Montgomery County hopes to simplify charging electric vehicles at home

Montgomery Co. officials push for more residents to drive electric cars

Montgomery County is encouraging more residents to drive electric vehicles and help reduce transportation emissions. FOX 5's Ayesha Khan explains how they plan to get more people to electrify their cars.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - Montgomery County wants to make it easier for residents to charge their electric vehicles as officials continue to make a push for protecting the environment.

Currently, about 18,000 residents in Montgomery County drive an electric vehicle, but few have personal curbside chargers avaiable at their homes.

So, Andy Fraser of Kensington, who used to rely on publicly available charging stations, proposed an idea to make it easier for drivers to apply for curbside charging permits.

"I wanted to do it for myself, so I realized how am I going to charge? So I started figuring out that process because there really wasn’t a process in place yet," Fraser tells FOX 5.

Montgomery County officials heard Fraser’s idea and agreed.

"There are thousands of residents who have garages and driveways and they’ve installed charging like this in their garage but if you park on the street that’s not an option for you or if you live in a multi-family building that’s also a bit harder," said Brian Booher from the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection. "So in addition to making it possible to install charging on the street we are also working with multi-family buildings property owners, common ownership communities."

Pushing for more residents to drive electric vehicles

Montgomery County is encouraging more residents to drive electric vehicles and help reduce transportation emissions. FOX 5’s Ayesha Khan visited Kensington on Saturday morning to learn more about what officials are offering to help residents make the switch.

So far, six residents have signed up for curbside charging stations, but county officials are confident that additional stations will be coming as electric vehicle ownership becomes even more popular.

"You’ll start to see them more around our streets as well as in shopping centers, grocery stores you will see them in county parks, rev facilities people will have them at work," says Booher.

For Andy, owning an electric vehicle in addition to having more convenient access to a charger means, not only saving the environment, but also money.

"If you figure out your average car will get 200 to 350 miles of range that will cost you about $50 to fill up right? And right now that’s costing me 10," says Fraser.

Andy also adds he is going to continue doing his part to reduce carbon emissions, including sharing his personally purchased curbside charging station.

"At one point someone did come and they knocked on my door and asked if they could charge and I said fine and they charged for a couple of hours and that probably cost me a couple of dollars and I was glad to do it."

Montgomery Co. adds more curbside electric vehicle charging stations

Montgomery County is encouraging more residents to drive electric vehicles and help reduce transportation emissions. FOX 5’s Ayesha Khan spoke with officials in Kensington on Saturday morning to learn more about what they are offering to incentivize residents to make the switch.

Charging stations are purchased and installed at the owners’ expense which could cost between $1500-3000. There are federal, state, and utility incentives and rebates available to help cover half of those costs.

To learn more about the incentives and rebates click here.