EVs beyond need for free parking

Some would say that Hawaii is perfectly suited for a large-scale conversion, over time, to electric vehicle (EV) technology. Commuting distances are usually short enough to fit within the range of a single battery charge.

Beyond that, EVs recharging for the trip home can tap some of the excess energy generated by solar panels during the hot and sunny midday, freeing space for more green energy on the grid.

So encouraging the growth of EVs in Hawaii was a reasonable action for lawmakers to take in 2012. Incentives such as free parking, legislators thought, would improve consumer demand.

Over the last five years, EV owners have lapped up the benefits: free parking in county and state facilities, and being allowed to use the less congested high-occupancy vehicle lane regardless of the number of car occupants.

However, Hawaii leaders should re-evaluate all of this and start transitioning to Phase 2. An updated set of policies should aim to make an electric vehicle network work more seamlessly, rather than merely persuade people to buy.

At the outset, when wary consumers viewed electric vehicles as an expensive, unproven technology, a boost from state law seemed rational.

But market conditions have changed. EVs have deepened their roots in the economy. The technology has improved, prices have subsided somewhat, and people here are trusting that the car’s traveling range will fill their needs.

A perk for free parking, said Shem Lawlor, is unlikely to tip the scales as much as the current reality: The total price for purchase and operating an EV now can be lower than that of gas-fueled cars.

Lawlor is clean-transportation director at Blue Planet Foundation, a nonprofit organization with clean-energy advocacy as its main focus. Where parking privileges may have helped on the margins to sell cars, the cost is less of a barrier to ownership now.

The barrier now is the lack of adequate infrastructure — not enough charging stations, strategically located to make EV use practical. Lawmakers have resisted multiple efforts to mandate improvements there.

For now, the early lure remains: free use of metered street parking stalls, as well as the even more tempting incentive of long-term parking at the airport without charge.

This seems unfair on its face. Many owners of EVs have the income to manage the cost of parking with greater ease than the average drivers, who are relied upon for revenue that, in the case of the airport, goes into state coffers; metered parking stalls generally benefit the city.

Lawlor said that deleting the benefit wouldn’t necessarily yield the full share of the avoided fees, because EV car owners likely would then change their driving habits.

Regardless, EV drivers incentivized to seek free parking, especially in the increasingly scarce street stalls, are essentially depriving others of that space without paying for the privilege.

What should happen now is a revision to the pertinent section of the law, Hawaii Revised Statutes 291-71. This not only provides incentives but also mandates one EV space, equipped with charging stations, in parking lots of 100 spaces or more. Even much larger lots, at shopping malls, still only have to provide one.

Advocates such as Blue Planet should try again next session to pass a bill that increases this requirement.

And this time, lawmakers should listen. Oahu needs more charging stations, and the state must give a push to make that happen.

The state’s job is to ensure enough infrastructure develops to support the EV sector as it expands. Otherwise, the industry has grown up enough to stand on its own.