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North Carolina: First in Fright?

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Back in 2004, Thomas Frank published his best-selling analysis of the conservative movement's success in the American headland called, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Given events in North Carolina of late, he could easily write a sequel about that state's drift into economic and political absurdity.

First, North Carolina state legislators seem to be doing their damnedest, clearly at the behest of their car dealer allies, to keep people from buying Tesla's electric cars directly from the California manufacturer. Before adjoining, the state's Senate Commerce Committee "unanimously approved a measure which would prevent consumers from purchasing vehicles over the phone or internet," reported PolicyMic. While ostensibly not aimed directly at Tesla and touted as protecting its citizens from fraud and abuse, the measure does prevent Tesla from selling its award-winning, highly-acclaimed Model S to North Carolinians.

Next, the same state legislators are looking for ways to raise revenues to make up with a projected $32 billion shortfall in highway funds, most of which comes from excise taxes on the sale of motor fuels in the state. Their solution is to slap an extra fee on every hybrid and electric car in the state, which I comment on here.

But the cherry on this sundae is the removal of four electric car charging stations installed along its portion of Interstate 95. The local Fox news station reports that the states' Department of Transportation removed them after "Republican leaders of the General Assembly weren’t happy with the idea of plug-in drivers using electricity for free."

Clearly this represents a huge drain on the state's budget, or is there more to this than just economic concerns?

I did a little research and found that Duke Energy, the state's largest electric utility, offers an industrial power rate of 11.2¢ per kilowatt hour for the first 30kWh. Assuming this is the rate it would charge the DOT and the chargers were Level 2 units that were used twice a day for a total of 5 hours (each car charging for an average of 2.5 hours) drivers might have consumed, at most, 20 kW (10 kWh per car). All four stations then would give away 80 kWh of electricity per day. Multiple this by 30 days in the month and you get the total energy consumed by freeloading EV owners at 2,400 kWh per month. The rate Duke charges its industrial customers for power consumed above 400 kWh a month drops to just over 5¢ (5.138¢ to be exact) per kilowatt hour. So, giving away that electricity cost the state a grand total of $123.31.

The state DOT claimed they couldn't figure out how to make people pay for the charges, so rather than upset the Republicans in the legislature, they decided to remove the stations. This is curious because there are any number of companies in the business of helping charge station owners monetize their infrastructure. I recently interview one of them: Greenlots, which offers an open billing standard that can be applied to any brand of electric car charging station. All the DOT would had to have done was install Greenlot's module in their EVSE's cabinet and they could begin tracking usage and billing for each charge session. The EV driver would use their smart phone to access the charger and be billed accordingly.

But instead of showing how progressive and forward thinking North Carolina is, its present government appears determined to resist entering the 21st century. One wonders what would have happened had today's legislators been alive at the time and heard about the Wright brother's experiments at Kitty Hawk. Would they have sought to ban 'human flight'?

Come on, North Carolina. Look at your 'First In Flight' license plates. Don't let your fear of the future frighten you. Come join the rest of us in the EV world.

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