Is your City ready for Electric Cars?

Earlier this month, Ford (USA) released a list of what it considers to be the 25 “most prepared” cities in the USA for electric vehicles. How would your city stack up?

Source: Ford

The map above, from Ford via greenautoblog.com via The Atlantic, shows the 25 American cities that are the most ready for electric vehicles (EVs).

Their criteria included:

• The City Council has established an EV advisory panel
• The Council provides easy to obtain permits for home charging stations
• The Council is working with utility companies to set up cheaper rates at night for charging
• The Council is using an “Urban Planning” approach to public charge station locations – looking at traffic flows, and heavy parking areas to determine best places for charging stations.

Cities seen as most advanced include, surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly?) Detroit, Seattle, Honolulu and San Diego.

But even if Australian Cities soon become “EV ready”, it won’t necessarily be anything new.  Believe it or not, Sydney had an electric vehicle charging station back in 1916 (and maybe an advisory panel too?)

An extract from the information about the Detroit Electric Brougham car, on display at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, explains:

“During the First World War the cost of petrol doubled in Australia and electric cars became so popular that in 1916 Sydney City Council set up a special charging station in Palmer Street, where owners could recharge their vehicles for a reasonable fee. At this time it was expected that the petrol engine would soon become obsolete…”

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