Co-op Spearheads Electric-Vehicle Push with Chargers Open to Public

EV charging stations were first installed in New York City in late 2009, when the sustainable-energy company Beautiful Earth Group installed a solar-powered station in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Then on July 15, 2010, the city unveiled the first a charger at the Edison parking facility on Ninth Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets — the first of a planned 100-plus.

And separately, Seward Park of its own initiative has just installed four on its property — two for its residents and, with admirable altruism, two for the general public. A formal unveiling, open to all and including public officials among its speakers, is scheduled for May 6, though the stations are already open for use.

Higher Purpose, Lower East Side

“Seward Park turned 50 last year, and we took a look at what could we do to become a greener co-op,” says Michael Tumminia, the former board president and now a board member and the public affairs officer of the co-op -- a complex of four balconied towers housing over 4,000 residents in 1,728 apartments. In January 2010, Seward Park became the city’s first co-op/condo to provide on-site "car sharing" — hourly car rentals — in an innovative sponsorship deal with Connect by Hertz that gives residents discounted rates and also mandated the inclusion of a gas/electric hybrid vehicle, in this case a Toyota Prius. An electric Nissan LEAF has since been added.

“We knew electric cars were on the horizon,” Tumminia says. The obvious next step was to research what types of EV charging stations were available so that fully electric cars could be used.

That led them to Coulomb Technologies, which has a large number of charging stations (such as at right) all over the U.S., Canada and Europe — and which sponsors the ChargePoint America Program under the auspices of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Transportation Electrification Initiative of the Department of Energy. Simply put, the program is designed to help create a charging infrastructure to help encourage consumers to buy electric cars. Otherwise, as Tumminia notes, “It’s a classic chicken-or-the-egg situation.” The overall philosophy is to help reduce dependence on foreign oil.

“We have four stations,” Tumminia says. “Two are available to the public [in an outdoor parking lot] and two are in our [indoor] garage for residents. For people in Seward Park who own a car and are interested in buying an EV, there’s now a way for them to charge it privately.”

Getting Shareholders Charged Up

How to sell the idea to the co-op shareholders? It wasn’t hard, he says. After Coulomb directed him to its local distributor, Green Power, that company made a presentation to board members to show, among other things, that the stations are compatible with various types of cars. Then company then made a public presentation at a Seward Park “Green Day” event.  “So our residents became aware of the devices and people could see and feel and understand what they are. Conceptually they‘re just like gas-station pumps except it’s electricity.”

The board included discussion of its EV charging-stations initiative in its year-end status report to shareholders, and also talked about them at one or two open information meetings with residents. Generally, the charging stations cost about $2,000, and installation about $200, according to Coulomb, though the ChargePoint Program and the specifics of the deal that a co-op or condo board may make can impact those prices.

Charging for Charging?

At Seward Park, says Tumminia, “We as a board have not yet decided what we will be charging for use of the stations, but we don’t view it as a way to ring in extra money for the co-op necessarily. Obviously we want to recover whatever we invested in the units, but our primary objective is just to cover any costs associated with their usage of it. We don’t see it as profit center, but as an amenity.” Users will be charged individually, generally in a credit-card arrangement with Coulomb.

As for the not-so-distant future, “Nothing would make me happier than seeing that we need to install more units,” Tumminia  says. “That would mean more and more people are choosing an alternative-fuel-sourced vehicle.”

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