• BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Rented a Tesla this summer for a trip with my family- where I was in Michigan, the nearest superchargers were in the lot at Meijers (a regional supermarket chain), which made sense for Meijers (there’s already a big lot there, already infra, it’s a place you can tie fueling up with getting groceries) but it meant I had to drive half an hour to shop instead of going to the local market.

    My thought is that they should be planting superchargers (or their functional equivalent) in every store or restaurant parking lot because when the only place to get a charge is in the next county over, that’s directing EV drivers there and not local

    Yeah, it’ll cost something to build out infra to support that much power but honestly the US grid needs the upgrades anyhow- and if anything, electricity is relatively cheap compared to buying gas

    • evatronic@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, it’ll cost something to build out infra to support that much power but honestly the US grid needs the upgrades anyhow- and if anything, electricity is relatively cheap compared to buying gas

      It’s a good thing that Inflation Reduction Act Biden got passed includes a crapton of money to help businesses pay for chargers and other infrastructure, eh?

      • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah. If that keeps money in small towns and going into small businesses vs. big-box chain stores, it’s well-spent. Especially if it means your transport fuel dollar isn’t funding fossil energy(?)

        At the moment, Michigan sources about 2/3rds of its electrical power from coal or natural gas but wind and nuclear are a growing piece of that. Where I live, in WA, most of our electricity is Hydro (and it’s cheap, at ~10¢/kWh). Also, fueling up on electricity (even in MI, where electricity is ~19 ¢/kWh) was pretty cheap compared to gasoline.

        I think if we don’t put those in local, small-town small-business lots everywhere it’ll be bad for small businesses, small towns, and in marginal ways, for the environment.