EVing The Countryside!

Today is the last month of May which means tomorrow I will gather information for the May Drive report. The mileage will be lower than normal simply because I haven't been home to LEAF it much. Started with the first 5 days of May finishing the Disney trip, then 2 days in Alaska and then finished up the end of May with the LEAF parked almost 6 full days for my trip to Cincinnati.  That does not leave many driving days left!

But one thing it did give me was how much disparity EVs have in various parts of the country.  Case in point; a very large Toyota dealer near Cincinnati that had overflowing cars parked everywhere. Grass was not sacred there!  But they only had 5 Priuses!  It was amazing! The local Toyota dealer here has like a hundred! welll, maybe not that many but they do devote nearly an entire section of their parking lot to Priuses.

Also despite my looking, I did not see any LEAFs (easy to spot) or Tesla's (fairly easy to spot) or other plug in's. (some not so easy to spot at a glance)  I did manage to see one Chevy Volt though so it wasn't a completely plugless wasteland.  But then I realized, its a receptacle so I jumped onto Plugshare and

well, see that little blue dot near Forestville? that is me. so I purposely positioned the map to view the most likely location of a plug and...

Yes, I am afraid it actually was a plugless wasteland!  No amount of zooming and panning provided me with as much as one single result.

Which brings me back to who should shoulder most of the responsibility (and cost) of providing an amicable environment for EVs to thrive.  It would seem national policies would become mired in a sea of red tape and rightfully so. Despite nationwide distribution of a handful of plug options, there is essentially huge regions of the country that are simply not interested.

But the expense can escalate quickly and many States are still seeing their way out of budget crisis' from the end of the previous decade so extra money might also be an issue.  EVs can provide benefits in areas covered by several different federal programs, I think its time that these programs start to pony up some cash. Not a lot mind you. No one program should pay for it since it is a shared benefit show it should be shared responsibility.  Also as mentioned above, the level of benefit varies greatly from area to the next.  This would lessen the load on the transportation sector as it should.  Now is this a backend run for the Green Team?

Some will look at it that way but I have to think that EVs have the potential to become much more than just a treehugger's dream if we let it.