heat. They are slightly more complex but megawatt scale power systems are handled quite easily by distribution companies. No reason why they can't work for EVs too. Like other chargers time to a full charge would be a big bottleneck. Vehicles will need to be parked somewhere while they charge.
Further developments like Tesla network interoperability , J3400 / NACS and “Bring Your Own Cable” standards ,ISO/SAE charging performance testing and Common certification and testing frameworks improve the prospects of rolling out a nationwide EV charging infrastructure. While these developments are US focussed other nations in Asia and EU would be watching very closely and looking to adapt these standards to their own nations as EV popularity grows. Not much different from how internet standards gained adoption through the 90s and early 2000s.
Charging station economics presents another challenge. It's unlikely that the government will own the entire infrastructure. They will need help from private players. Private investment will not come in unless profitable paths can be identified. Here too precedents exist. ATMs,credit cards and gas stations have all been successfully monetised. No reason to believe that assets deployed for charging can't be monetised as well.
Deployment is local,even when policy is national & the conference presented an opportunity to learn about deployments in Kansas, Colorado and Tennessee. It would be interesting to see how EV charging demand competes with power demand from other important projects like data centers.
Batteries have become reasonably robust, with EV battery packs lasting several years (sometimes a decade). Recycling is a problem that has not yet been solved. On the minerals side Li remains heavily concentrated but demonstrations of Na ion as a viable alternative to Li makes batteries look even more attractive. On the motor side Nd magnets rule but Iron nitride systems can work as an alternative.
Copper concerns remain but recycling of copper is a solved problem and more copper discoveries would be made in the future that would overcome any short term stress that the material is facing today.
It is due to these reasons that I could understand and share the enthusiasm of the speakers. It looked quite clear to me that we are not going back to Internal Combustion Engines—the challenge now is execution, economics, and integration with the power system.
But this brings us to a very pertinent problem. What happens to the engine manufacturers? Car companies are investing heavily in EV and since the car and the engine are usually made by the same company, it sounds like the end of the road for heat engines. Except for use in aircraft and ships where batteries are too heavy to be used effectively it does indeed appear that we are moving towards an all-electric future.
The confidence around an all-electric future reflects North America’s unique grid maturity and capital depth, not a universally scalable energy paradigm.
However there is one aspect where engines still hold the edge. That is in their versatility. Some kinds of engines like the Stirling engine can be used reversibly to convert either heat into mechanical work or mechanical work into cooling. They can be integrated with solar heat,or in nuclear,geothermal ,gas power plants. They can perform nearly any kind of mechanical work directly via heat so they become excellent support systems for thermal energy storage and require no functional materials like magnets or conductors and can handle high powers and are extremely tolerant of materials limitations.
It is important for engine manufacturers now to assess where the future is headed and work on strategies that can help maintain their position in the market.
Stirling engines,doubling as heat pumps /compressors that can find their way in several industries from desalination to comminution and can serve as a single platform uniting the several different thermal energy industries(nuclear,solar and gas) could prove to be a valuable asset and a common point of cross collaboration.
Even in the transportation sector Stirling engine could play a decisive role as hydrogen becomes cheap and its advantages namely ease of production and light material requirements make it more attractive than electric vehicles. By continuing to advance the stirling technology and applying it in marine sectors where competition is far less fierce could position the traditional automotive sector ,built on the heat engine, very favorably from where it can influence several non automotive sectors and control a niche from where it can effectively compete with an all electric tech.
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Akshat Jiwan Sharma
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