Albany boosts commitment to electric vehicles in work fleet
ALBANY – Should Albany put a little more juice in city vehicles? That's the question city commissioners wrested with on whether to accept a grant that would require a commitment to put more electric vehicles in service.
City staff has recommended accepting a $131,480 energy efficiency and conservation block grant to install two EV charging stations. The stations would be located at 1312 Blaylock St. and 1726 Lily Pond Road.
A goal of the grant program is to benefit disadvantaged communities, and the EV charging stations would meet that goal.
For the city, it could also allow for determining the effectiveness of EV vehicles moving forward.
"The goal is to see what we can do with these vehicles," city Fleet Manager Peter Bednar said. "What I want to do is to be at least able to test these vehicles to see what their real range is."
The idea is to put some of the vehicles into real-world conditions to determine whether the performance matches that advertised by manufacturers.
"We are going to test this," Bednar said. "This is a good opportunity. What we are trying to find out is can we match the range? Range anxiety is the problem.
"It's kind of chicken and egg. You need the chargers first. You need to find out how many miles can they go in a day. Can they charge them overnight and come in the next day and do all they need to do?"
Another consideration is how electric models perform overall as compared to fossil fuel models. While electric vehicles don't have a motor to break down, Bednar said, he would like to test other components like tires, brakes and suspensions to see how they hold up in the electric vehicles.
A consequence of the grant could be locking the city into a commitment to having 23% of its fleet powered by electricity by 2025 or sooner. That was what caught the eye of some of the commissioners, who said they are concerned about the added expense of electric vehicles.
"It's good to have a balance of vehicles," Commissioner Bob Langstaff said. "I get all that, but I am concerned about locking ourselves in. I'm concerned by the time we do it, it will be something else, hydrogen or something we've never heard of."
