With the price of gasoline on the rise, more motorists are looking to buy hybrid or electric vehicles.
Good news for them – there’s a place where you can charge your EV for free.
Scott Mercer pulls his electric motorcycle up to the charging station at Kahala Mall. And he can charge the bike for FREE. It’s not just because of the fact that he owns the company – everybody can charge up their vehicles for free.
"So we put up charging stations that are free to use and the stations are free for the mall and they’re paid for by advertising. We get local companies that sponsor the stations," Scott says.
Why this business?
"I started a car restoration company and found that I could either spend two years building a car or two years building a company. So, we wanted the future rather than the past," Scott says.
Scott’s company has been busy.
"We have stations all around Honolulu. Ten of them are these free to use stations that we pioneered. We’ve given away 2,000 free charging sessions at this point and over 60,000 miles of free driving for electric cars," he says.
And there are more electric vehicles on the road every day, according to Department of Energy vehicle specialist Margaret Larson.
"We’re about one thousand 16 or so and growing and we’re working closely with the Hawaii Auto Dealers Association and our other partners around the state to encourage the deployment of electric vehicles here," Larson says.
It’s true the energy produced for the EV’s comes from oil. But the same gallon of gas that drives a car 20 miles will drive an electric vehicle more than 60 miles. What if a commercial property was interested in installing charging stations?
"the state energy office recently published a guidebook to help commercial properties with the installation of charging stations. We partnered with a company called Plug In America to produce the guidebook and that’s available free on line at our website – electricvehicle.hawaii.gov," Larson says.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
