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North Carolina wants to ban free EV charging

148 points by NonNefarious 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dotcoma 4y ago
Please ban free parking, too!
- usrn 4y ago
  I can understand not requiring it but if someone wants to provide free parking they should be allowed to.
  - yakak 4y ago
    Establishments need to itemize how much free parking is adding to the cost of each meal or other product/service purchase so that non-drivers, carpoolers, etc, can fully appreciate how much they are losing to pinkos like the AAA.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Free street parking vs free lot parking are two different things, but I can certainly see the arguments around both.
  - jabroni_salad 4y ago
    Sure, if you want to build and maintain your own parking lot on your taxed land that is cool. Street parking should endeavor to be at least cost-neutral though, and free just means that taxpayers are subsidizing it.
- mnd999 4y ago
  This has already happened in my area. If you want to park on the street you now have to pay £120 / year extra to the council. Edit: That’s not an allocated space, that’s just to park somewhere on the street, maybe, if there is a space available.
  - gpm 4y ago
    That's just not providing free parking. Banning it would be disallowing malls, stores, gas stations (heh) etc from providing parking without charging for it.
    - marvin 4y ago
      This is currently a hot potato in Norway. The local government wants to force malls to charge for their parking at rates to be decided by the government, but aren't allowed due to national regulation. So there is a political battle to determine whether the law will be changed to allow it. The malls aren't at all happy about it, of course.
      - mitchdoogle 4y ago
        Can't the government just levy a tax per parking spot?
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    That is very cheap, if you want to rent a similar sized piece of land in the same place it costs orders of magnitude more. Just think about how much a restaurant with some tables on the sidewalk is paying.
    - Fatnino 4y ago
      Most of them are paying nothing. They got that space for free during covid and cities haven't taken it back yet.
  - bojangleslover 4y ago
    My council was incredibly fast to raise this for inflation. Literally back in March, they raised it from £100 to £107. Greedy.
  - mtoner23 4y ago
    That is a really cheap price for public land
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I think all road use should require some type of fee and maybe tracking. Why should people using cars be subsidising the pedestrians and bikers by huge amounts of money. They should pay for their own roads.
  - mnd999 4y ago
    You want the government to track you everywhere you go? What could possibly go wrong with that?
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      Isn't that small price to pay for everyone paying their fair share and not free loading on others?
      - mnd999 4y ago
        Frankly, no.
      - function_seven 4y ago
        Well, it's a price. Definitely not a small one. I'll pay more and subsidize freeloaders rather than increase government tabs on me.
      - wbsss4412 4y ago
        If that’s the case, car users should be paying _more_. Pedestrian and bike infrastructure is peanuts in comparison to the investment and ongoing maintenance costs that car infrastructure requires.
      - Beltalowda 4y ago
        I genuinely can't tell if you're being serious or just taking the piss. If you're taking the piss: lol, pretty funny. If you're serious: lol, pretty funny.
      - corrral 4y ago
        Wear from bikes and pedestrians is too small to be worth metering. You'd spend more on tracking and enforcement than it costs. It's true that automobile use-in-terms-of-road-wear taxes would look very different from what they are now. A compact ICE car's total tax burden would drop to almost nothing. Ditto motorcycles. Truck and large SUV taxes would increase significantly. 18-wheelers would see enormous tax increases (road shipping is effectively heavily subsidized, now).
- Lendal 4y ago
  You can defeat this law by detailing everything you're giving away for free including parking, ketchup packets, napkins, EV charging, etc.. Then it will become just some extra government-mandated printing that nobody reads, like the stuff they print on the receipt asking you to go online and fill out a survey.
  - mitchdoogle 4y ago
    I usually look at the survey offer. If it's good enough value to me, I'll do their survey
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cardiffspaceman 4y ago
  I think that with enough spaces disbursed evenly enough, this would actually be good. And I love to drive and park. Technically if you park in the supermarket free parking, you can't leave your car there while you pop in to the bar around the corner. Instead you're supposed to move the car to the bar's parking. If the parking was independent of either business, you could park once and visit as many businesses as you cared to walk to from your car.
donsupreme 4y ago
> That’s unless free gas and diesel fuel stations have “equitable” availability. geez ... I wonder which lobbying industry donate to these guys?
- hh3k0 4y ago
  Yeah, and are they trying to pretend that fossil fuels are not heavily subsidized?
tablespoon 4y ago
This sounds like it's a bill meant to allow gas stations to pivot into becoming paid EV charging stations. Which kind of makes sense, since the switch to EVs will probably cause acute financial distress, such as destroying the financial situation of any family that owns/runs a gas station. A pitiless free marketer probably wouldn't care about that destruction (and they may even celebrate it), but I'm at least sympathetic to measures that would lessen the blow or make the transition less painful. It might make more sense to just buy those people out, but that would take budget, and a proposal like this doesn't.
- foxyv 4y ago
  I think most gas stations make most of their money in the convenience store. EVs would keep people hanging out at the store longer. https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-gas-stations/ https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-gas-stations/ The problem is that Gas stations are usually franchisees of the gasoline producers so they may not be able to install EV charging if say Chevron or Texaco don't give the green light.
