The whole notion of municipalities providing charging stations for electric vehicles is a good one, a service that could be used in marketing the region to the growing group of environmentally-conscious tourists, especially those coming from the Lower Mainland.
A good idea, that is, if the chargers are accessible and easy to use.
The City of Parksville is quite proud of its new charging stations.
Some e-mails have been flying around about the chargers, specifically related to use by the city’s director of planning Blaine Russell, who owns a Chevy Volt (a hybrid that can use both electric or fuel power).
The chargers in Parksville — two at city hall, one in community park — are free to use. One must call a toll-free number located on the charger and it is remotely activated. Russell could use it free of charge, too, but he is voluntarily paying $20/month and charging his car while he works so he can get home to Nanaimo every day (well, 20 days a month that he works).
Russell also reports that he got 2,000 km out of his last tank of gas because he has been relying on electric power. Not sure where that fits in all this, but it was a shocking number we just had to get in print.
We originally thought this was a great marketing tool, but further inspection shows some glitches, or perhaps more accurately, some discouraging features. It’s not anyone’s fault, but it seems this technology is still very new.
For instance, Russell can only coax the Volt for 50 km on electric power before he has to re-charge (other electric-only models can go 100 km before needing to be re-charged). What’s worse, it takes three-four hours to fully charge the car.
The City of Parksville received grant money to purchase and install the chargers. Thank goodness for that, because when one considers the limited range of the cars and ridiculous amount of time it takes to re-charge, these units are clearly not as exciting a development for our municipalities as some people would have us believe.
Wake us up when the technology catches up to the hype.
— Editorial by John Harding
