On a Dec. 3 bike ride I stopped by the North Albany park-and-ride lot, where the city plans to have an EV charging station built.
If the city council agrees, Albany is about to pay for the installation of public electric-vehicle charging stations in four locations around town.
The city staff estimates the cost at $2.3 million. Some $1.8 million of that would be covered by a federal grant. The rest, an estimated $460,000, would come from the city’s street fund unless private contractors come up with the money.
The charging stations would have four connections each, a mix of Level 2 and Level 3 DC fast chargers.
Three of the stations would be on city-owned lots: the park-and-ride off North Albany Road and Hickory Street, the parking lot at Two Rivers Market, and Albany Station. The fourth would be on a commercial property yet to be determined between Highways 20, 99EÂ and Interstate 5.
The agenda for the Jan. 8 regular meeting of the Albany City Council includes a resolution accepting a federal grant of $1,848,960 for the project.
The grant requires a 20 percent local match, or about $460,000, which the federal grant program says can be paid by the city or anyone else. The city staff proposes to solicit proposals from contractors willing to bear that cost.
If none can be found, the staff says in a memo, “Funds in this amount are available in the street capital and restoration fund.”
Last May, the council agreed to apply for the federal money for EV charging stations, so it’s not likely to question the project now.
One question might be why the street fund, which has no money to fix crumbling streets in the poorest parts of old Albany, now has money to subsidize chargers for vehicles mostly owned by the well-to-do.
Or someone might wonder why EV stations require taxpayer help at all? Why don’t the electric companies install these chargers on their own? (hh)
The Jan. 8 council agenda includes this map of where, in purple, the city plans to have EV charging stations installed.
The private marketplace should dictate the success and failure of products/services, not government.
But given the obvious national security issue, wouldn’t this money be better “invested” in a domestic battery value chain?
Global mineral extraction, processing, and battery manufacturing is dominated by China. Over three-quarters of the world’s EV batteries are produced there.
The U.S. should not allow China to have this power.
Hopefully the new administration will re-think where this “free” money should go.
EV charging stations should not be the priority for these dollars.
if money was to be made on charging stations, they would be all over the place. presidents mump is going to pull the plug on ev’s, and soon we will see them in tow yards, parked in fields, behind barns, etc. they must be towed to a charger. ya cant take them a $2 gallon of gas and a jump start. a couple-few hundred bucks for towing, plus shop cost and low resale value will have ev’s laying around the valley like beached whales. can anyone imagine vivek and elon approving this?
Elon definitely doesn’t have any preference for electric vehicles, in fact I think he is adamantly opposed to electric vehicles or any form of charging stations. Except for those with the Tesla name on them.
I approve of this use of my tax dollars. Charging cars with wind and solar can last forever, we can’t squeeze oil out of the ground indefinitely. Those of us who aren’t peasants (making more than 100k a year) love this idea. I would also like to increase our city gas tax so we can afford road maintenance. An extra $0.30 cents a gallon wouldn’t make a difference to me. Y’all need to get your money up if you’re up in your feels over $2mill getting invested in the future.
This is great to see! We need more of these around Albany!
As someone who is the opposite of well-to-do and has used the charging station at the courthouse, I welcome more charging stations in Albany. It would be nice if they were more spread out throughout town but hopefully this is just a start.
From what I can tell, based on my experience, the owner of the charging station gets to set the rate. There are a few places that have free charging in an attempt to entice customers but most charge per kwh. A good question that was not answered in the article was what the city is going to set the rates at.
From Investors Business Daily:
https://www.investors.com/news/ev-sales-q4-2024-auto-sales-gm-ford-tesla-toyota-honda-stellantis/
” GM’s EV sales jumped 50% in Q4 to 43,982 units, and vaulted 125% in 2024 to more than 114,000 units, the sales release showed.”
“Tesla’s U.S. sales fell 6% in 2024 to around 633,000 electric vehicles, Cox analysts estimated. Tesla itself does not break down its EV sales by country or region. Its U.S. market share dipped by a fraction in 2024 to reach 4%, according to Cox estimates. ”
“However, sales of Toyota and Lexus electric and hybrid vehicles jumped 53% in 2024, topping 1 million units for the first time, the company said in its sales release. Hybrid and EV sales made up 43% of total 2024 sales volume, helped by 30 model options, the most of any U.S. automaker, the company added. ”
“For the full year, Ford’s total EV sales jumped 38% to a record 285,291 units, including nearly 98,000 battery electric vehicles and more than 187,000 hybrid vehicles. In contrast, Ford’s sales of ICE vehicles were almost flat in 2024, increasing 0.2% to 1.79 million units.”
“On Friday, Honda reported sales of 1.42 million vehicles in 2024, an increase of 8.8%. Honda’s EV and hybrid sales jumped 19% in 2024 to around 349,000 units, the company said. ”
Hyundai/Kia: ” Both reported record annual sales. The Korean automakers have grown sales rapidly, on the back of strong EV lineups. In Q4, EV and hybrid sales shot up 64% vs. the year-ago quarter, Hyundai said. By comparison, its Q4 total sales increased 10%.”