A Talk with Patrick Anderson, CEO of Anderson Economic Group, on EV Charging Study
By Edward A. Sanchez – Oct. 26, 2021
It seems in today’s sensationalistic, confrontational culture, more often than not, civility and dialogue are portrayed as weakness and compromise, that you’re not “woke” enough to “Fight the Man.” Little did I think that my seemingly innocuous commentary on the Anderson Economic Group’s EV Charging Study would culminate in a personal phone conversation with its CEO.
It began with a terse exchange over LinkedIn messaging with Mr. Anderson. It turned out the article he had the bigger issue with was Car and Driver’s post. In deference to Mr. Anderson, I’m not going to post the live link to that article in this post, but it’s in one of my earlier posts, and not that hard to find on Car and Driver’s site, if you’re curious.
I politely replied, and simply said I took issue with some of the report’s assumptions, and ended with “I appreciate you taking the time to reach out and express your concerns. I hope we can reach a reasonable detente on this issue.”
He followed up with several more exchanges, culminating with “May I call you later today?” I openly accepted his invitation for dialogue, and sure enough, we had an approximately 20-minute phone conversation. I found him to be civil and rational, although I shared with him that I still took issue with some of the study’s assumptions.
However, the critique was not just one-sided. He specifically took issue with my assertion:
"My main issue with the study is that it makes the assumption that the majority of EV charging is (and will be) done on public chargers rather than at home."
He pointed out that in the "Luxury EV" scenario presented in the study, it made the assumption that 60% (0.6 in the table) of charging would be done at home. Furthermore, looking purely at charging costs (not some of the other externalities and variables that the study deals with, which I still have a bit of an issue with), the EV comes out slightly ahead of the ICE vehicle in terms of charging costs ($1,178 vs. $1,512).
AEG’s report compares costs of EVs vs. ICE. (Image courtesy AEG)
Some other EV blogs and outlets have been absolutely relentless in their disparagement of AEG, Mr. Anderson, and the report, making accusations of them being shills for big oil, and in the back pocket of special interests of one sort or another. I will not go there. In my conversation with him, he seemed eminently reasonable and level-headed, although I did give him a friendly ribbing for having a Porsche Taycan with a Level 1 home charger.
But I stand by my belief that the assumptions of this report still over-represent public charging, by and large. As I alluded to in my post, "Leading EV Blogger Says Level 1 Home Charging is Sufficient – I Disagree," if you have a single-family home and the financial means of having Level 2 home charging installed, you should consider it mandatory for a long-range EV. In this case, I can't help but think that Mr. Anderson’s personal experience with home charging and over-reliance on public charging might have influenced some of the study’s assumptions. But that's no reason to assume devious or deliberately deceptive motives.
I have extended an invitation to Mr. Anderson to be a guest on a future episode of The Watt Car Podcast, and sincerely hope he will take us up on the offer.
(Main image courtesy Porsche)
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