At last month's council committee meeting a proposal from KCP&L to install electric charging stations was moved forward for the council to consider. More info is at this article in the Shawnee Dispatch.
The agreement calls for KCP&L to install ten of these chargers, for use with electric vehicles, on city property. The costs of the installation to be absorbed by KCP&L. The kicker that comes into play is that the city would pay for the electricity used for two years. The current estimate for that is $400 per station per year.
Jeff Vaught questioned as to why more of these stations were not planned for western Shawnee. In his statements he intimated but didn't say that it would be folks in that part of town that were more likely to spend the money for an electric vehicle. The KCP&L representative said that since Westar Energy handled most of western Shawnee, that that would be up to them. Hmmmm, doesn't he know who his electric provider is?
Anyway, another comment by Vaught was interesting. From the article: "Vaught said putting the charging stations at public facilities also gives the city the option of purchasing some electric vehicles in the future." Since most of these vehicles only get 60-80 miles on a full charge I'm wondering how many vehicles the city would obtain? How effective are they? My question is why, if the cost of these vehicles is such that there are a limited number of folks who can afford them, should the city absorb the first two years of the charging station costs?
My thoughts: If ya can afford one of these cars, you can afford to pay for the electricity and you need to be happy that more charging stations are being installed. The council IMHO should approve the installation of these units, but not absorb two years worth of electrical costs.
DTJVSD
