Jim Frank, HiON founder and CEO, said that he is ready to crank them up but is awaiting Evergy’s completion - any day now - of final metering work at all the Kansas locations except one at Town Center Plaza. One local startup, HiON, has taken over the old Evergy fast chargers on the Kansas side of the metro. One rationale is that the federal government has ramped up significant subsidies to help rapidly build out EV charging along major transportation corridors - highways - and within urban areas. Many local EV owners have not been aware of the decommissioning of the units - and they have continued to wonder if they are just temporarily out-of-service.Įvergy, in response to Flatland inquiries, said it has come under pressure from Kansas and Missouri state utility regulators to get out of the EV charging business and turn it all over to private third-party operators. The communications technology linked to the chargers became obsolete and were withdrawn from service during the first three months of 2022, according to Evergy. In Kansas, subsidies are also thin but better, and the chargers west of the state line should be back any day now.Īs might be expected in any grand transformation of our basic urban infrastructure, hiccups are to be expected as we navigate the migration from fossil-fuel-powered transport to sustainable electric mobility.įor the roughly 20,000 EV owners in Kansas and Missouri, that hiccup is more pronounced because this region is much slower to embrace EV mania than the West Coast and Northeast.Ī Brief History of EV Fast Charging in KCĮvergy nine years ago deployed 15 direct current fast chargers around Kansas City to help remove or reduce the “ range anxiety” of its customers contemplating the purchase of an electric vehicle to help combat climate change. The disruption is more serious in Missouri, where state officials have put in place some of the lowest subsidies of any state for investors in charging infrastructure.
Evergy had pulled the plug on them as the technology became obsolete and state regulators in both Kansas and Missouri told electric utilities to get out of the vehicle charging business. Untold numbers of electric vehicles owners on the Missouri side of the metro have for more than a year had to do without fast chargers set up by Evergy. They slinked back home at low speeds, car heat off, to save juice. Then the two of them, with their “range anxiety” mounting, watched the charge dial on the return trip dip way too low. She raced out to Kansas City International Airport to pick up her boyfriend.
Sponsor Message Become a Flatland sponsorĪ Brookside woman recently was shocked to learn that fast chargers for her electric vehicle have gone dead on the Missouri side of the metro.
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