By: Diane Benjamin
Doug Fansler recently filed a FOIA request with the Town of Normal concerning their EV charging stations:
Can you please provide details of usage of Town owned charging stations like those in the parking garage (Tesla and all others? If there is a report, please share that with me. Otherwise I would like to know how many stations there are, where they are located and how often each one is used including charging duration and electrical costs for each station. I know Tesla stations are lit and require power all the time. Please include that if possible for power costs. If known, are these used by local or traveling users?
Town response:
Bottom Line:
Taxpayers in Normal paid for most of these charging stations, they aren’t cheap. Another FOIA will be filed for the cost.
Taxpayers of Normal are paying for the electricity used by anyone who charges their EV at one of these stations.
Congrats, the Town of Normal doesn’t know the cost.
If they don’t know the cost they don’t have to analyze it to see if they should be charging for use. Koos has previously stated installing meters was too expensive.
So they can refuel their vehicles Free of charge?????? Un freaking believeable.
Oh the vehicle charging is NOT free – us dumb tax payers are paying for the electricity!
So basically, the electric car owner can operate his car on our dime.
And no gas taxes to fix the roads
Tesla pays for their charging stations because they can only be used by Tesla’s. Normal taxpayers pay for the electricity.
All other EV’s that charge on the universal chargers in Normal, Normal taxpayers pay for the charging stations and the electricity. The Normal taxpayers pay for the electricity.
The people who drive EV’s need to pay the price of electricity and the meters should be on time of day pricing. For example during our current heat wave the price of electricity at peak hours in the afternoon and evening is frequently over 9 cents per kWh while overnight the price is around 3 cents. Should there be no time of day price signal, people charging at peak periods will increase the likelihood of a system overload and black out and increase the cost to all other electric customers. Having credit card or debit card pay stations at the charging stations is already available. All air for tires at gas stations is paid for mostly by a card. A few still accept cash. Electric utilities have remote smart meters that can measure kWh consumption instantaneously.
I am sure glad that petroleum fuel vehicles were not invented today. The gas stations and all the fuel would need to be paid and operated by the government to get horses off the roads.
In the long run EV’s will fail for a number of reasons. In the short term, isn’t if fun to be virtuous? Why I bet with that much virtue you can walk right through a flashing train crossing in front of others and not feel a smidgen of shame. What a life!
Just wait for the delivery of the electric buses…
I will figure out some kind of reward to the first person who sends a pic of a dead battery bus.