The space may be tighter but there'll be a lot more of these EV charging stations in NY in the coming years.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the Big Apple to be “wired and ready,” and wants to have the city add 10,000 public parking spots for electric vehicles over the next seven years.
The proposal would require that a fifth of new parking spaces to be charging stations for electric vehicles. Zoning laws in New York require the construction of new parking spaces along with new building construction, usually in the form of parking garages under or next to the building. According to the mayor’s office, about 10,000 new parking spaces are added each year in this way.
“This year we’ll pilot curbside vehicle chargers that will allow drivers to fill up their battery in as little as 30 minutes,” the Mayor is expected to say according to an advance copy of the State of the City speech he will deliver today. “We’ll work with the City Council to amend the Building Code so that up to 20 percent of all new public parking spaces will be wired and ready for electric vehicles.”
The City currently has 100 public charging stations and 120 for the city’s own fleet of EVs. Thirty more government stations would be added under this proposal.
Battery car proponents contend that a significant upgrade of the nation’s infrastructure – notably including the addition of EV chargers, is required to encourage motorists to switch from conventional, gas-powered vehicles.
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Building public charging stations however is no easy task. As experience in other cities has shown, building codes, utility cooperation and construction permitting can all slow or impede installation of EV charging stations on public streets.
Private companies began installing public charging stations in New York City in 2010. According to a New York state initiative last year, there were about 400 charging stations set to be live by April 2013. San Francisco city government offered free charging in about 20 public garages at one point. Houston has built, or plans to build about 50 charging stations.
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Under the mayor’s NYC proposal the city would also initiate testing of curbside charging with two chargers that can fill batteries in as little as 30 minutes, rather than the standard eight hours. One would be in Seward Park, a middle class apartment development and park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The second station will be just for electric taxis, located at the ConEdison Building. This year six all-electric Nissan Leaf taxis will join the more than 13,000 yellow cabs already on the road. The winning model for the Taxi of Tomorrow, also by Nissan, is designed to enable retrofitting run as an electric vehicle if testing shows that’s workable and preferable.
The mayor is also expected to announce that the city will add 50 new battery electric cars to New York’s municipal fleet, which already includes 458 plug-in electric cars, the third largest EV fleet in the country after the federal government and General Electric.
This story first appeared on TransportationNation.org.
As long as the Mayor and EV owners are willing to pay for the 10,000 EV chargers and tax payer money is not used, go for it. Tax payer money isn’t used to build gas stations and it should not be used to build an infrastructure to support impractical EVs that already receive an income tax break – which is wrong.
The EV’s from major car makers are also subsidized by other auto sales. In addition many of the EV makers have received tens of millions of dollars of tax payer money to build impractical, unreliable, unsustainable EVs for the few tree huggers that exist.
Furthermore EV owner’s should be taxed by state and federal governments as they no longer pay fuel taxes which are included on on fuel used for highway vehicles. This means EV owner’s in addition to all of the improer tax breaks and subsidies they are receiving, are also not paying their fair share to maintain the roadways – via gas taxes.