The sky was grey and dreary, and it was just beginning to drizzle late Sunday afternoon. Kingston resident Bill Baird pulled off Washington Avenue into the parking lot shared with the Bank of America to charge up the battery in his electric vehicle (EV).
“We went skiing today, so we used a bunch of battery. But it was nice this morning,” said Baird, acknowledging the clouds overhead.
The drive to Belleayre and back runs about 75 miles. Baird said he could count on a range three times that. He can go farther in the summer, when the battery isn’t being drained by powering his heater.
“I was just planning to charge for 20 minutes,” explained Baird. He stopped by even though he owns a charging apparatus at home. “It’s a rainy day, why not?”
Why not indeed? The first Level 3 Direct Current Fast Charging site in New York State is in this Kingston parking lot, a half-mile off the Thruway exit.
Underwritten by federal investment dollars and lit up with lime-green neon stripes at night, the 350-kilowatt-hour (kWh) charger hub offers four parking spaces serviced by dedicated outlet towers. The fast-charging pumps fill most electric-vehicle batteries in 40 minutes or less, a blink of the eye compared to the hours it takes with the old 150-kWh chargers.
Baird admitted he wasn’t sure how the electricity was generated to power up his vehicle. “New York Power Authority is the sponsor,” he said, pointing to the logo on the charging station, “but I don’t know where they buy their power.”
Wind, solar, hydroelectric, or the burning of fossil fuels… Wherever it comes from, Baird has already climbed one leg over the fence to living in a future of electric cars powered by renewable energy. He and his wife just installed solar at home, so charging the car there powers the battery straight from the sunlight.
“We’re feeling good about it,” said Baird.
This charger site is a major step forward in creating a vast network of such stations. The $175 million cost made possible by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) formula program created through a 2021 federal law will support the strategic deployment throughout the state.
New York State’s second annual NEVI formula fund apportionment of $37.4 million pushes along a plan to establish an interconnected network for reliable roadside charging every 50 miles or less, with an emphasis on locations near interstate highway exits. The charging site in Kingston is one piece of the expansion of the “EVolve NY” fast-charging network that the state Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) have partnered to complete.
Another EV driver who pulled into recharge, Gurinder Singh of Levittown, appreciates any consideration paid to the frequency of charging locations. Driving up regularly from Long Island to the Town of Hunter gives him real-world perspective.
“The Electrify America station last week was broken,” said Singh. “But the website wasn’t showing broken.”
Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, operates the charging station in Kingston which has been working, then not working, over the last two weeks.
“It’s getting better,” said Singh, referring to the network he encounters between up and downstate. “It’s a disaster in New York City. In the five boroughs, they don’t have any single charger. Only JFK has one. I’m from Long Island, so near me Gardentown in Long Island has one. My house has two chargers. So that’s not a problem. But you don’t buy a car to keep it home.”
If you can charge at home, though, the price is much lower than at the new charging sites in Kingston. A residential customer in the month of December pays $0.10546 per kWh of electricity. Electricity for driving is being sold at $0.40 per kWh.
Both Baird and Singh had purchased their vehicles with perks not unusual across the industry. “I haven’t even done the math,” Baird admitted. “When I bought the car, it came with three years of free 30-minute sessions. It’s free. I mean, I pre-paid for it when I bought the car.”
Like Singh, Baird charges at home at much as he can.
“Every day I start, with a full battery,” he said. “It’s just trips you have to plan ahead for. But it’s getting better. There’s a lot more fast chargers available. So for now, it’s mostly okay. But it can be annoying. For instance, when you get somewhere and a couple charges are broken or someone’s already charged 100 percent, but their car still plugged in and they’re not there. And then it’s like, where are they?”
The point of driving electric is to move forward into the coming energy transition. For now, that means transferring the emissions from millions of decentralized, wandering automobile exhaust pipes over to the thousands of remaining stationary gas- and coal-powered electrical plant smokestacks where those emissions can be monitored, filtered, attenuated, or captured entirely until the time other sources of emission-free electricity generation produce at the level needed to take their place.
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