435 New EV Chargers To Be Installed In Philadelphia

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It was just a bit ago that it was announced the City of Philadelphia was considering installing a great number of new public EV chargers. A new development is that the city will collaborate with PositivEnergy, an expanding EV charging network and provider of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and fleet electrification solutions, to have 435 public EV chargers installed.

“Philadelphia’s goal is to make EV charging more accessible, reliable, and equitable for residents in neighborhoods across the city. We are grateful to our partners at PositivEnergy for sharing this vision, and for bringing their expertise to the implementation and deployment of our EV network,” said Anna Kelly, Senior Policy Advisor for EV and Parking in Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems.

If you have been following public EV charging infrastructure expansion in the US, you know there has been an unexpected growth trend. Republicans in Congress eliminated the federal EV purchasing and leasing incentives, which put a damper on US EV sales, but EV sales have not gone away completely and EV charging infrastructure keeps growing. They have also tried to block the disbursement of federal funds for the installations of more public EV chargers, but their attempts to stop the expansion of public EV chargers funded by the federal government have mostly failed. Consequently, more and more public chargers, including fast chargers, have been installed in various US states. Additionally, there has been a steady expansion of EV chargers at private sector locations such as Walmarts, convenience stores, grocery stores, travel/rest stops, and shopping centers.

If the founding fathers were alive today, they might have an energetic debate about how much authority the federal government has to support or block the development of a national, public EV charging infrastructure. Thomas Jefferson was for a very balanced system of government authority, split between the states and the federal government. “Jefferson maintained that the United States was formed through a social contract between the individual states rather than the people as a whole. In other words, because these states had united voluntarily to form a union—in Jefferson’s language, a ‘compact’—the U.S. government derived its power only from them. This understanding of American government soon found expression in the U.S. Constitution. In 1791, the Ninth and Tenth amendments were ratified, reserving all powers not expressly granted to the federal government to the states and/or the people.”

However, Republicans today who are the most anti-clean energy and anti-EV may not be genuinely concerned about the nation, laws, history, or civics. Instead, some of them appear to only be bought-off puppets whose campaign contributions mainly come from fossil fuel corporations and other special interests. They are only in their seats as a result of the manipulation of elections to gain power in Congress by the wealthiest and most powerful to shape laws in their own financial interests.

Electric vehicles can be operated on clean, renewable electricity from solar power, wind power, hydropower, and geothermal. That is, they don’t need fossil fuels. Electric vehicle owners can get their own home solar power, micro wind turbines, heat pumps, and battery storage, so they can charge their electric vehicles at home with their own electricity. They never need to visit a gas station again in their whole lives.

The more public EV chargers that are installed, the less hesitation members of the public have to get rid of their gas-guzzling, toxic air pollution spewing internal combustion engine vehicles and replace them with electric vehicles.

Philadelphia has harmful air pollution, so it needs to go down this route. “The air pollutants highlighted in this report are widespread and pose a risk to everyone’s health. Both ozone and particle pollution can lead to premature death and cause serious health issues such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, preterm births, and even problems with cognitive function later in life. Particle pollution can also increase the risk of lung cancer,” said Elizabeth Hensil, Director of Advocacy in Pennsylvania, American Lung Association.

Gas and diesel vehicles generate air pollution that harms human health, harms the health of other creatures, and contributes to climate change.