  - klardotsh 4y ago
    I've seen exactly one gas station that had EV chargers... and it wasn't in the US. At least in 2020 (last time I was up there), the Petrol-Canada somewhere along BC Hwy 17 between Swartz Bay and Victoria had (paid) DC rapid chargers. It was pretty neat. Never have seen such a thing stateside.
    - foxyv 4y ago
      I saw one in Alexandria Minnesota. I'm not sure if it was a fast charger. They put it next to the dumpster and the fuel caps.
- SEJeff 4y ago
  The oil and gas industry is one of the most heavily subsidized industries already, especially so in the US. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti...
mikestew 4y ago
Political jackassery such as this is probably the main reason we don't move back to NC. "First off, the bill wants businesses (restaurants etc.) with free charging stations to print at the bottom of every receipt how much of the customer’s bill goes towards subsidizing charging" Yeah, let's put the burden of this legislation on small businesses, for starters. I will rhetorically ask, who exactly are these legislators bending over for?
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  I will rhetorically ask "which is the party of small government?" (the same party that forces every package of non-hormone-boosted dairy to feature a disclaimer that hormone dairy is the same blah blah blah. More small government!)
  - ATsch 4y ago
    People say this as a gotcha but it's really not, "small government" has always just been a euphemism for austerity and anti-welfare politics. It's like "family values" or "states rights", you're not really going to get anywhere useful by taking these euphemisms at face value.
    - frankfrankfrank 4y ago
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    If you're going to ask rhetorical questions, you better make sure your position is 100% bulletproof.
  - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    Small federal government. I'm not a huge fan over over zealous state governments, but I have significant more representation at the state level. I have less representation at the federal level than the 13 colonies had with Parliament with their "virtual representation".
sanp 4y ago
If this is equitable then we should also publish the externalized cost of using ICE.
rentfree-media 4y ago
Should be noted that Duke Energy spilled a massive amount of coal ash into the river near Wilmington during hurricane Florence in 2018. Also, dozens of pig waste ponds the size of football fields overflow and wind up in rivers during every hurricane as well. 33 of those overflowed during Florence. 46 in the storm before that. Something tells me that North Carolina's conservatives are far less concerned about open-pit storage of hazardous waste than cars sold from an out of state dealer.
- Finnucane 4y ago
  pig waste ponds mainly bother poor minority communities, so yeah, they count for less than the industry donors.
AdrianB1 4y ago
If this is targeted as an fair competition measure, it is not a good idea. If anyone does not like that his preferred bar is offering free EV charge, it is reasonably easy to talk to the owner(s) about it and eventually have a different preferred bar. That is discretionary spending, you have a choice. If it is paid by your taxes, that is a different story.
huslage 4y ago
This will be vetoed if it goes anywhere. The governor is very pro-ev and won't be interested in this AT ALL.
ramesh31 4y ago
There was a moment for a while during the 2010s where NC was being touted as a new tech hub to rival SF/Austin/Portland. However, southern politicians (both republican and democrat) have tried their damndest to make that not happen.
- _coveredInBees 4y ago
  The Triangle in NC has in fact turned into quite a tech hub. Lots of tech jobs and lots of employers with more opening shop every day. There are many large employers here like Apple, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Github, Redhat, SAAS, Epic Games, etc.
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    >There are many large employers here like Apple, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Github, Redhat, SAAS, Epic Games, etc. And they are at absolute odds with the state government. See the "bathroom bill" for just one example of this idiocy.
  - rtp4me 4y ago
    Can attest to this. We have been here almost 25yrs in RTP and absolutely love it. And, the list keeps growing (see the medical companies popping-up in Holly Springs). So many employment choices, places to shop, recreation parks to enjoy. Not to mention the awesome education options (Duke, NC State, UNC plus a ton of great high-schools). I have been on travel trips to CA, TX, NV, and MA. In my experience, NC is the best place to live...
    - silpheed5 4y ago
      The bay area has a few employment options, places to shop, parks and no mosquitos, no humidity and milder summers and winters.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      > NC is the best place to live... Except for the politics being so unwelcoming. I could never live in such a place.
cm2187 4y ago
I can't tell from the article whether we are talking about state paid charging or private charging (the article implies both). For privately funded charging, I don't see why it would be the state's business. For publicly funded charging, I don't see why taxpayers should subsidise your Tesla.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > I don't see why taxpayers should subsidise your Tesla Because it's in the taxpayers' interest for everyone to move to EVs ( if nothing else for the cleaner air), thus it's something that should be incentivised.
  - slowhand09 4y ago
    By EV I surmise you mean battery-powered vehicle. You do realize that batteries do not produce energy. They merely store it. Somewhere, off in the distance, a coal or gas-fired generator is producing a significant majority portion of that electric energy. Also the "taxpayers" that want an EV, have one. The break-even folk who get as much back as they pay in taxes may be wanna-be owners of EVs. The folks who are net receivers of tax dollars aren't likely EV candidates.
    - 30944836 4y ago
