Is New York City Prepared for Electric Vehicles?

February 25, 2022

Six months ago, the Dept. of Transportation and the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability published a bold vision for Electric Vehicles (EVs) in NYC. The report estimated that about 20% of the 2 million gasoline vehicles registered in the city (or about 400,000) would be switching to EVs by 2030.

There were at the time of publication only about 15,000 EVs registered in the 5 boroughs, so this switch could go a long way in helping the City meet its climate decarbonization goals. It would be an explosive growth in EVs of ~2,500% in just 8 years!

By their own admission, however, the lack of charging infrastructure could prove to be a significant barrier to widespread EV adoption in NYC. Their research revealed that there were only about 1,573 total chargers in all of NYC and that the vast majority (~75%) served only Tesla EVs and were located mostly in Manhattan (~60%). Perhaps just as concerning is that there were only 118 “fast” chargers (meaning capable of providing a nearly full charge in 30-60 minutes). And of those, only 22 could accommodate non-Tesla EVs.

In addition to the fast chargers being scarce, they were also hard to access – most of them were behind paywalls (parking lots and shopping centers, or toll bridges such as Randall’s Island, or very far away at airports). According to electric transportation company Revel Transit Inc., only 4 non-Tesla fast chargers were publicly accessible in all of NYC in early 2021.

Bridging the gap between the City’s bold projections and the existing charging infrastructure is a major challenge that needs to be tackled quickly to ensure widespread adoption of EVs in NYC. Fortunately, there’s a master plan with multi-pronged strategies to narrow the gap, and that’s the subject of our March forum. We are bringing experts from ConEdison, the Department of Transportation and Revel, the electric ridesharing company to understand the existing challenges and their proposed solutions. We hope you will find it worth your time.

Title: Is New York City Prepared for Electric Vehicles?

Date/Time: Wednesday March 16th, 6.30-8pm

Location: Zoom

Speakers:

Britt Reichborn, Section Manager of Electric Vehicles, ConEdison

Tobias Lescht, Head of EV Infrastructure and Energy at Revel

NYC Department of Transportation