Past meets future as historic Annapolis Royal installs Tesla charging stations
If you’re driving one of Elon Musk’s Tesla cars, you might want to keep Annapolis Royal in mind.
According to Tesla’s location map there are four charging stations in Nova Scotia. Add the two new ones installed in Annapolis Royal last week and that makes six.
While the map doesn’t show them yet, the Tesla electric car charging stations in the historic town are located at the entrance of Canada’s oldest National Historic Site – Fort Anne.
The town’s Mayor Bill Macdonald contacted Tesla after being approached by a local resident with the idea after that man had been talking to a Tesla owner in Lunenburg where there is already a Tesla charging station. Other Tesla charging stations are located in Yarmouth, East Kemptville, and Bedford.
“I followed up, spoke to the fellow, got some information, learned about Tesla’s program of funding,” said Mayor Macdonald April 26, the day after the stations were installed. “So the town applied, got funding for two charging stations. Tesla pays for the installation, Tesla gives us the charging stations free of charge, and the town covers the cost of electricity.”
Finding the perfect spot wasn’t easy.
“We looked all over town for an appropriate location. There was much discussion about not wanting to take away existing parking spots, thinking maybe creating two new spots,” said the mayor. “In large part it came down to in many respects the visibility of them, the marketability of them. We chose a spot immediately adjacent to Fort Anne National Historic Site. In fact, the charging stations flank the main entrance into the fort, and really does reflect the past meeting the future.”
Macdonald said as a marketing tool for the town and to excite Tesla owners to come here, that visual of the Tesla stations with the historic Fort Anne officers’ quarters in the background is a million-dollar shot.
He said he was excited to see the profile of the Tesla charger.
“They’re very stylish, they’re very small, they’re very unassuming, they’re put in a place where they are safeguarded so vehicles can’t bump them or knock them. They don’t take away, in any way, from the historic landscape, the cultural landscape of the town.”
He said when council looks at any initiative that is going to modernize elements of the town or anything with respect of the town, they’re always aware of how that’s going to look in the general landscape.
“The whole town – 95 per cent of the town – is a national historic district and the characterization and the definitions of that are all set out in our designation,” said the mayor. “It talks about the architectural elements of the town, about its features, about its scale, about its livability, about its quality of life – all of those things. That’s uppermost certainly in my mind in everything I look at for trying to be innovative and creative and bringing something modern or bringing something innovative to the town.”
Macdonald described the electric car charging stations as the first green initiative of the new mayor and new council.
“This council wants to look at other ways that we can bring in green initiatives,” Macdonald said. “Our recycling program in the town was started with the last council. This is kind of a continuation of it. In fact I understand there was some discussion in the past by the last council about whether to put in charging stations.”
He said he and council were excited to seize the Tesla opportunity as their first green initiative and will be looking for other similar ventures.