Electric Cars and EV charging in Hawaii
There are two major drawbacks to using electric cars, one is the low number of miles you get before you need a recharge, and the second is the lack of charging stations. The Hawaiian island of Maui is working to alleviate those problems.
The first point comes naturally; Maui is only 48 miles long and 26 miles wide. Large amounts of high speed driving (which sucks down battery life) isn't possible and most trips in a car are pretty short. Maui's new Electric Vehicle Alliance is working to reduce the impact of the second problem, a lack of EV Charging stations.
With a grant from the Clean Cities Initiative Award from the US department of energy Maui is looking to develop an Electric Charging station infrastructure to encourage visitors renting cars to choose electric cars instead of gas. With gas prices near $4.50 per gallon on the island this convincing tourists to try out an electric vehicle may not be too hard.
EV Car rentals
People often try out cars that they might like to buy when they are on vacation and choose to rent a car. A strong EV charging infrastructure on the highly tourist driven island like Maui could actually make a difference in future electric car sales throughout the states. It's estimated that between 15-20% of the cars driven in Maui are rental cars driven by tourists.
Renting a car gives people the opportunity to try out a new model before making the commitment. Electric cars really makes sense in Hawaii. High gas prices coupled with short driving distances would make an electric car a perfect choice once there are charging stations available in the hotels, state parks and other beach parking or other recreational locations. No doubt when it comes time for the rental car companies to sell the rental cars most of the electric vehicles will be bought by Maui residents.
Of course if you do decide to buy that cool Volt or Leaf after renting one during your Hawaiian vacation you need to make sure there are charging stations available where you live. Not a problem if you live in one of the larger cities, Sacramento Ev charging stations and Los Angeles Ev charging stations are pretty common. Smaller cities or when trying to travel longer distances can pose much more of a problem.
Electric Vehicle Services
As electric vehicles are introduced into the driving force on the island there will be a need for more specialized training. Along with the obvious need of mechanics that can service the vehicle, emergency service personnel, like fire fighters need to learn what to do when these vehicles are involved in an accident. High voltage cables run through the body of electric cars. When cutting into a vehicle to free an occupant after an accident the emergency personnel need to be careful of cutting these lines and producing sparks that might ignite fires or even cause shock hazards.
In time, with enough ev's on the road power needs will also increase. This means the Maui Electric Company or MECO will also need to stay ahead of this increased demand. This could be more of a problem in the cities where power use may be getting closer to capacity or in the outlining state parks where there has been little demand of power in the past and the electric grid was not designed to handle a high demand of electricity.
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