VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Some are questioning whether the City of Virginia Beach is prepared for a major increase in the number of electric vehicles on the road.
On Tuesday, a representative of The Department of Public Works and an associate with Cadmus, a tech consulting company, presented research to City Council.
In a report from Virginia Beach City Manager Patrick Duhaney, it stated:
“The purpose of this plan is to assess the current and future needs of the City and develop an Electric Vehicle Plan while adding the funding needed including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Communities Grant Program.”
It added that one goal is to have Virginia Beach compete and be awarded grant funding to buy and install electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
“There is an unprecedented amount of federal funding that has become available over the next five years," Rex Hazelton, of Cadmus, explained.
He said they want to look at ways to apply for that funding and establish partnerships to facilitate the financing.
During the presentation to City Council, Hazelton stated research shows by 2035, about half of the passenger vehicles on the road in the U.S. will be electric and will cost about the same as a gasoline-powered vehicle.
“As electric vehicles are coming online, you’re going to be seeing more and more tourists are going to need to be able to charge,” commented Hazelton.
He explained that Virginia Beach apparently has about 140 so-called public charging stations.
However, a group of Virginia Beach City Public School students in the Environmental Studies Program discovered quite a few of the ones listed either weren’t there any longer or are not truly public. Some charging stations are at businesses that would require the user to be a customer.
“The original reason we did this was to give it to city council to show the disparity between electric charging stations that are there and aren’t there,” said VBCPS senior Matthew Stanley.
His group even made an interactive map showing charging stations and listing details like location and cost of charging.
“It feels really awesome to actually have a lasting impact in our society,” Stanley told News 3. “As a society, we need to transition to cleaner fuel if we want to preserve our planet, not just for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children.”
Tuesday, April 4, Virginia Beach City Council is expected to vote on whether to adopt the ordinance that would assist with efforts to apply for and obtain federal funding for the electric vehicle charging stations.
Mayor Bobby Dyer commented at the recent briefing.
“I think we’ve got to approach this a sense of optimism and caution. I think optimism in the fact that we are a tourist, that we want people to come here. We cannot put up a barrier to success that, you know, would be logistically inconvenient to get their vehicles," Dyer said. “Don’t forget, a plan can be a dynamic work. If we just get it started and then progress as technology improves and things of that nature. But I think once again, we have an obligation to proceed immediately.”
