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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Home News Latest Stories Men sentenced in heroin case UPDATED: Fire damages Talent house Police arrest suspect in east Medford burglaries Medford teen sentenced after shooting at man RVACT looks at challenges facing transportation system Crime, Courts and Emergency Services Men sentenced in heroin case UPDATED: Fire damages Talent house Police arrest suspect in east Medford burglaries Medford teen sentenced after shooting at man Emergency services Politics and Elections Councilman stirs online dust-up with anti-marijuana post State certifies recount showing failure of GMO-labeling measure Education Medford School Board meeting deferred because of Ducks game Medford bulks up student support for math, reading Ashland schools to implement chickenpox precautions Traveling artist sets the stage for Ruch School amphitheater Ruch school class focuses on the natural environment Environment OR-7 now officially the leader of his pack Ashland trails up for changes Monument expansion expected to increase tourism, protect resources Biologist resigns over LNG reporting failure Bird flu discovered in Winston backyard flock State News Timber group updates green label forestry standards Attorney: Use Boy Scout files in sex-abuse trial Oregon capitalizes on championship run Suit targets 'auto-hold' video poker strategy 'Portlandia' takes a different path in season 5 Nation - World Obama makes Maduro’s ‘insolent Yankees’ line harder to sell Obituaries Richard Allen Wickham Giovanni Batista Dorothy Lee (Bussell) Davis Robert Charles Pollock Death Notices Weather Photo Galleries Since You Asked Videos Web Cams Mail Tribune 100 Shareable In memoriam: 2014’s notable deaths Looking back: Do you remember 2014’s biggest stories? 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UPDATED: Fire damages Talent house ... Police arrest suspect in east Medford burglaries ... Men sentenced in heroin case ... UPDATED: Fire damages Talent house ... Police arrest suspect in east Medford burglaries ... TRANSPORTATION Eugene's federally funded car charging stations underused $5 million was invested in Eugene; now outlets are burden to companies that own them Comment By Edward Russo The (Eugene) Register-Guard MailTribune.com By Edward Russo The (Eugene) Register-Guard Posted Jan. 6, 2015 @ 2:00 am By Edward Russo The (Eugene) Register-Guard Posted Jan. 6, 2015 @ 2:00 am » Social News EUGENE — Nissan Leaf owner Will Price of Eugene doesn't need the network of government-provided electric vehicle charging stations that were installed for motorists such as him. Price drives 14 miles to and from work, which is easily within his electric car's 70-mile range, so he ignores the publicly accessible fast-charging units scattered around Eugene-Springfield. "I never use them," Price said of the public chargers. "They are of no consequence to me." Most electric vehicle owners have developed the same at-home charging habit, leaving the expensive, taxpayer-funded EV Project network of fast-charging units in Eugene-Springfield unused much of the time. In the city of Eugene's public parking garages, for example, each public charging unit is used an average of once every two weeks. Springfield officials want seven public charging units removed from downtown because some are little used and others are broken. In 2013, the last year that data were collected for the federal government, electric vehicles throughout Oregon were plugged into public chargers installed through The EV Project just 4 percent of the time, compared with 42 percent of the time at home-charging units. The same pattern is true in the eight other states and District of Columbia where the devices also were installed by the federal government, at a total cost to the taxpayer of about $100 million. The largest deployment of charging stations in the world, it's aimed to support the introduction of the all-electric Nissan Leaf and electric and gasoline-powered Chevrolet Volt to help end the nation's reliance on internal combustion engine vehicles. In Oregon, as part of The EV Project, the federal government spent more than $5 million buying, distributing and installing more than 1,100 charging devices at the homes of electric vehicle owners and in places accessible to the public. The EV Project's public chargers were meant to ease consumer concerns about the limited range of vehicles that rely all or in part on battery power. Motorist "range anxiety," or concern about being stranded with a depleted battery, was considered to be a major barrier to popular acceptance of electric cars, said state Sen. Phil Barnhart of Eugene. That made it important to install as many publicly available charging stations as possible, he said. "When they installed these (quick chargers), they were trying to encourage people to look at electric vehicles," Barnhart said. "They wanted people to say, 'Maybe we should buy one of these things.' These gadgets have served their purpose very well." But the results from The EV Project appear mixed, other observers say. The EV Project bought and deployed mostly "Level 2" chargers that can resupply an electric vehicle's battery in three to six hours, compared to the portable "trickle chargers" provided by carmakers, which can take from 10 to 20 hours. Most days, electric car owners prefer to plug in their vehicles at home, both for the convenience and the lower cost of residential electricity compared to what they would pay at the public charging units operated by for-profit networks. The EV Project rushed to deploy the chargers to coincide with the introduction of electric vehicles and struggled to find publicly accessible places to put them. Large employers and other property owners were reluctant to dedicate parking spaces for charging stations in workplace parking lots, observers said. EV project representatives found "it to be a challenge to get these in place at private locations," Jeff Petry, Eugene's parking manager said in 2011. That left Eugene, Springfield and other public entities among the property owners willing to accept the devices from the federal government and its contractor, EcoTality, a maker of the car charging units. And that led to their installation in public parking garages and lots where they have been little used. "They were put in the wrong places. That is why they are not being utilized," said Wahid Nawabi, a senior vice president of AeroVironment, a California-based maker of battery charging devices and operator of a charging network. Price and other electric car owners got the charging equipment put in their homes for free, including needed electrical work, paid for by the federal government and EcoTality. Price said the free device and related electrical work saved him more than $1,000. In return, electric vehicle owners agreed to let their energy use and driving habits be monitored. The data was sent to and analyzed by Idaho National Laboratory, which is affiliated with the federal Department of Energy. Even with the federal government providing the charging-station hardware, the business of running and maintaining the units turned out to be a money loser for EcoTality, which had installed the units and established the Blink network of chargers in Oregon and the other states involved in The EV Project. Government officials expected the San Francisco-based firm would invest $110 million of private funding to install the residential units and establish the public network. EcoTality expected to become profitable, partly through the sale of electricity to electric car owners through its Blink network of charging stations, but that failed to happen quickly enough. In 2013, staggering under debt, EcoTality went bankrupt. The firm's assets, including the Blink network, were acquired in 2013 by Miami-based Car Charging Group, making it the nation's largest electric vehicle charging company. Yet that firm also is struggling financially, having lost nearly $11 million in the first six months of 2014. The firm's financial status adds uncertainty to the network's future. By Edward Russo The (Eugene) Register-Guard MailTribune.com By Edward Russo The (Eugene) Register-Guard Posted Jan. 6, 2015 @ 2:00 am » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with MailTribune.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services Home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Announcements Obituaries Story ideas Since you asked Alerts Email Alerts RSS Feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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