Electric cars ‘remarkably efficient’
I always enjoy and appreciate Ole Hammarlund’s columns concerning sustainable energy topics. He discusses issues with which we all should be very concerned.
However, a recent column contains some statements which could lead to misconceptions concerning the charging infrastructure for electric cars (EVs).
The issues begin with the first sentence, which infers that some authority is preventing providers (hosts) of EV charging stations from collecting fees for the use of the chargers. This is not correct. There are no rules concerning whether or how much a host location may charge for the service.
Sun Country Highway provided (donated) all of the charging stations on the Island, and perhaps there is some confusion relating to the Sun Country charging station agreements with host locations.
Sun Country entered into agreements with most host locations specifying that they would receive the charging station free if they would install the unit and make it available to the public for a period of time at no cost to the user. Those agreements were private agreements, not involving any regulatory constraints, and they were entered into by host locations for their own reasons, but primarily because they saw the promotional advantage.
That brings up a second aspect of the recent column which needs clarification. A reader might assume from the column that charging an EV is a financial burden on the host location. This is not the case, for several reasons.
First, in most cases, charging an EV costs a host location pennies. This is partly because EVs are remarkably efficient in their use of energy. For example, Tesla Model S’s (4,850 pound cars) cost approximately two cents per kilometer to drive on Island electricity. Driving Nissan Leafs on the Island can cost as little one cent per kilometer.
Other EVs are similarly efficient. It is also true, as Ole points out, that local EV owners don’t normally charge at public stations in any event - we plug our cars in a night and are full each morning.
Second, EVs almost never consume a full charge at a host location. People go places because they need to be there for some reason. Very unlike gas stations, where no one would go if they didn’t have to, we are at a restaurant, a local attraction, or a hotel because it is a destination.
We charge our EVs for whatever time we are there, doing whatever it was that we came for. Again, pennies worth of power is consumed in those time frames.
Third, even that small cost to the host location is actually by far the cheapest promotion they offer. For example, most of us get discount coupons from restaurants, etc. that are worth several dollars each. Those coupons cost the host establishment far more than the cost of power which an EV will consume while its owners are dining at that restaurant.
Hotels are similar - very cheap incentives to book a room there. That, not regulatory restrictions, is why those locations don’t apply a fee for charging. It would compromise the promotional value.
Another issue which is raised in Ole’s column is the purported burden on the grid from all these EVs sucking up power. If only. But realistically, it will be far too many years before the density of EVs on the Island will even move the needle on grid usage.
For perspective, one heat pump consumes far more energy in a year than any EV driven on the Island. While there are a lot of issues with our crude 1950’s era grid, EV burden is not one of them.
There are many excellent points raised and discussed in Ole’s column — the provision of service for tourists, the role of government and businesses in the coming transportation transformation, the incredible capability of modern EVs, are all topics which are timely — even critical. I look forward to Ole’s next column.