The Electric Car Industry Looks to Take a Big Step
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- What may be the next big thing for the auto industry got a test drive from BGE employees Tuesday.
Political reporter Pat Warren has more on the revolutionary concept.
It's clean, it's efficient and it takes some getting used to. The voice of automotive history has been silenced.
"This isn't bad, this is actually pretty good," Ricky Reed said, who took his first spin in an all-electric car. The BGE employee is one of many test driving the new technology.
"You hear electric car you think you think slow crappy car but that was pretty good right off the jump and that's the kind of mind-change BGE is after," he said.
"We've been involved with electric vehicles since 2010 since they first came out. We adopted some cars early on, put them in our fleet, tested them. Also we installed several charging stations of our own," said John Murach of BGE Energy Efficient Programs.
The question for drivers becomes, where do I plug it in?
"That's the problem I live in an apartment so an electric car might not be good for me," Reed said.
For now, it's the car dealers who help customers with finding charging stations and plugging in at home.
There are about 1300 charging stations in the State right now, that number is expected to increase by 10,000 as the infrastructure grows.
"And we're very part of the state's efforts for EV corridors up and down and across the State to make sure charging is available to our customers," Murach said.
"All this is going to take a little bit to get used to," Reed said.
And no time like the present to start. After the 2020 goal of 60,000 electric vehicles, the next goal is 300,000 by 2025.
Maryland is one of seven states in a zero emissions vehicles program.
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