MATT Park arrived at the Colorado Welcome Center’s new electric vehicle fast charging station with two minutes to spare on Tuesday afternoon. Not two minutes as in two minutes until his appointment, but two minutes to spare before his Ford Mustang Mach 1 ran out of electricity to run.
Park had driven down from Longmont and provided a demonstration for a host of people who had gathered for a ribbon cutting to celebrate two new fast charging stations for electric vehicles installed at the Colorado Welcome Center off Sixth Street and State Avenue. The event was to showcase how the Colorado Energy Office, the Colorado Welcome Center in Alamosa, and 4CORE, a nonprofit organization that helps promote EVs, were working to accommodate a growing number of all electric and hybrid vehicles in Colorado.
Park, with his Mustang Mach 1, became the star of the show. He explained how he pays for an EV charge and the cost he typically runs into. He quickly determined the station he plugged into at the Colorado Welcome Center was charging him 45 cents per minute. He said that’s normal, with EV charges ranging from 45 cents to 50 cents. And to his delight, he said it was clearly a fast charging station he had tapped into because he had 20 percent juice minutes after plugging in.
ON the per minute cost, say it takes you an hour to charge your electric vehicle while on the road. At 45 cents per minute, you’re paying $27 to fill up.
Xcel Energy covered the infrastructure costs for the Colorado Welcome Center’s EV charging stations, and settlement money Colorado received from Volkswagen for its emissions violations helped pay to purchase the charging stations themselves.
Laurie Dickson, executive director of 4CORE based in Durango, said there are 42,000 registered electric vehicles in the state. She said the new fast charging stations at the Colorado Welcome Center are intended for the traveler like Park or tourists passing through Alamosa.
Most electric vehicle owners charge at home off either a 110 voltage or 220 voltage of power. There are also charging stations around Alamosa and other communities in the San Luis Valley, including at 1st Southwest Bank off Main Street that can support the local commuter.