      >Somewhere, off in the distance, a coal or gas-fired generator is producing a significant majority portion of that electric energy For every car that is produced, two things are true: (1) It takes fossil fuels to make and deliver them. (2) It takes fossil fuels to run them. For every internal combustion engine car produced in 2022, both (1) and (2) will true for the entire life of the vehicle, which in the US is around 12 years. For every electric car, only (1) is guaranteed to be true for the life of the car. (2) is a choice, one that we can change in the 12 years that vehicle in on the road.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      > Somewhere, off in the distance, a coal or gas-fired generator is producing a significant majority portion of that electric energy. This is a tired, old, and refuted argument. In the long term, even if your power is 100% coal, in terms of CO2, an EV will be better than an ICE. And coal power plants aren't going to last forever. Green energy is growing.
bmitc 4y ago
Republicans love the free market unless it doesn’t suit them. And Republicans secretly want big government, again big and small where it suits their and their donors’ interests. And what does “equitable” mean here? Are gas stations wanting or planning on giving gas away for free? How can they even remotely control what a business gives away as incentives? Can they ban free mints at restaurants too? Edit: To everyone mentioning Democrats, note that I did not.
- akira2501 4y ago
  Politicians love the people until they get their first lobbying check. This phenomenon isn't isolated to any particular ideology.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Only one particular ideology tries to pretend these are their values, though.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      You seem to be insinuating that the only political party that isn't full of shit is the one you align with, when that particular disease is and has always been everywhere.
      - taylodl 4y ago
        There's a reason I don't align with the political party that's full of shit - because they're full of shit! It didn't used to be this way - I used to be a Republican (I'm no spring chicken, I've been around the block a few times). The Republican Party has earned my repudiation! And hey, the Democratic Party may earn my repudiation also but due to Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law) I'm pretty much stuck with being a Democrat until they become the worse option than the Republicans. At this point I don't see that happening for quite some time.
      - 4y ago
olivermarks 4y ago
North Carolina is interesting. I view the 'free energy!' marketing ploy for BEVs as a marketing gambit which will end once people are on the hook. I'm not sure this is as simple as being a 'Republican', it's more about societal symmetry around energy availability, cost and usage. Electricity isn't free to create and pollution is created elsewhere than the vehicle tailpipe. We are currently in a very irrational period of history where people are being seduced with the idea energy is 'free'. It isn't.
- rory 4y ago
  Europeans are very acutely that energy isn't free right now.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  It costs >$100 to fill up an SUV. It costs <$5 to charge a Model Y. You usually don't charge your car from empty to full. Do we need to also remind people that water and bathrooms aren't free and start charging for those?
  - usaar333 4y ago
    > It costs <$5 to charge a Model Y. Is that typical of North Carolina? Seems cheap. At $0.24/kWh (that's my off-peak EV rate in the Bay Area), it's over $18 to charge a 75 kwh battery.
    - rtp4me 4y ago
      We pay $0.10/kWh here in the RTP area. To completely charge my Model-Y costs about $8.50. We don't have discounted rates for off-hours...
      - krallja 4y ago
        > We don't have discounted rates for off-hours... We do! You can call up Duke Energy and asked to be switched to the RSTC rate plan. https://www.duke-energy.com/home/billing/rates https://www.duke-energy.com/home/billing/rates If you have control of your major electricity use (HVAC, electric dryer, electric oven, EV charging), it can be a lot cheaper. The downside is if you do need to use a large amount of power during the “critical peak” period, it will cost you 35¢/kWh
mgbmtl 4y ago
Following this logic, they should also ban free parking, or indicate how much goes to subsidizing parking. Otherwise public transit is clearly at a disadvantage. Public transit users are subsidizing free parking.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Good! Why do already rich people who can afford these cars get all the benefits? They are already saving boatloads in costs, why not tax the nation's and use that money to help more people get electric cars or subsidize people to build charging stations>
frumper 4y ago
Stick a sign charging 1cent/hour on the non-free charger that requires no steps to prepay or sign up for anything for charging. Install a box for the honest citizens of North Carolina to deposit what they calculate their own bill to be.
aurora72 4y ago
Hard to believe this communist mindset is in America.
jjtheblunt 4y ago
just a thought: banning free charging implies no charger parking spot squatters?
stjohnswarts 4y ago
I don't have a problem with private companies providing free charging but I wouldn't want my tax money spent on it. If I understand this right this is only government owned buildings/sites. If you can afford an EV, you can afford to charge it up. If they compromise and put meters on the charging to pay for it then that would be a decent compromise as it could pay for itself.
sgjohnson 4y ago
I’m all for prohibiting public funds from being used to provide free EV charging. The rest of it is just plain stupid.
sathomasga 4y ago
To be fair, it's just one legislator in North Carolina, not the whole state.
thecleaner 4y ago
Why are these people like this ? like honest question. Parts of the US are just amazing at policy work and yet there's this.
radar1310 4y ago
Why do people expect energy to be free to charge their car?
- TheChaplain 4y ago
  Did you read the article? It's free in the same sense as "free wifi", a perk to get your attention/money. I hardly think anyone expects it, but if I have to choose between two restaurants/workplaces/whatever where one offers free EV charging, well... it's an easy choice, at least for me.

