Wendy Patterson bought a Tesla Model 3 more than a year ago when she realized how expensive and environmentally harmful it was to make her daily commute from Avondale to Arlington, a community southwest of Buckeye.

Patterson called the purchase a no-brainer.

“Electric vehicles are going to be the way of the future, and our environment is suffering heavily from the emissions from (gas-powered) vehicles,” she said.  

But she notes one major downfall in owning an electric car: the lack of charging stations.

She installed a charging station at home, but if she forgets to charge her car, she has to do some quick math to ensure she has enough battery power to get where she needs to go. 

Charging stations aren’t nearly as common as gas stations. 

But Avondale, a suburb with some 85,000 residents west of Phoenix, recently opened its first public charging station for electric vehicles. 

The station, which can charge two vehicles at a time, is at the Civic Center Library parking lot, 11350 W. Civic Center Drive. The Level 2 ChargePoint station is free for the first two hours and $1 per hour after that.   

The city partnered with electricity providers APS and SRP on the station. The city spent $8,500 to purchase the station and operate it for the next five years.

Avondale leaders hope the public charging station will encourage more residents to switch to electric vehicles, which they say would reduce the city’s carbon footprint.   

A citywide problem

Emissions from gas- and diesel-powered vehicles account for nearly half of Avondale’s total community greenhouse gas emissions and are a major contributor to local air pollution, according to Danae Presler, the city’s sustainability officer.

She said much-needed improvements in air quality will come about as more people convert to electric vehicles.

“Electric vehicles are an important tool to address both these issues of public health and sustainability,” Presler said.  “And we are doing so much more in terms of becoming a greener, healthier and sustainable city.”  

Avondale’s Municipal Sustainability Plan, which was approved by City Council in 2014, has guided many of the city’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint. In recent years, the city has converted all of its streetlights to LEDs and diverted more than 400 tons of green waste to compost. Avondale also has planted more trees along city streets and adopted a tree plan that outlines the benefits, both environmentally and aesthetically. 

The city, in 2018, replaced three older fleet vehicles with electric vehicles for city workers. Avondale also installed EV chargers for city staff to use. Cindy Blackmore, the city’s public works director, said this was to get city employees comfortable with electric vehicles.

Russ Dangel, fleet supervisor for the city’s Public Works Department, said Avondale plans to replace nearly all of its public works daily use trucks with fully electric vehicles.

“As we look toward the future, we will continue to vastly expand our fleet’s electric vehicles,” Dangel said. “This will not only reduce our carbon footprint, it will save operating costs by eliminating fuel costs and reducing operating and maintenance costs.”

The city now plans to turn its attention toward what it calls “community-wide sustainability”, which includes addressing urban heat, river revitalization, waste reduction and water conservation. Pushing for electric vehicles is the latest in the city’s plans to expand its focus to the broader community.  

The city’s website says that driving electric cars is 60% more energy efficient. EVs are more efficient at converting electricity into kinetic energy than gas- and diesel-powered cars, so electric vehicles consume less energy to travel the same distances, Presler said. 

This also means it is generally cheaper to drive an electric vehicle, she said. 

This latest project, the public charging station, also is a result of Avondale’s participation in Arizona’s Statewide Transportation and Electrification Plan, which is being developed to monitor and support the future of electric vehicles throughout the state. 

“We know that electric vehicles are better for our environment and better for our air quality,” Mayor Kenn Weise said. “They are also less expensive to operate and maintain and are becoming more affordable to consumers, making economic sense as well as environmental sense.”

More stations coming to the city

The new charging station is the first of an expected system of public EV chargers to be made available in Avondale, as demand for electric vehicles has been rising.  Electric vehicle sales first topped 1 million globally in 2017 and hit 2 million in 2018.

“The demand for electric vehicles is growing and it’s important to have a variety of charging options available to support this transportation technology.” said Weise. 

Presler was not able to give an exact number of stations that Avondale expects to open.  The city is assessing the the need and identifying where they should be built.  

“We do want to work with businesses, developers and our utility partners to build a more seamless network for these chargers across our city and across the region,” Presler said.  

More public charging stations should help relieve “range anxiety,” a fear of losing battery charge before arriving at a destination that many EV drivers like Patterson share.   

Patterson says she has no regrets as she uses her Tesla to commute to work and visit her daughter in Flagstaff.

“I’ve seen so many more electric vehicles on the road,” Patterson said.  “(My EV) is my primary vehicle now.” 

Have a story about Surprise or the southwest Valley? Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @kellydonohue15.

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