CC Minutes - 02/16/10 Joint Meeting with EWEB

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Work Session February 16, 2010 Page 4 Introduction to Electric Vehicle Initiatives Mayor Piercy invited Eugene Parking Services Manager Jeff Petry, and Bob Parker, from the University of Oregon, to the table. She noted that Nissan had chosen Oregon for a project that involved the deployment of 1,000 electric vehicles and helping to put 2,500 charging stations into place. Jeannine Parisi, Community and Local Government Outreach Coordinator for EWEB, highlighted the Introduction to Electric Vehicle Initiatives with PowerPoint, hard copies of which were provided to everyone present. She said the high level overview was due in part to rapidly changing technology. She remarked that it would not surprise her if the information they imparted was out-of-date in three months. She recommended a website called www.pluginamerica.org which contained pictures of all electric vehicles available on the market. Ms. Parisi discussed the pros and cons of electric vehicles. She noted that one of the cons was the initial cost of a vehicle, which could be $40,000 or more. She said Oregon driving patterns were one reason electric vehicles were well-suited, with most trips in major metropolitan areas well under the national 40-mile average. She noted that Oregon also featured sustainability and clean air initiatives and the Business Energy Tax Credits (BETC) and hybrid tax credits, among others. She noted that Oregon had the highest per capita ownership of hybrid cars in the nation. Ms. Parisi showed a slide of the design concept for the Lane Community College (LCC) electric car charging station. She discussed the three levels of charging that would be required for electric vehicles. Mr. Petry stated that there was about $100 million in grants from the DOE as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). He related that a grant for Oregon cities to install electric vehicle charging stations in 2009 had been applied for and denied because the infrastructure was not ready. He said now, with ARRA funds, Oregon was one of five test sites for a project managed by a company in Arizona called eTec, He explained that it was a three-year grant that had begun in October. Ms. Parisi noted that the cities involved included Portland, Albany, Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene. Mr. Petry reported that eTec expected to have 75 percent of the charging stations installed by October, 2010, but the City still did not know what exactly was being installed. He said the City would be working on localized deployment guidelines and planned to hold a stakeholder workshop in early April. He reviewed the draft timeline, which was projected to culminate in an evaluation to be completed by mid-year 2012. Mr. Parker explained that the University was partnering with the City of Eugene and EWEB to conduct a preliminary investigation into what this meant for the communities. He said the Community Planning Workshop (CPW), through the University, had applied for money from the Oregon Transportation Research Education Consortium (OTREC) and received funding for a local electric vehicle assessment. He related that six graduate students were helping with the project. Mr. Parker reviewed potential implications for cities. He noted that travel behavior could be affected by the economic nature of electric vehicles, though the battery technology was still expensive. He said another issue was infrastructure investment. He related that most manufacturers would send cars out with charging infrastructure, but there was also a need for external infrastructure that was visible and available. He noted that