Maryland To Build Car Charging Stations

Manufacturing.Net ^ | 6/25/10 | Manufacturing.Net

[Jack_1]

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Maryland is using more than $500,000 in federal stimulus money to build at least 64 charging stations for electric vehicles.

The stations will be located in parking garages in Baltimore and elsewhere along Interstate 95.

Another $500,000 will go toward wiring truck stops so truckers won't have to rely on their diesel engines to provide electricity while parked.

General Motors Co. is preparing to roll out the Chevrolet Volt later this year, with automakers following with their own electric vehicles soon after. Maryland officials hope public charging stations will encourage consumers to buy the cars.

The General Assembly has approved a $2,000 tax credit for the purchase of electric vehicles.

[elephant]

Should Cap and Tax go through (god forbid) can one imagine the cost to charge up one of these cars?

[Bryanw92]

>> where is the excess electricity to charge cars going to be generated?

The libs have come up with an unworkable solution to a non-existent problem that involves spending a lot of tax money on something no one will use and you’re throwing cold water on their happiness by using logic.

You must be one of those evil conservatives!

[Bryanw92]

>>one imagine the cost to charge up one of these cars?

They know what they’re doing. The plan is to herd us into Soviet-style tenements near the Soviet-style tractor factory. Rural and suburban people are too hard to control. Electric cars are the solution to the problem of Americans driving out of the cities to live.

[tacticalogic]

I have a question - where is the excess electricity to charge cars going to be generated? New nuclear or coal fired plants?

It looks like they're planning on getting the power for the electric cars by shutting down factories, foundries, processing plants, etc with bureaucratic regulations and union work rules that make it impractical and unprofitable to operate them any more.

[Desdemona]

You must be one of those evil conservatives!

Bitterly clinging to my religion, too.

[fight_truth_decay]

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crashes a smart fortwo into a GEM electric car at 31 mph, inflicting extensive damage to the neighborhood electric vehicle. Also tested was a 2008 Tiger Star mini truck, which also suffered extensive damage.

"For tonight, as midnight approaches, and the power rolls on and off across California, your home is running just fine. The car's battery will be wiped out by morning, but no matter. That's what the six-year-old gas-guzzler sitting next to it is for." http://evworld.com/insider.cfm?id=268

[cripplecreek]

Lets not forget stripping money out of highway funds and gas taxes to build choo choo trains so we’ll be forced to live near mass transit that will take us to approved destinations.

[Desdemona]

It looks like they're planning on getting the power for the electric cars by shutting down factories, foundries, processing plants, etc with bureaucratic regulations and union work rules that make it impractical and unprofitable to operate them any more.

They've tried the same with power plants.

[Desdemona]

Rural and suburban people are too hard to control. Electric cars are the solution to the problem of Americans driving out of the cities to live.

Hmmm, one of the more vocal people in my circle on this issue lives out in the 'burbs. Actually, several in my circle who are massive liberals won't set foot in the city unless they are forced. And, yes, most of them drive largish vehicles. I try not to relish the irony.

[cripplecreek]

In Michigan, our legislature is forcing production cuts on electricity and gas producers. At the same time they’re denying permits to build clean coal plants citing a lack of demand.

Meanwhile they’re approving wind farms despite the lack of demand that prevents the building of the coal fired plants.

[tacticalogic]

They've tried the same with power plants.

I think the objective is to get us down to owning electic cars that sit in the driveway with their batteries kept charged by trickle chargers hooked up to windmills. They won't need more than that because nobody will have a job to go to, or anything on the shelves in the stores to go shopping for.

[wendy1946]

1. I have had no problem getting folks to properly fix and rebuild transmissions.

Must be nice living in an area where everybody drives 1950s cars... The newer ones are all but impossible to work on and pretty nearly nobody does, they just replace them at large cost. Toyota automatics are nearly bulletproof but nobody else could claim that. I have relatives in the wholesale auto trade and they actually do have one guy who can fix most of what's out there now but the guy's basically amongst the last of a dying breed.

[wendy1946]

Frankly, I won’t miss dealing with OPEC and oil companies who jack prices every time the American economy starts to pick up the littlest bit and knock it back down again. I’ll probably keep one stick shift gas engined car around as a souvenir but it will spend all but the tiniest part of its life parked under a tree.

[Minn]

nobody can work on automatic transmissions any more

What a silly assertion.

[fight_truth_decay]

... electric bill payments are based on income-in a state where you will find the highest rates in the country..or close to it ( you know how states like to brag they are the most taxed! No shame. However I believe Hawaii holds the honors for #1 ). Maine's 12-year-old deregulation (Gov. Angus King) forced utility companies like Bangor Hydro and Central Maine Power to sell their generating facilities and buy electricity on the wholesale market from other companies. Taxpayers told by the government's experts it would be cheaper, well it never happened.(..odd how that always happens!)

Electricity is abundant and cheap in Canada.- Source.

Rates slated to go up again soon.

[Desdemona]

I think the objective is to get us down to owning electic cars that sit in the driveway with their batteries kept charged by trickle chargers hooked up to windmills.

The municipality where I live won't even allow cell towers to be built, let alone wind mills.

[Freee-dame]

Once again the Dems are using Maryland as a test state. Our current Gov. won on a campaign of the word “Believe.” Obama won on two words “hope” and “change”. No substance, just words. Maryland expanded the Schip state medical insurance program to something like 3 times the poverty level, taking it well into the level where parents already had health insurance. Now Maryland will be testing this huge expenditure of taxpayer money for something almost no one wants.

[RFEngineer]

This is going to be fun to watch.

There will be money to be made for enterprising folks to guard the charging cable as the stations are occupied....

If you leave your electric car unattended, someone can just plug themselves in in place of you.

I can foresee fist fights, shootings, and other some such shenanigans as limited outlets are competed for.....

[Bryanw92]

>>I try not to relish the irony.

I not only relish the irony, I take every opportunity to point out their hypocrisy to them.

[Dr. Sivana]

Must be nice living in an area where everybody drives 1950s cars

There are plenty of '60's cars for show (salt usage makes it a crime to use them as year round drivers). What we don't have are a lot of foreign marques (Toyota, Honda). So the transmissions might just be not quite as bullet proof; but maybe Ford Aerostar and Mercury Grand Marquis transmissions are easier to repair than their Odyssey and Avalon counterparts. We are close to the Belvedere, IL Chrysler Plant (Compass/Calibre), and for many decades the Janesville, WI GM plant (Suburbans). Combine that with the general manufacturing/machining bent of the area, (Hamilton Sunstrand, Textron) and you have a lot of guys who can rebuild anything. Of course, if the whole innards are worn out, a complete rebuild is called for anyway. The Ford Windstars were HORRIBLE for trannies dying at 80,000 miles.