|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The town of Danville has opened the first of two public electric vehicle charging stations planned for downtown parking lots.
The station, with dual ports allowing two vehicles to be charged at once, is set up in the Clocktower Parking Lot near the corner of West Prospect and Railroad avenues.
“The new charging station is a welcome amenity to electric vehicle users in the region, many who come to shop, dine and do business in downtown Danville,” Nat Rojanasathira, assistant to the town manager, said in a statement this week. “The next nearest charging station along the I-680 corridor is in San Ramon and Walnut Creek.”
The cost of charging at the Clocktower station is free through June 30, after which users will need to pay 30 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity used. There’s a posted three-hour parking limit, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the two charging spots.
The town plans to open another two-port charging station for public use at the Railroad Avenue Parking Lot in late summer, according to Rojanasathira. The Danville Town Council in December also approved installing four single-port charging units at the town offices for use only by town vehicles.
The new public station is part of the ChargePoint network, the largest electric vehicle charging network of its kind in the Bay Area, according to Rojanasathira.
Yay!
Can anybody tell me what the average cost @ 30 cents per kWh would amount to?
Hi Lee,
Thanks for the question. The way that it will work is that it will depend on the type of vehicle connected and their maximum charging rate over the three hour allowable parking limit.
Some examples:
Chevy Volt – max charging rate 3.3kWh – $ .99/hr
Nissan Leav – max charging rate 6.4 kWh – $1.89/hr
Tesla Model S – max charging rate 7.2 kWh – $2.16/hr
It will pretty much boil down to the electricity usage over the three hour time frame.
Hope this helps!
Thanks.
Geoff
Geoff Gillette
Public Information Coordinator
Town of Danville
(925) 786-5304
e-mail: ggillette@danville.ca.gov.
Wonderful, my 2011 Leaf charges enough at 240 volt (which I assume these new chargers are) to get home at the end of Rudgear Rd from Danville (6 miles) in under 1/2 hr. I will, of course, unplug and move my all electric car from the charging parking spot as soon as I have enough to allow others to get the charge they need. I plug in at night (cheapest PG&E rate) to normally charge in my garage, just as I plug in my cell phone to charge at night at home. My iPhone app will show these new ChargePoint locations, as well as if available to charge in real time.
I guess it is a moot point now, but where is the extra parking that we need? Any one from any town can use these charging stations, so the Danville taxpayer is paying again. Shouldn’t there be a requirement that at least it be Danville residents if Danville taxpayer pays? Also, they took out much needed parking spaces. Right now the parking lot at Clocktower is full most of the time and definitely weekends and so is the Railroad parking lot. Wait til the new retail and condos are occupied. It will really be jammed. Danville is getting too crowded. Thanks town council and planning commission.
What is the Town’s stated “justification” for having us Taxpayers give away the land for parking spaces (and free electricity through June) to certain others?
Why is any government subsidizing any industry? Let each industry stand on its own two feet, not upon government handouts from taxpayers with no say!
We all are accepting this forced taxation and redistribution of funds, like sheep!
Simply someone’s “liberal” agenda of social manipulation by governmental decree.
Nice for a certain segment of people. But just pure discrimination.
Now the Town is in the Electric supply business. Great, a new empire-building department with personnel and costs to be in competition with private enterprise efforts and yet able to survive even if grossly inefficient.
Brain-washed Council, Thanks for nothing!
Please state the legal authority for the Town to take this action with Taxpayer money.
Why didn’t we have Cities build gas stations for us in every town? (Figure out that reason and then apply that logic here as well.)
PSM,
Oil companies are very heavily subsidized by the government.
Thank you .. this is a good way to encourage more electric/hybrid vehicles on the road. I would go even further and designate some parking for only green cars/SUVs.
Everyone should be allowed to charge at these stations, what a BS comment to require residency, how will you enforce it? Moron!
Love forward thinking towns!
Again. Where do you think this electricity comes from? How much oil is burned to produce electricity? What a scam!
Thank you, Lee!
To reiterate: Where DOES electricity come from?
EV Driver:
Regarding your claim that Oil Companies are “subsidized”, how so? Please elaborate your logic.
One thing though, the Government does not take away lots of public land from general/equal use and build Gas Stations on public land and give away free gasoline, does it? It doesn’t get in the business of running Gas Stations for the public, does it?
Why not? Why doesn’t the Government provide a Gas Station in every public parking lot?
From the leading industry lobbying arm – American Petroleum Institute (http://www.api.org/policy-and-issues/policy-items/taxes/truth-about-subsidies): “The U.S. oil and natural gas industry does not receive “subsidized” payments from the government to produce oil and gas. However, there are many provisions in the tax code that allow companies to recover their costs. The oil and gas industry are eligible for these deductions, which are similar to, if not the same as, deductions available to many other industries.”
I think the angry fellow is actually correct. The ‘Oil Companies’ don’t receive significant subsidies from the Federal government, although the Treasury department actually classifies them as subsidies (est. @ $4.7BB for FY2015, http://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf).
These are just gentle “provisions in the tax code that allow companies to recover their costs”…like all the rest of us get…. :-0
Susan and Lee,
Most of my electricity to power my house and my car comes from the sun. We’ve had a lot of solar spills lately, I call them sunny days.
They said it was crazy to build a house with double pane windows in California in the 1970’s…Now we all have them. There’s a long lists of things “that will never succeed” one of them is the iPhone. Open your minds.
“Regarding your claim that Oil Companies are “subsidized”, how so? Please elaborate your logic”
” American Petroleum Institute (Web Link): “The U.S. oil and natural gas industry does not receive “subsidized” payments from the government”
The Oil interest lobbying group says it doesn’t get subsidies… but does get tax breaks.
The oil depletion allowance is a tax-break subsidy for pumping oil out of the ground. See relatively neutral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_depletion_allowance
It’s about 4-5 billion a year, which is close to real money.
An argument about whether its a “tax break” or a “subsidy” is word games — it’s money other taxpayers have to make up for not having to spend on other things by the government.
Two spaces isn’t a very big impact on parking, so that’s a pretty thin argument as well. There are that many spaces consumed with loading zones and construction diversions and very-careful fire-turn lane markings. If it makes downtown “more attractive” for shopping and its paid for like metered parking, that seems well within reasonable city powers.
I do wish more businesses with lots would consider adding such things to make themselves more attractive vs. competitors — Andronico’s, perhaps.