Buffalo, NY (WBEN) As many drive to their summer vacation destinations, there's one concern among electric vehicle owners: where to charge their vehicles.
One place you won't necessarily see them is at hotels.
Bloomberg's Keith Laing says a recent survey that showed that about 26% of 17,000 hotels had a charger, but some only had one charger. "And in some cases, there's chargers and independent chargers nearby but not on the property," says Laing.
Laing says while gas stations are a given, it's not the case for EV drivers looking for chargers. "We talked to some drivers who were planning some road trips, and they were saying that they wanted to plan out their whole trip and make sure that they would have access to a charger," says Laing. But for hotels, it's a case of the chicken or the egg. "EV uptake is growing, but right now EVs account for about 7% of the US market. And there is an expense on the hotel side of adding these chargers. So, it's like do they want to get ahead of it? Or do they want to wait until there's more demand from their their consumers?" explains Laing.
Laing says drivers can feel frustration because they have to first find a hotel that has charger access nearby and then they have to be concerned with what level the charger that's available and how long it takes to charge a vehicle. "There are some that can are designed to slowly charge like overnight and versus some chargers that are designed to give you a full charge and an hour or two," notes Laing.
While Laing notes there's not a unified searching option, there are different websites that have tracking. "Some carmakers have options in the car where you can find chargers," says Laing. He says you need to have to figure out the price of the charging and which company it's connected to, "You also can't have it connected to your hotel room if it's part of independent charger that's across the street," reports Laing.
AAA's Kathy Hess says only about 25% of the major chains have EV charging stations currently, but many more are popping up each day. "The hotel chains really are working on getting them at most of their major in major cities," says Hess. AAA has a link to where you can find EV charging stations on its online TripTik page.
Hess says while EV stations are popping up in major cities, it may a tougher challenge to find them in smaller towns. "Chances are there's one close by if it's not available at the hotel, there'll be a charging station close by there," says Hess.