148 points by NonNefarious 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dotcoma 4y ago

Please ban free parking, too!

usrn 4y ago
I can understand not requiring it but if someone wants to provide free parking they should be allowed to.
- yakak 4y ago
  Establishments need to itemize how much free parking is adding to the cost of each meal or other product/service purchase so that non-drivers, carpoolers, etc, can fully appreciate how much they are losing to pinkos like the AAA.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Free street parking vs free lot parking are two different things, but I can certainly see the arguments around both.
- jabroni_salad 4y ago
  Sure, if you want to build and maintain your own parking lot on your taxed land that is cool. Street parking should endeavor to be at least cost-neutral though, and free just means that taxpayers are subsidizing it.
mnd999 4y ago
This has already happened in my area. If you want to park on the street you now have to pay £120 / year extra to the council. Edit: That’s not an allocated space, that’s just to park somewhere on the street, maybe, if there is a space available.
- gpm 4y ago
  That's just not providing free parking. Banning it would be disallowing malls, stores, gas stations (heh) etc from providing parking without charging for it.
  - marvin 4y ago
    This is currently a hot potato in Norway. The local government wants to force malls to charge for their parking at rates to be decided by the government, but aren't allowed due to national regulation. So there is a political battle to determine whether the law will be changed to allow it. The malls aren't at all happy about it, of course.
    - mitchdoogle 4y ago
      Can't the government just levy a tax per parking spot?
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  That is very cheap, if you want to rent a similar sized piece of land in the same place it costs orders of magnitude more. Just think about how much a restaurant with some tables on the sidewalk is paying.
  - Fatnino 4y ago
    Most of them are paying nothing. They got that space for free during covid and cities haven't taken it back yet.
- bojangleslover 4y ago
  My council was incredibly fast to raise this for inflation. Literally back in March, they raised it from £100 to £107. Greedy.
- mtoner23 4y ago
  That is a really cheap price for public land
Ekaros 4y ago
I think all road use should require some type of fee and maybe tracking. Why should people using cars be subsidising the pedestrians and bikers by huge amounts of money. They should pay for their own roads.
- mnd999 4y ago
  You want the government to track you everywhere you go? What could possibly go wrong with that?
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Isn't that small price to pay for everyone paying their fair share and not free loading on others?
    - mnd999 4y ago
      Frankly, no.
    - function_seven 4y ago
      Well, it's a price. Definitely not a small one. I'll pay more and subsidize freeloaders rather than increase government tabs on me.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      If that’s the case, car users should be paying _more_. Pedestrian and bike infrastructure is peanuts in comparison to the investment and ongoing maintenance costs that car infrastructure requires.
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      I genuinely can't tell if you're being serious or just taking the piss. If you're taking the piss: lol, pretty funny. If you're serious: lol, pretty funny.
    - corrral 4y ago
      Wear from bikes and pedestrians is too small to be worth metering. You'd spend more on tracking and enforcement than it costs. It's true that automobile use-in-terms-of-road-wear taxes would look very different from what they are now. A compact ICE car's total tax burden would drop to almost nothing. Ditto motorcycles. Truck and large SUV taxes would increase significantly. 18-wheelers would see enormous tax increases (road shipping is effectively heavily subsidized, now).
Lendal 4y ago
You can defeat this law by detailing everything you're giving away for free including parking, ketchup packets, napkins, EV charging, etc.. Then it will become just some extra government-mandated printing that nobody reads, like the stuff they print on the receipt asking you to go online and fill out a survey.
- mitchdoogle 4y ago
  I usually look at the survey offer. If it's good enough value to me, I'll do their survey
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cardiffspaceman 4y ago
I think that with enough spaces disbursed evenly enough, this would actually be good. And I love to drive and park. Technically if you park in the supermarket free parking, you can't leave your car there while you pop in to the bar around the corner. Instead you're supposed to move the car to the bar's parking. If the parking was independent of either business, you could park once and visit as many businesses as you cared to walk to from your car.

