The City of San Diego has approved a plan to install more charging stations like this around town. The goal is to have them up and running within the next two years.
Driver, Osvaldo Herrera says, “The newer cars take like 30 minutes to charge so you can get here when someone starts charging or when someone is about to leave.”
That’s the situation Herrera says he’s constantly finding himself in, whenever he looks for a spot to charge his electric vehicle.
He’s owned an EV for the past four years, and says the biggest perk is the savings.
He says, “ My friends are spending more on gas and I was spending 10 to 12 dollars on a full tank.”
But, his biggest challenge is finding a place to charge his car while on the road.
Herrera says, “but there's not too many chargers at stations compared to other Cities where cities. Where there are 7 to 8 at each charging station. Here in San Diego there are maybe 3 or 4 if they work because usually there are only one or two that are working. “
The City of San Diego is looking to help with that. It’s going to rent out public space to the company “ True Upside,” which will run and operate all the chargers.
Under this agreement, the city can buy out the installed charging sites after 10 years.
The first phase of this project will start in the parking lots of city parks and libraries.
The next phase will include the parking lots of city beaches and city office buildings.
Herrera says he’s glad to hear, the city is making charging stations more accessible. He adds, “Right now there are only a certain amount of places for someone to charge. So everyone's bottle necking in the same places. But if you have more distributed throughout the city you won't have everyone at the same spot all the time.”
