Home & Garden
Little Traffic to M Street Electric Car Charging Station
Georgetown electric vehicle charging stations are not used by residents, but businesses believe demand will come with time.
The SemaConnect electric vehicle charging station at 3307 M Street NW sees “infrequent” use, said EastBanc Vice President Philippe Lanier.
However, Lanier stated he expects “the station to be used more and more as more electric vehicles come into circulation.”
The electric vehicle charging station was installed at the M Street parking location in December 2011 under the guidance of businesses EastBanc Inc., a commercial and residential real estate development company, and Jamestown, a real estate investment and management firm.
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The two businesses collaborated with Parking Management Inc. (PMI) to initiate plans for an electric vehicle charging space on M Street—the first of its kind in Georgetown.
Since implanting the original, another charging station was placed in Georgetown at the Washington Harbour Plaza at 3000 K St. NW.
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EastBanc and Jamestown covered the charging costs of the station for the first thee months, allowing the public to charge their electric vehicles for free. According to Lanier, covering the trial period did not cost the company much money.
Lanier also said electric vehicle owners utilizing the charging spot are not employees of EastBanc, but rather public drivers using the PMI parking garage.
“We’ve seen cases where people…go ahead and pull the trigger on buying an electric vehicle because they know they’ll have access to charging stations either where they live or where they work,” PMI Marketing Associate Rachel Ross told Patch. “It’s an amenity for the tenants.”
The charging stations require very little maintenance, said Naly Yang director of marketing at SemaConnect. Mostly, they just need to be cleaned and kept at commercial grade standards.
SemaConnect “plans on installing more [charging stations], they just have not followed up on it,” added Yang.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, electric vehicles have many benefits including decreased pollutant emissions. The delay in market adoption is in part from consumer worries about mileage and engine power with fully-electric cars. The Chevy Volt and some other electric cars with gasoline back-up systems are gaining popularity.
