Editor:
Plans by the City of Delta towards the charging of electric vehicles is a good thing that, properly spaced, serve to help those who forget the letter “E” on the fuel gauge doesn't mean “Enough” fuel left to get home.
To have “free” charging spots, at this juncture, is only to encourage EV adoption (soon to become metered and patrolled).
Public charging stations are not camping spots. They are put there to allow motorists to get to where they're going, and cleanly. With almost all electric vehicle drivers in our area able to charge their cars at home, public charging stations are seen as being for emergency fueling only (or are a perk for business customers' use).
This is to say we generally just take-what-we-need-and-move on. Putting a “fee” for emergency fueling at public stations is expected (and welcomed) by myself as, even if I am charged 45 cents per kwh of energy (about seven cents a kilometre), that's still just half what it cost when I had my 2003 gasoline-driven car (at 14 cents per kilometre).
Charging an electric car at home (overnight) means the cost of driving is between 1.5 and two cents per kilometre here in B.C. Another bonus is getting into a nice, pre-warmed car in the morning, windows defrosted, seats warmed. What's not to like?
By the way, in response to a letter writer last week, we bought our EV used at three years of a lease, sold to us at about half the cost of buying a new EV. The letter writer might just want to check that out.
Bill Hamilton
