John & Angela wrote:



Interesting article although it seems to suggest (or maybe I'm reading to much into it) that EPA or clean air regulations are in some way a detriment to our lives because of higher fuel costs. If that is there intention, that would be nonsense. I have travelled to places in the world that don't have governing bodies in place like the EPA and it is not a pretty or healthy situation.

Other than our motorhomes fuel needs we have found the switch to Electric vehicles to be a huge step forward...for us anyway. I know the electric vehicle is not the right answer for everybody depending on their needs and certainly doesn't make sense in all areas depending on how power is generated but it still surprises me that there is not a faster embrace of the technology by the commuter crowd. There is so much mis-information out there. The big trick is getting people to take a test drive. AFter that it is pretty simple. Even shopping malls and places like costco I think are missing the boat a bit in setting up charge stations. It'll come but I think it will be slow in coming on this side of the pond.

jfkmk wrote:

What do you mean by malls and Costco missing the boat on charging systems? Do you mean they should be setting them up? Who would pay for them?

The reason I ask is, I had an interesting conversation with someone who owns a Volt. Here in New Jersey, electricity is relatively expensive. So I asked him that, given the price of electricity and the higher price of the EV, did he feel he was saving money. His answer was that of course he's saving money, the state university he teaches at provides free charging for EVs. Hardly a fair comparison to gas, is it? I could save a lot too if my employer paid for my gas.

jfkmk wrote:



What do you mean by malls and Costco missing the boat on charging systems? Do you mean they should be setting them up? Who would pay for them?

The reason I ask is, I had an interesting conversation with someone who owns a Volt. Here in New Jersey, electricity is relatively expensive. So I asked him that, given the price of electricity and the higher price of the EV, did he feel he was saving money. His answer was that of course he's saving money, the state university he teaches at provides free charging for EVs. Hardly a fair comparison to gas, is it? I could save a lot too if my employer paid for my gas.

LindsayRichards wrote:

Our town has two solar charging stations (adjacent) that after 2 years are awaiting their first customer. It was put in for free by a federal grant.

NJ source of electricity

John & Angela wrote:



Yah, you know they do the same stupid stuff up here. What are they thinking. They put these publicly funded ones in the dumbest of places. Colleges, city hall parking lots, libraries. If they really feel the need to spend tax dollars to put in charging infrastructure to encourage electric vehicles then do local studies to find out where they would have the most usage. We have one down town on a public lot thats actually not to badly located. It's a few extra blocks to most of the stuff we need but still doable. If I am down town for a couple hours we use it. On this one it is tap and go with the credit card. Technically you are just paying for parking and since you have to pay for parking anyway, what the heck.

Plug share is a good app and I can see where some places including malls are getting on board. It'll get better in time.

tomman58 wrote:


Here in the D we have many charging stations and from what I gather plenty more to come. I think with the new electrics coming out in the next couple years the demand will grow a lot.
We loved our Volt and would have gotten another but it sounded like so many new ones were in the pipeline we would wait for a couple years before getting our next one. I might add several areas here are "free" charge zones!