The Cordell-St. Elmo Public Parking Garage 40 in downtown Bethesda is staying up-to-date with the times. New electric vehicle charging spaces are being installed at the Montgomery County-owned parking deck, which is located at 4935 St. Elmo Avenue. The garage remains open during the project.
17 comments:
So this is all going to be 'free'? Good to see my tax dollars paying for people who can afford a completely clean, no pollution whatsoever, $80k Tesla.
Got it.
10:11 - Such a great point. No one says anything close to what you stated. Yes, they will be free for those who have Tesla's and others even more expensive than you suggest. So we, the taxpayer, pay for the station and the power used to juice up their luxury ride? Nice.
It's still a tiny amount.
No, chargers aren't free, Einstein.
Robert - where are these located? Are that in prime spots?
Depending on the type of chargers, there may be a significant infrastructure cost which will be subsidized by the taxpayers. Either way the rabbit hole dug by EV's and the grid support they require will all be exposed as the very same people push for over reliance on renewables.
Questions: Will the charger spots have a meter that the user has to feed during the time the EV is charging, or will the parking while the car is charging be free?
Will the charging spots be available to non-charging cars when no one is using the charger or in them?
Once a car is fully charged, will there be a requirement for it to be out of the space (if there is no meter)? If not it could be abused with someone every morning parking there as they get to work and leaving it there the whole day, every day, so it would be their personal parking space (or a nearby resident could permanently leave their car connected to the charger, even if it is fully charged).
Who will be tasked with enforcing the rules for the charger (especially if there is no meter), or will it be just up to the honor system like chargers in private lots? If it is the police or county meter enforcement, will some of the revenue generated by the company owning the charger go back to the County to pay for the enforcement?
According to MCDOT, there is a fee to use the charging stations:
"Customers are required to pay $0.13 per kilowatt hour to charge their vehicles, in addition to paying the same parking fee as other vehicles in the garage."
More info (including garage locations) here: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dot-parking/ElectricVehicle.html
If it's like the chargers at other county garages in Bethesda, you have to pay the usual parking fee, and also a charging fee to Chargepoint, which is the company that runs the chargers.
So the only benefit is the charging stations are usually in good locations, but there's no loss of revenue.
@1:22AM
Terrible policy
The person parked in the charging spot should be charged (at least) the full charging rate for the entire time they're parked in the spot, regardless of whether they are actively charging.
Otherwise we get the problems 6:25PM mentioned with cars camping out and blocking.
Also, check this out from page 2 of the MoCo EV parking plan: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/DOT-Parking/Resources/Files/EV_OverviewPlan_Public%20Update%202021.pdf
>>"on balance, the Division doesn’t expect to fully recover its capital investment expenses due to the disparity between the high costs of EV charging stations in relation to the nominal fees paid by EV charging station users."
Massive, permanent subsidies for wealthy Tesla owners: confirmed
That's not nearly enough charger spots.
If electric cars are truly going to go mainstream, condo and apartment buildings will also have to retrofit chargers into their garages for residents. It will be a massive undertaking to run wires through conduits and install the necessary charging infrastructure. We are many years away from that being done to any appreciable scale.
So non-EV owning taxpayers are on the hook infrastructure upgrades and road repairs because EV's don't pay road tax which is charged as a percentage of every gallon of fuel sold in the state.
Sounds like welfare for the rich much like Brandon's student loan forgiveness plan.
@10:42 There is a lot more than just basic charging infrastructure as the grid is not setup to handle high loads necessary by lots of EV chargers unless they're all Level 1, (equal to about 4-miles of range per hour of charge). Good luck with that.
Meanwhile shortsighted leftists are turning off nuclear, oil & natural gas power plants thinking that renewables will always work with little or no environmental consequences. Wonder how EV's fared in FL during and after Ian?
@4:31 PM: You are completely right about that. The grid isn't ready to support and feed the charging infrastructure that would need to go in these buildings. We're going to have to have a charging infrastructure investment that's on-par with the investment that was made for the National Highway System, and the government has shown no hesitation about printing money to do just that. In fact, it'll probably be even higher because as you said there aren't enough power generating plants to support them anyway, and they'll print money in an attempt to get enough renewables, which won't ever be enough. It's like trying to feed the world on organic food. It's a great virtue signal, but the crop yields just won't sustain the planet not to mention how labor intensive and wasteful it is.
Pepco's Maryland Environmental Fuel Source Information (Reported June 2022, which is the most current): https://www.pepco.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Pepco%20MD%20Enviro%20Fuel%20Mix%20Insert_5.22_final_ADA.pdf
ENERGY SOURCE (FUEL MIX)
January 1, 2021 – December 31, 2021
Coal 22.03%
Natural Gas 38.18%
Nuclear 33.11%
Oil 0.18%
Fuel Cell 0.03%
Other 0.01%
Renewable Energy
Captured Methane Gas 0.26%
Geothermal 0.00%
Hydroelectric 1.28%
Solar 0.89%
Solid Waste 0.52%
Wind 3.36%
Wood or other Biomass 0.17%
Unspecified Renewable 0.00%
Total 100%
Renewable energy sources subtotal: 6.47%
vs.
Reported June 2021: https://www.pepco.com/MyAccount/MyBillUsage/Documents/Pepco%20DC%20Enviro%20Fuel%20Mix%20Insert_5.21_final_ADA.pdf
ENERGY SOURCE (FUEL MIX)
January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020
Coal 19.44%
Natural Gas 39.84%
Nuclear 34.49%
Oil 0.16%
Fuel Cell 0.03%
Renewable Energy
Captured Methane Gas 0.30%
Geothermal 0.00%
Hydroelectric 1.29%
Solar 0.48%
Solid Waste 0.52%
Wind 3.30%
Wood or other Biomass 0.15%
Unspecified Renewable 0.00%
Total 100%
Renewable energy sources subtotal: 6.03%
......
Compared to the prior reported year (2021), Total Renewables went up by .44
However:
Coal increased by 2.59
Natural gas dropped by 1.66
Nuclear dropped by 1.38.
Looks like more coal power was needed to charge those EV's.
I support these EV chargers as long as they put "Energy Facts" signs on them like nutrition labels which say how they're powered:
"Majority powered by Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear... with a worthless few percent of "Renewables" that probably kill birds in flight."
Kudos to Montgomery County for making this happen while keeping the garage open during the project.
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