Hawaii County leads the way on EV charging

As the EV revolution (rEVolution) ramps up in Hawaii and around the world, a common problem facing EV drivers is broken chargers, or simply not enough chargers.

Hawaii has had a law for many years that requires all commercial parking lot owners with 100 stalls or more to install at least one EV charger and dedicated parking stall. We do, however, see a lot of chargers around the state not kept in working order.

This leads to frustration and an underserved bad reputation for EVs, and will deter people who may need to charge at public chargers, rather than at home, from making the leap to an EV.

While most EV owners in Hawaii today still charge primarily at home, as EV penetration increases we will see more renters and others who can’t charge at home buy or lease EVs.

To accelerate that trend and enable an equitable transition to clean transportation state-wide, we must have ubiquitous, reliable, and easily accessible public EV chargers. This will also be critical for the visitor industry to support an electric rental car fleet.

Access to reliable EV charging is a major equity issue as well as an environmental issue. As the EV revolution continues we don’t want to see low and moderate-income residents unable or uninterested in buying or leasing electric vehicles. Making charging easy and widespread is key to avoid creating new inequities and to allow everyone to share in the major benefits of electric cars.

Our organizations, the Hawaii EV Association (Hawaiiev.org) and Think B.I.G. (thinkbighawaii.org), both nonprofits based in Hawaii, worked with Heather Kimball, County Councilmember for District 1 in Hawaii County (also a board member of Think BIG and one of the authors of this essay), to introduce a new bill that would implement state law Act 75 and also fix some of the gaps in the state law as it applied to Hawaii County.

Read the rest here at Civil Beat.