The public EV charging station on the city lot behind the JC Penney Building looked like this on Dec. 23, 2023.
Albany is still waiting to hear whether it will receive a federal grant to pay for installing four more public electric-vehicle charging stations at key points in town.
Back in May 2023, the city council authorized the staff to apply for the grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The four stations, presumably with multiple hookup points each, were estimated to cost $2.2 million. The council was told the grant would require a 20 percent local match, and $440,000 to pay this was available in the city street fund.
I asked Public Works Director Chris Bailey for an update, and she replied Tuesday: “I emailed the DOT a couple of weeks ago asking when decisions would be announced on the grant applications and haven’t heard back. I’ll try them again.”
Last spring the staff said it was working with Pacific Power to identify suitable locations for the charging ports. Two of the potential sites were identified as the park-and-ride lot off North Albany Road and Albany Station, the train and bus depot.
This sounds logical since those are places where owners park their vehicles for extended periods and it takes several hours for Level 2 chargers to refuel an electric car. But it also makes me wonder about this:
If you drive your EV to the charger, plug it in and then hop on a bus or a train, who is in charge of disconnecting and moving your car so that particular parking slot is not tied up for the whole day, or until you get back?
OPB ran a story last week saying the state Department of Transportation planned to install 370 EV charging ports across the state in 2024. The story quoted an ODOT spokesman to this effect:
“There are three different types of EV chargers… The first level usually takes two or three days to recharge a vehicle. Level two is the next tier up, which can usually charge a Tesla in about six to eight hours. These are the type of chargers being installed. Level three could recharge a vehicle within 30 or 40 minutes. There are fewer level three chargers nationwide since they are more expensive to install.”
The more you read about the time it takes to recharge EVs, the less practical the whole concept of public charging stations appears. Seems to me that the only places where Level 2 chargers make sense are employee parking lots where drivers leave their vehicles for several hours at a time. During their breaks they can go out and move their cars.
And that’s when the chargers work, which the one Albany had installed off Water Avenue in September 2021 usually doesn’t.
On Dec. 23, the display on the city’s charger had an alarm code that signified “communication with auxiliary power module is broken.”
It said the same thing when I checked a year ago. That’s not a reassuring message for anyone counting on a public plug to charge his EV. (hh)
As somebody who owns an EV, it cost me a little over a $1000 to install a type 2 charger in my garage. Where does the government come up with these outlandish cost estimates? I would suggest that somebody ask Walmart who installed their 4 Level 3 chargers and what did it cost them or whoever paid for the installation.
That’s $2.2 mil of OUR TAX DOLLARS. It just uses multiple govt. sources so they can have duplicate employees doing the same job to make things less efficient.
Get a grant from Pacific Power? Where do they get this extra money?
Let’s put $2.2 mil into street repairs.
Why should the taxpayers subsidize the owners of EV’s? Is the city going to also give taxpayer money to the gas stations? How about fixing some of the terrible, potholed roads in town, instead? That would be benefit all drivers, not just the Tesla drivers (even the ones who can’t seem to even put a front license plate on). No wonder our taxes are the second highest in the country!
The incompetence of the workings of our city government never ceases to amaze me. It is good that we have you, Hasso, to ask them questions now and then. And, you aren’t getting paid a government salary. You don’t even have a measly expense account like our “revered” Council members! Thanks, Al Nyman, for suggesting the city talk to Walmart about the cost of installing their Level 3 EV chargers!
Who would want their auto out of commission for 2 to 3 days, at home or especially on a public lot? I thought the purpose of charging stations was to give people the opportunity to take a road trip. Level 2 stations should be placed at decent motels / hotels. Level 1 stations at coffee shops, restaurants and Albany’s tourist district (downtown). Level 3s are totally impractical for public use.
Let the EV owners pay for them! I can’t afford a car, yet I have to subsidize somebody else’s $40-60K (or more) car.
According to Hasso’s research, Level 1 EV chargers take 2 or 3 days to charge. They wouldn’t be appropriate to put in at a coffee shop, etc. What are you thinking? Hasso said a Level 2 charger takes 6 to 8 hours to charge a Tesla. (I don’t know if a Tesla charges quicker than other models or not.) A Level 3 charger charges in 30 to 40 minutes.
Why did you say a Level 3 would never be needed? Seems to me they would be the best charger to have.
If the chargers could disconnect themselves. Is the electric car capable of parking itself?
Hold on just a second…
You mean I just paid $64,338 for an EV that won’t get me to Mount Shasta AND I have to put up with a charging station that may not work or is being occupied by an EV-charger hog?
I’m experiencing a serious case of post-decision dissonance.
Sadly, you might not even make it to Medford! Probably no chargers at or near Mt. Shasta anyway. Good luck!
If you have an EV and a level-2 charger at home, I presume you are intelligent enough to actually use the home charger as designed. You know your car’s range. Why would you ever need to use a charger at the “public” stations? It’s like getting in your non-EV with 1/4-tank full and expecting to fill it up at the train/bus station (or public parking lot) because you couldn’t remember to plug it in at home. Regardless, a *minimal* number of pure-EV vs. hybrids are being sold.
“Had a quarter of a tank of gasoline and expected to fill tank at train station because you couldn’t remember to plug in at home?” What? Is that a mixed-metaphor statement, or are you talking about a gasoline/battery-operated hybrid? You, as usual, got a dig in there about a person’s intelligence, but most of your writing is unclear. (Yeah, when I was a kid, we had a barrel of gasoline at home that Dad bought at a wholesale price from a legitimate outfit. Farmers could do that. But, the 1950s are gone. Anyway, even now you can’t “plug in at home” a solely gasoline-powered vehicle.)
I have a EUV. It runs like any gas vehicle It cost me $30,000 new
and a $7;500 federal tax credit that will reduce it even more and a $500 prepaid charging card.
I can get to Grant’s Pass on a single charge and most Walmarts have charging stations. From there I can get to my sister’s in Mt.Shasta EV users know where to charge. Google says Albany has 41 charging units.
Buying no gas and not having to do oil changes more then offsets the car payment. For the kind of driving I do to Portland north and Eugene south and all over the valley it’s carefree and no exhaust. Pull into my carport at night and plug in. Like charging a cell phone. Many cities like Portland have free chargung units. Car makers are going to adapt to the Tesla charger because rhey are the most numerous units out there.. I see out of state EV’s on I-5 all the time. Somehow they made it here. :)
Then obviously there is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for the rest of us TAXPAYERS to subsidize your “fuel costs”!
41 charging stations? Kind of hard to justify $2.2 Mil for 4 more.
41 charging units in search result…depends upon how far out of Albany you still consider Albany as that count includes several points well outside the city limits. Of the total, several are limited access/restricted (YMCA, car dealerships) or haven’t worked in a long time/ever (the one in downtown, the one at Fred Meyer). In practical terms, the only useful units that are actually in Albany are at Walmart and LBCC.
His digs are considered intelligent observations. What’s that old saying if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. All the city officials have unofficial BS degrees. They work you over then act like you just won the lottery. They get the goldmine and you get the shaft. Seems fair to them we do get something, empty pockets.
traffic cams, chargers, and albany’s homeless population continues to increase. $2,2 mill for 4 chargers that will benefit a few people. how many tiny houses could be built with that money? …….the power company has money to chip in? where did that money come from??
Federal Government is funding the chargers .
It is part of of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2022.
If we have “matching money” available in the street fund, why are we not using it for streets? The state of streets in our town is shameful. Priorities people!!!