Lack of ports in Portage County leads to lack of purchases of electric vehicles

By: Anna Louden

Electric vehicles are becoming more and more common to see along the road, but issues always come back to the lack of charging stations.

Jim Arnold, of Akron, has been driving electric vehicles for around four years, he started with the Nissan Leaf, then purchased a Chevy Bolt, and purchased the Tesla Model 3. He believes electric cars are the future.

“I drove my first electric vehicle for two weeks and I realized I was done with gas cars and would never buy a gas car again,” Arnold said.

One of the main issues with people purchasing electric vehicles is the lack of charging stations available.

“I think if businesses could just even make wall outlets available for people that can be a great help as well and it’s very inexpensive to put in a standard wall outlet to charge with,” Arnold said.

Arnold believes charging stations and outlets are going to grow to become very common.

“I remember we used to go into any store and they would not have Wi-Fi, now think about how common it is to go into a business that doesn’t offer free Wi-Fi it seems like it’s strange now if you go to someplace that doesn’t offer it. I think the same thing is going to happen with charging stations,” Arnold said.

Arnold normally charges his car at work and shares three chargers with nine other co-workers. They schedule times to take turns all charging their cars and he also charges his car at home.

There are two different types of charging for electric vehicles. According to chargehub.com, Level 1 charging is when users charge their cars with the charger that comes with the car. This charger can be plugged into any standard 120V outlet. The average charge is 124 miles for 20 hours.

The next type of charging is Level 2. These chargers are sold separately from the car and plug into a 240V outlet which will allow the vehicle to charge three to seven times faster.

Level 2 chargers are most commonly found at businesses and in parking garages.

The city of Kent offers five Level 2 chargers. Four of the chargers are found spread out on Kent’s campus. On average, the chargers cost around .40-.50 cents an hour.

Arnold said his favorite part about owning electric vehicles is that there is virtually no maintenance on them and there are few things that ever go wrong with the car.

Arnold believes the issue with students getting electric vehicles is finding a charger since most students will be renting and no apartment building in Kent offers electric vehicle chargers.

“Students have a tougher time trying to navigate switching to an electric car because the apartment complex may not offer a way to charge, so then you are more reliant on public chargers, while homeowners can just charge at home,” Arnold said.

Kent State senior Amanda Joline agrees it would be difficult to own an electric car as a student due to the lack of charging in Kent.

“I think apartment complexes need to add the option of charging stations because right now there are no options, so it would make no sense for me to switch to an electric vehicle because it would be a hassle,” Joline said.

Joline said she would not mind paying an extra fee if the apartment complex’s installed charging stations and believes this would be a pro when apartment searching because it would allow the student to have more options.

 City Council member Roger Sidoti agrees that the city of Kent needs to offer more charging stations, but the issue has had to move to the backburner due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“At this point, we have bigger fish to fry, trying to protect their citizens from COVID, trying to keep businesses open, trying to build the city hall, trying to raise the level of awareness in the people in our community about the whole issue of discrimination, those types of things,” Sidoti said.

Sidoti said one of the main issues of adding more chargers is figuring out who is going to pay for the electricity and thinks there needs to be some sort of balance because there is no such thing as free energy.

“If we can find the money to put charging stations in, I think that’s good. I don’t think it should be on the city’s dime that people get to charge their car though,” Sidoti said.

Sidoti said they are hoping to add solar panels to the Kent City Hall building that could help power future charging stations they may put in the parking lot of the new building.

The Kent city council is partnered with PARTA (Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority) who helped fund the charging station in the parking garage in downtown Kent. Kent city council also received a grant from NEO PAC (North East Ohio Political Action Committee) that they are planning to utilize for chargers at the new City Hall building.

The City of Kent has 5 electric car chargers with 4 of those being on Kent State’s campus. Are there enough chargers in Kent for citizens to want to switch to an EV? Hear from Kent City council on what steps they are taking towards the progression of EVs. https://t.co/ozPX4IRrF9

— Anna Louden (@AnnaLouden) October 25, 2021