donsupreme 4y ago

> That’s unless free gas and diesel fuel stations have “equitable” availability. geez ... I wonder which lobbying industry donate to these guys?

hh3k0 4y ago
Yeah, and are they trying to pretend that fossil fuels are not heavily subsidized?

tablespoon 4y ago

This sounds like it's a bill meant to allow gas stations to pivot into becoming paid EV charging stations. Which kind of makes sense, since the switch to EVs will probably cause acute financial distress, such as destroying the financial situation of any family that owns/runs a gas station. A pitiless free marketer probably wouldn't care about that destruction (and they may even celebrate it), but I'm at least sympathetic to measures that would lessen the blow or make the transition less painful. It might make more sense to just buy those people out, but that would take budget, and a proposal like this doesn't.

foxyv 4y ago
I think most gas stations make most of their money in the convenience store. EVs would keep people hanging out at the store longer. https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-gas-stations/ https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-gas-stations/ The problem is that Gas stations are usually franchisees of the gasoline producers so they may not be able to install EV charging if say Chevron or Texaco don't give the green light.
- klardotsh 4y ago
  I've seen exactly one gas station that had EV chargers... and it wasn't in the US. At least in 2020 (last time I was up there), the Petrol-Canada somewhere along BC Hwy 17 between Swartz Bay and Victoria had (paid) DC rapid chargers. It was pretty neat. Never have seen such a thing stateside.
  - foxyv 4y ago
    I saw one in Alexandria Minnesota. I'm not sure if it was a fast charger. They put it next to the dumpster and the fuel caps.
SEJeff 4y ago
The oil and gas industry is one of the most heavily subsidized industries already, especially so in the US. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Still-Not-Getting-Energy-Prices-Right-A-Global-and-Country-Update-of-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-466004 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2021/09/23/Sti...

mikestew 4y ago

Political jackassery such as this is probably the main reason we don't move back to NC. "First off, the bill wants businesses (restaurants etc.) with free charging stations to print at the bottom of every receipt how much of the customer’s bill goes towards subsidizing charging" Yeah, let's put the burden of this legislation on small businesses, for starters. I will rhetorically ask, who exactly are these legislators bending over for?

