As a long time advocate of alternative fueled vehicles and the owner of both a true electric vehicle and a plug-in hybrid, I urge Portland to charge a fee for electric chargers. Three things:

1. To seriously encourage people to switch to electric vehicles, we need far more public charging places; a charging fee would help the city finance an expanded network, including level III DC chargers.

2. Drivers with plug-in hybrids like the Ford Fusion, Chevy Volt, or Toyota plug-in Prius should not use public charging stations. These are not electric cars; they are gas cars with a small electric range. When using a pubic charging station, hybrid drivers prevent all-electric vehicles – which require re-charging – from using the station. I can drive anywhere in my plug-in Prius after the charge runs out; I can’t do that in my Nissan Leaf. For many plug-in hybrid drivers, the “incentive” is likely free parking.

3. Those of us with true EVs should start paying our fair share of road maintenance. One solution would be to charge all vehicles a fee based on miles driven and vehicle weight. If we’re worried that eliminating the gas tax would incentive buying gas vehicles, why not eliminate all subsidies for the oil industry and include a carbon tax? The true cost of gas would be starkly revealed – a powerful incentive to make the switch to EVs.

Daniel Abbott
Portland