Electric car owners track down scarce charging stations

"I had my business account at one bank, and my personal one at another and I was thinking of moving them to the same bank anyway, then I saw Weber State Credit Union had a charger," Holtry said. It's a seemingly arbitrary reason, he said, "but I figured I'd support them for putting a charger there."

Holtry mostly uses the PlugShare app to figure out where to recharge. Taking a look at its interactive map, the challenge of finding chargers becomes obvious. While there are loads of electric vehicle stations in Salt Lake City, very few public chargers have been installed around Ogden.

The PlugShare app shows about 12 commercial or public Tier 2 or higher EV charging stations in Weber and Davis counties, compared to the roughly 60 stations found in Salt Lake County alone.

"Ogden is noticeably denuded of stations," said Jeff Barrett, deputy director of the Governor's Office of Energy Development. "I think educating folks in your area is going to be key. I'm actually surprised at how few there are in Ogden."

Barrett's office has worked hard to educate Utah consumers about electric vehicles, or EVs. They've developed a calculator that compares the costs of owning a gas car versus an electric one. They've compiled a list of EV benefits. They've even tried to create their own map of EV stations, although it's not crowd sourced like PlugShare's app, so it's not as extensive.

Barrett's office has also worked hard to assemble funding for more EV stations, but they've almost exclusively gone to the state's capital, not outlying cities.

But Holtry said he sees businesses filling some of the local need. He also thinks they have plenty of incentives to do so.

"It's great for marketing," he said "And you've got a captive audience for at least half an hour."

Holtry works as a Realtor, so he drives around the Wasatch Front a lot. When his battery runs low after zipping around town, he usually stops at the Ken Garff Nissan Dealership on Riverdale Road.

The dealership has one of only two Tier 3 chargers in Utah north of Salt Lake (the other is at a dealership in North Salt Lake), and Tier 3 chargers are what EV drivers want because they're fast. It takes Holtry about 30 minutes to juice up his Leaf on a Tier 3. A Tier 2, by comparison, takes about 8 hours. Tier 1 means plugging into a regular outlet, and that can take 16 hours.

When Holtry uses the Ken Garff Tier 3, he said he waits at the dealership, taking advantage of its free soda and popcorn. He goes to other Nissan dealerships when he's in the Salt Lake area, too, and uses their Tier 3 chargers for free.

"I don't know how many times the average person stops at a dealership — probably every few years when they're looking at cars," he said. "But I go to a dealership once a week, sometimes more. And chances are, when we buy another car, it will be at a Nissan dealership."

That was at least part of the motivation for Weber State Credit Union's new Tier 2 charger, according to Community Engagement Director Roger Dickson.

"I think there's a good portion of our members, and in the market in general, who appreciated that environmentally friendly attitude and want to do business with companies that have a green focus," he said. "We could be better, not all our practices are perfect, but we're trying to do some of those things. I think people notice that and say 'yeah, I'd like to do business with you.'"

Especially in Utah, which struggles with poor air quality, there's an incentive for state officials to get more EVs on the road. They don't emit the chemicals that ultimately form particulate pollution in the winter and ozone in the summer.

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