Charging for all

The greatest worry about buying an electric car is: Where to charge up? For some, it’s at a charging unit in the garage and at charging stations found on an expanding map. But what if you don’t have a garage?

What if you live in an apartment 40 miles from work because that’s where you can afford to live and that is how far you must travel to work? It’s in your economic interest and in the air-quality concerns of all of us that you be able to drive a clean-burning electric vehicle. The state needs to ensure there is infrastructure in place to do that.

The California Air Resources Board is considering these questions today when it votes on a plan to roll out 2,600 to 3,400 charging stations in the state.

Electrify America, Volkswagen’s U.S. electric vehicle company, has proposed concentrating the charging stations in cities and along major freeways and leasing charging units to a growing number of electric vehicle owners.

At least one board member wants to see more efforts to work with communities to extend the charging infrastructure to rural areas like Imperial County and ensure there are units in apartment complexes where Teslas might be rare but Chevy Bolts could soon be commonplace.

VW agreed in a settlement to spend $2 billion over 10 years to develop charging infrastructure after CARB caught the German automaker cheating on its diesel emissions. The board needs to remember this is a penalty, not an investment plan. And that California needs charging stations for all.