Free charging irks lawmaker (Thoughts?)

Kinja'd!!! "Nymphicus Hollandicus" (nymhicus-hollandicus)
08/10/2015 at 21:38 • Filed to: Electric Vehicles, Politics

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I’ll just give my humble opinion, this politician is being greedy. His argument is that only rich people drive electric cars. These stations were also paid off by the State and Federal Government, so basically this cost the county nothing, yet one guy thinks it’s a bad PR move. Uh... No, if you complain about this this is stunting the growth of electric cars, just so politicians can make a little extra.


DISCUSSION (2)


Kinja'd!!! desertdog5051 > Nymphicus Hollandicus
08/10/2015 at 22:00

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I put that in the same basket as governments “subsidizing” PV electric installations. If it were not for the incentives for solar, I would probably not have installed mine. You have to offer incentives to get people to adopt it. Same with electric cars. Give them a free charging station to encourage the purchase of the vehicles.

Yes, it costs money. But the benefits are large when more people join.


Kinja'd!!! StationeryBikes > Nymphicus Hollandicus
08/15/2015 at 23:06

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It seems to me that the counter-argument in the article is saying that there is no need to subsidize the wealthy who buy Teslas with free charging stations when the people who really need subsidies (broke-folk who drive Cavaliers who pay for gas to get to-and-fro their barely above minimum wage jobs) are left paying full price for fuel.

I agree that subsidies do have a place, but it should be just like every other subsidy; on an income-based scale. If a low-income person stretches their budget to buy a Leaf, then they should possibly receive a subsidy. You could put stipulations on it, of course (must be employed, etc...); however, there are no reasons to give a person with an excess of wealth the same subsidy.

These are all politically-motivated points of course, and depending on your political point of view, you may not agree. Giving free money to low-income people has proven to make a much bigger impact on economic development than giving that same amount of money to the wealthy (who generally invest excess income rather than spending it).