Mayor Bloomberg wants New York City to have 10,00 new electric vehicle charging stations in seven years. There are currently a mere 2,069 EVs registered in the city. So, if they build the beginnings of a charging network, will more people buy EVs? We will see…
The proposed charging stations will take just 30 minutes and some of them will used by Nissan electric taxis. But is a 100-125 mile range enough for a taxi on an 8-10 hour shift? Dunno. Seems like they’d have to recharge at least once during a shift and constantly have to be be checking their charge. “Oh sorry, I can’t take you to JFK airport because the taxi would run out of juice on the way back.”
Hmm, this means the rich in NYC could find it much easier to find parking spaces by the simple expedient of buying an EV since the new parking spaces would presumably be EV-only.
Yeah, I’m a bit skeptical of this since it seems quite expensive, only a few would benefit, and the future is probably in hybrids. An EV might make a good car to zip around Manhattan in. However, owners will need their own charging stations in their garage at night.
http://youtu.be/63X8T10wAeI
The video show how EVs are still in their infancy. Smartphones apps let EVs owners find charging stations and determine if they are available. That’s a nice (and essential) app to have. However, if you are driving around Manhattan on a busy day running errands or going to business meetings, do you really need the hassle of locating a charging station then waiting 30 minutes? What’s the advantage of this over a hybrid for a driver?
And if by chance EVs really take off and there are 100,000 of them recharging at any given time during the day in New York City, then maybe we will need new sources of electricity too.