But would those be restricted to EV handicapped only or any handicapped?
I would be excessively pissed off at the tiny number of gimp parking spaces to vanish from my use. There are few enough of them where I go to shop that I even have trouble parking some visits and have to send mrAru in solo while I park out in the ass end of nowhere.
Notice that I said 1 or 2 extra. I meant that one or two currently normal spaces would be converted to handicapped+charger spaces, without reducing the number of plain old handicapped spaces.
Here in Calgary, most apartment complexes have plug-ins for assigned spaces in apartment complexes, and the cost may be buried in your rent or each plug-in may be metered for your apartment (so you pay your own electricity bill, and your stall plug-in is included in that). At work if you have plug-ins, the company eats the cost as a perk for working there. Train parking lots may have plug-ins, too. I have never been charged for a plug-in space per se. That might have to change with EVs.
I’ve never seen one with that.
I’d imagine the cost of the card accepting mechanism would take many years to pay for itself. And even more to pay for the landline phone they would have to connect to. (Using DMark’s figure of $1.50 to recharge a car, times 22 workdays in a month is $33. A basic landline phone here is about $30. So not enough profit to justify the costs.)
In residential property (condos, townhouses, or apartments) a base charge is often included in the rent. Might have to be adjusted for EV’s that use it year round vs. just in winter. Or there are assigned parking spaces just outside your unit, which are wired into your electrical meter.
At businesses, they are paid for by the business as a perk for the employees (and a gain for the business by improving employee on-time attendance). Generally not used much by customers – they aren’t there all day, so their cars engines don’t cool off that much. Though a fair number of businesses offer a plugin when a customers car needs a tank heater or battery charge – that gains real customer goodwill.
Providing free parking spaces is already discrimination against the poor – it costs much more to own & operate the vehicle that parks in that spot, and the cost to the business of maintaining that spot is a much bigger subsidy. Plus there are a lot of businesses that will ‘validate’ parking for $10-$20, but offer nothing toward the $2 cost of public transit, which the poor are much more likely to use.
This I agree with.
People frequently use abbreviations without ever explaining what they intend them to mean, and it’s very annoying.
I don’t think there’s any necessity to provide preferential parking. A block of spots with charging stations would be quite nice, but they could be anywhere. I think it would cost too much to wire every spot.
I’m not fond of coal-powered vehicles. Relabeling them “EV” doesn’t help.
I don’t think we need to provide preferential parking as some sort of EV incentive. But I think that having some charging spots that are restricted to EV vehicles does make sense, if they take off.
If EV vehicles take off, I totally want one. 
(The rule in writing is the first time you use a term, spell it out and put the abbreviation in brackets after it. After that you can use the abbreviation.)
I figured that in the context of a vehicle the acronym didn’t need explaining, since the article didn’t bother to spell it out either I guessed it must be well known.
Dude. I’m in Ontario. Our EVs are 50% nuclear! (And if I was in Quebec, they’d be hydroelectric!)
But even so, I have read that pure battery-electric vehicles fed by a coal-fired power plant are still more efficient than internal-combustion-engine vehicles. You get more kilometres per unit of fuel used for the EV running on coal-fired electricity than the internal-combustion engined vehicle running on gasoline. (That ignores other downsides of the EV, such as range limitations with current battery technology, and time to charge.)
I am going to have to find a cite for that.
Edited to add, yes, I support the spaces, if they have chargers. Otherwise, no.
The other advantage of this is that the pollution is occurring at one point (the coal-burning plant) instead of scattered and moving all over in the engines. So it is easier & cheaper to install pollution control equipment at the one source.
Right now, I would guess that there are probably less than 300 Electric Cars in Australia (not counting stuff being used for research/study). So I’m definitely not in favour of “Electric Vehicle Only” parking spaces here, and frankly don’t see why they should get special treatment even if they did become the majority of vehicles on the road- there’s never enough carparks at malls and railway stations here as it is without giving tree-huggers another reason to feel smug about themselves as they park in some “priority” carparking space.
No way
I don’t even support the disabled.
When handiCAPPED people became handiCAPABLE they became capable of walking
Just kidding
I voted yes… but only assuming the number is based on the number of electric vehicles actually on the road.
The Whole Foods I go to has “Alternative-fuel” vehicle spaces up by the doors.
When I park my iGo car-shared Prius there, I feel quite smug about it. I haven’t decided whether I like the smug feeling, but it’s there. I figure they’ll add the chargers when they become practical to do so. iGo recently received a grant to add EV’s and the charging stations to go with them. So, there will soon be quite a few more people looking for charging stations while out with their shared EV’s.
When they have hybrid/electric cars that cost the same as a petrol or diesel car, then maybe just maybe.
In inner CBD locations, it might just work though. El cheapo little runabout would be cool. I could drive to the outskirts of town in my Dodge and then drive a little EV car around the city, much like scooter riders do today.
I travel 100miles to and from work and then the usual running kids to sports after work and then go 4wdriving on the weekends, EV is no good as a daily car, yet.
Yes. Be sure to charge road tax on the power so they pay their fair share of the road maintenance.
How is a Prius a Alternative fuel vehicle? 
Part of it’s very appeal is it’s not a alternative fuel vehicle so fuel is readily available.
Running your Hummer on ethanol, now that’s a alternative fuel vehicle