KennyBlanken 4y ago
I will rhetorically ask "which is the party of small government?" (the same party that forces every package of non-hormone-boosted dairy to feature a disclaimer that hormone dairy is the same blah blah blah. More small government!)
- ATsch 4y ago
  People say this as a gotcha but it's really not, "small government" has always just been a euphemism for austerity and anti-welfare politics. It's like "family values" or "states rights", you're not really going to get anywhere useful by taking these euphemisms at face value.
  - frankfrankfrank 4y ago
- antisthenes 4y ago
  If you're going to ask rhetorical questions, you better make sure your position is 100% bulletproof.
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  Small federal government. I'm not a huge fan over over zealous state governments, but I have significant more representation at the state level. I have less representation at the federal level than the 13 colonies had with Parliament with their "virtual representation".

sanp 4y ago

If this is equitable then we should also publish the externalized cost of using ICE.

rentfree-media 4y ago

Should be noted that Duke Energy spilled a massive amount of coal ash into the river near Wilmington during hurricane Florence in 2018. Also, dozens of pig waste ponds the size of football fields overflow and wind up in rivers during every hurricane as well. 33 of those overflowed during Florence. 46 in the storm before that. Something tells me that North Carolina's conservatives are far less concerned about open-pit storage of hazardous waste than cars sold from an out of state dealer.

Finnucane 4y ago
pig waste ponds mainly bother poor minority communities, so yeah, they count for less than the industry donors.

AdrianB1 4y ago

If this is targeted as an fair competition measure, it is not a good idea. If anyone does not like that his preferred bar is offering free EV charge, it is reasonably easy to talk to the owner(s) about it and eventually have a different preferred bar. That is discretionary spending, you have a choice. If it is paid by your taxes, that is a different story.

huslage 4y ago

This will be vetoed if it goes anywhere. The governor is very pro-ev and won't be interested in this AT ALL.

ramesh31 4y ago

There was a moment for a while during the 2010s where NC was being touted as a new tech hub to rival SF/Austin/Portland. However, southern politicians (both republican and democrat) have tried their damndest to make that not happen.

_coveredInBees 4y ago
The Triangle in NC has in fact turned into quite a tech hub. Lots of tech jobs and lots of employers with more opening shop every day. There are many large employers here like Apple, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Github, Redhat, SAAS, Epic Games, etc.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  >There are many large employers here like Apple, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Github, Redhat, SAAS, Epic Games, etc. And they are at absolute odds with the state government. See the "bathroom bill" for just one example of this idiocy.
- rtp4me 4y ago
  Can attest to this. We have been here almost 25yrs in RTP and absolutely love it. And, the list keeps growing (see the medical companies popping-up in Holly Springs). So many employment choices, places to shop, recreation parks to enjoy. Not to mention the awesome education options (Duke, NC State, UNC plus a ton of great high-schools). I have been on travel trips to CA, TX, NV, and MA. In my experience, NC is the best place to live...
  - silpheed5 4y ago
    The bay area has a few employment options, places to shop, parks and no mosquitos, no humidity and milder summers and winters.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    > NC is the best place to live... Except for the politics being so unwelcoming. I could never live in such a place.

cm2187 4y ago

I can't tell from the article whether we are talking about state paid charging or private charging (the article implies both). For privately funded charging, I don't see why it would be the state's business. For publicly funded charging, I don't see why taxpayers should subsidise your Tesla.

sofixa 4y ago
> I don't see why taxpayers should subsidise your Tesla Because it's in the taxpayers' interest for everyone to move to EVs ( if nothing else for the cleaner air), thus it's something that should be incentivised.
- slowhand09 4y ago
  By EV I surmise you mean battery-powered vehicle. You do realize that batteries do not produce energy. They merely store it. Somewhere, off in the distance, a coal or gas-fired generator is producing a significant majority portion of that electric energy. Also the "taxpayers" that want an EV, have one. The break-even folk who get as much back as they pay in taxes may be wanna-be owners of EVs. The folks who are net receivers of tax dollars aren't likely EV candidates.
  - 30944836 4y ago
    >Somewhere, off in the distance, a coal or gas-fired generator is producing a significant majority portion of that electric energy For every car that is produced, two things are true: (1) It takes fossil fuels to make and deliver them. (2) It takes fossil fuels to run them. For every internal combustion engine car produced in 2022, both (1) and (2) will true for the entire life of the vehicle, which in the US is around 12 years. For every electric car, only (1) is guaranteed to be true for the life of the car. (2) is a choice, one that we can change in the 12 years that vehicle in on the road.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    > Somewhere, off in the distance, a coal or gas-fired generator is producing a significant majority portion of that electric energy. This is a tired, old, and refuted argument. In the long term, even if your power is 100% coal, in terms of CO2, an EV will be better than an ICE. And coal power plants aren't going to last forever. Green energy is growing.

