Colorado Springs Gears Up for Surge in EVs Colo
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Colorado Springs is home to a small but growing community of electric vehicle (“EV”) drivers. The city boasts close to 2,300 electric vehicles, and according to projections, the number of EVs is expected to explode in the next two to three years, says Khaled Salem, Distributed Energy Strategies engineer supervisor at Colorado Springs Utilities. In anticipation of this influx of electric vehicles in the coming years, Utilities is evaluating where it can install and maintain EV charging stations.
By all indications, more and more Americans are expected to buy EVs over time. Although they can be quite expensive, electric cars are becoming more affordable, with industry experts projecting that they will be as cheap as, or even cheaper than, internal combustion engine vehicles by 2025. As EV makers introduce more models to the market, especially fully electric versions of the SUVs and pick-up trucks that Americans love, EV adoption is sure to increase.
Jillian Jaeger, manager of the city’s Electric Vehicle Readiness Plan, says Colorado is projected to have anywhere from 90,000 to 130,000 EVs by 2030. According to Colorado Springs Utilities manager of Energy Planning and Innovation, Michael Avanzi, Utilities initially projected residents would buy 50,000 to 300,000 EVs over the next 30 years, but that number is now expected to be much higher.
As such, the city and Utilities are working on the Electric Vehicle Readiness Plan to project how many cars the city can expect over time and identify locations that most need charging stations, among other issues. At the moment, Colorado Springs has close to 100 public charging stations, most of them provided by third-party vendors. With the number of EVs in the city expected to explode over the years, Colorado Springs may need between 7,000 and 10,000 charging stations by 2020, reports Jaeger.
These stations will be of great help to people who cannot charge their vehicles at home and don’t have access to a private charging option. Additionally, Jaeger says, Utilities wants to provide charging stations for long-distance travelers. Salem adds that Utilities would like to build some of these new charging stations, provide the electricity to charge EVs and manage the stations. Since the company is owned by the City of Colorado Springs, it could gain a market advantage by passing the cost of service down to the customers.
Salem says that if the Colorado Springs City Council approves the plan, Utilities could start building new charging stations in the latter half of 2022.
In other news, Net Element (NASDAQ: NETE), a leading financial technology company, plans to complete a merger with Mullen Technologies Inc., a manufacturer of electric vehicles based in California.
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