New York City will install its first curbside electric-vehicle charging stations this year, part of an effort to address the dearth of charging options in the city. The Department of Transportation said that by October it will install 100 charging ports for public use. Another 20 ports will serve the city’s fleet of electric vehicles.
City officials said the expansion of an electric-vehicle charging network would be essential to meeting its environmental goals, which include reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
“If New York City is going to reduce and ultimately eliminate its carbon footprint, it’s critical that whatever cars exist in the city be electric,” NYC DOT Commissioner Hank Gutman said. He said the pilot program, which will run for four years, was a start.
“Our plan is to go big on this,” he said. “And we assume the private sector is going to step up and do its part.”
At present, New York’s charging capacity is limited for the nearly 15,000 electric vehicles registered in the city. About 1,400 level-2 charging plugs, which provide an 80% charge in four to eight hours, and 117 fast-charging plugs, which offer an 80% charge in 30 minutes to an hour, can be found across the city. The vast majority of those are in Manhattan parking garages, according to DOT officials. The curbside charging stations will be level-2 ports.
Mr. Gutman, who drives a plug-in hybrid car, acknowledged that limited charging capacity has been an impediment to expanding electric-vehicle access for many people in the city, especially those who can’t afford private parking spots in garages. The percentage of cars registered in New York that are electric has increased by 50% in just the past year, according to the DOT, but that still represents a fraction of the total of vehicles on the road.