bmitc 4y ago

Republicans love the free market unless it doesn’t suit them. And Republicans secretly want big government, again big and small where it suits their and their donors’ interests. And what does “equitable” mean here? Are gas stations wanting or planning on giving gas away for free? How can they even remotely control what a business gives away as incentives? Can they ban free mints at restaurants too? Edit: To everyone mentioning Democrats, note that I did not.

akira2501 4y ago
Politicians love the people until they get their first lobbying check. This phenomenon isn't isolated to any particular ideology.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Only one particular ideology tries to pretend these are their values, though.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    You seem to be insinuating that the only political party that isn't full of shit is the one you align with, when that particular disease is and has always been everywhere.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      There's a reason I don't align with the political party that's full of shit - because they're full of shit! It didn't used to be this way - I used to be a Republican (I'm no spring chicken, I've been around the block a few times). The Republican Party has earned my repudiation! And hey, the Democratic Party may earn my repudiation also but due to Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law) I'm pretty much stuck with being a Democrat until they become the worse option than the Republicans. At this point I don't see that happening for quite some time.
    - 4y ago

olivermarks 4y ago

North Carolina is interesting. I view the 'free energy!' marketing ploy for BEVs as a marketing gambit which will end once people are on the hook. I'm not sure this is as simple as being a 'Republican', it's more about societal symmetry around energy availability, cost and usage. Electricity isn't free to create and pollution is created elsewhere than the vehicle tailpipe. We are currently in a very irrational period of history where people are being seduced with the idea energy is 'free'. It isn't.

rory 4y ago
Europeans are very acutely that energy isn't free right now.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
It costs >$100 to fill up an SUV. It costs <$5 to charge a Model Y. You usually don't charge your car from empty to full. Do we need to also remind people that water and bathrooms aren't free and start charging for those?
- usaar333 4y ago
  > It costs <$5 to charge a Model Y. Is that typical of North Carolina? Seems cheap. At $0.24/kWh (that's my off-peak EV rate in the Bay Area), it's over $18 to charge a 75 kwh battery.
  - rtp4me 4y ago
    We pay $0.10/kWh here in the RTP area. To completely charge my Model-Y costs about $8.50. We don't have discounted rates for off-hours...
    - krallja 4y ago
      > We don't have discounted rates for off-hours... We do! You can call up Duke Energy and asked to be switched to the RSTC rate plan. https://www.duke-energy.com/home/billing/rates https://www.duke-energy.com/home/billing/rates If you have control of your major electricity use (HVAC, electric dryer, electric oven, EV charging), it can be a lot cheaper. The downside is if you do need to use a large amount of power during the “critical peak” period, it will cost you 35¢/kWh

mgbmtl 4y ago

Following this logic, they should also ban free parking, or indicate how much goes to subsidizing parking. Otherwise public transit is clearly at a disadvantage. Public transit users are subsidizing free parking.

deleted 4y ago

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FollowingTheDao 4y ago

Good! Why do already rich people who can afford these cars get all the benefits? They are already saving boatloads in costs, why not tax the nation's and use that money to help more people get electric cars or subsidize people to build charging stations>

frumper 4y ago

Stick a sign charging 1cent/hour on the non-free charger that requires no steps to prepay or sign up for anything for charging. Install a box for the honest citizens of North Carolina to deposit what they calculate their own bill to be.

aurora72 4y ago

Hard to believe this communist mindset is in America.

jjtheblunt 4y ago

just a thought: banning free charging implies no charger parking spot squatters?

stjohnswarts 4y ago

I don't have a problem with private companies providing free charging but I wouldn't want my tax money spent on it. If I understand this right this is only government owned buildings/sites. If you can afford an EV, you can afford to charge it up. If they compromise and put meters on the charging to pay for it then that would be a decent compromise as it could pay for itself.

sgjohnson 4y ago

I’m all for prohibiting public funds from being used to provide free EV charging. The rest of it is just plain stupid.

sathomasga 4y ago

To be fair, it's just one legislator in North Carolina, not the whole state.

thecleaner 4y ago

Why are these people like this ? like honest question. Parts of the US are just amazing at policy work and yet there's this.

radar1310 4y ago

Why do people expect energy to be free to charge their car?

TheChaplain 4y ago
Did you read the article? It's free in the same sense as "free wifi", a perk to get your attention/money. I hardly think anyone expects it, but if I have to choose between two restaurants/workplaces/whatever where one offers free EV charging, well... it's an easy choice, at least for me.