There's a campaign in North Texas to make it easier to find public electric vehicle charging stations.
There are more than 145,000 electric vehicles in North Texas - and that means there's a growing need for places to recharge. The North Central Texas Council of Governments is using a $12 million federal grant to help pay for charging terminals on public-sector properties throughout the region.
"The private sector has made a lot of investments," said Lori Clark, Senior Program Manager for Alternative Fuels for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. "There are probably over 600 charging stations around the north central Texas area."
While public charging facilities are common in some neighborhoods, they are not easily found in others.
"There's a lot in the northern Dallas area, not so many in southern Dallas. There's a lot in the northeast Tarrant County area, but not so much on the east side of Fort Worth," said Clark. "So that's what we're doing with the funding that we have - working with local governments to fill those gaps
The NCTCOG was represented at the Arts and Autos festival over the weekend in downtown Denton. The event to celebrate art and classic cars also included an area for electric vehicles. Visitors had the chance to learn more about the number of EV charging stations and check out different types of electric vehicles.
The Texas EV Alliance also set up a program to let people take a test-drive in an electric vehicle. Executive Director Buzz Smith says those test-drives have a big impact on people.
"They get out of the car, and they want to find me and talk to me about it," he said. "And they have this giant smile. I'll ask them, 'is your next car going to be electric?" And they go, 'absolutely'."
For those interested in buying an electric vehicle, there's an important deadline coming up. A federal tax-credit program will end on September 30th. Lori Clark with the NCTCOG says that still gives people time to make a decision.
"There are two incentive programs you can stack together," she said. "There's a state rebate that's going to open in October. It will be retroactive to purchases made on or after September 1st. You can stack that with a federal tax incentive of up to $7,500 as long as you qualify for the federal incentive by September 30th."
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