The first city-owned and operated electric vehicle charging station went live in Fulton last month.
The station is in partnership with charger company Blink Charging and will serve as a trial to see what the area’s needs are. It is located in the Brick District parking lot on Market Street across from the Callaway County Chamber of Commerce.
As a self-service city, Fulton is able to provide its own power to the station. The charger can charge at just over 19 kWh per hour at 25 cents per kWh. This translates to just under $5 an hour for charging a standard electric vehicle. City officials and Blink looked into the average rate around the area with the goal of setting a more affordable rate than others. For instance, a comparable charger in Columbia charges 49 cents per kWh of power.
Once the city is able to gauge demand for the chargers, officials plan to identify other key areas for additional chargers. The city is in the exploratory phase of leasing chargers for citizens to use at their homes and businesses.
“Electric vehicles are no longer a thing of the future,” said City of Fulton Director of Administration Renee Tyler. “As of Oct. 2022, an estimated 1.7 million electric cars are on the road in the U.S. The biggest concern in investing in an EV is the ability to charge up. People fear their car running out of juice. The City of Fulton has taken the first step in providing charging facilities within our downtown business district for our residents and visitors. Our goal is to make EV charging accessible for residential use and commercial use.”
This is a level-2 Blink charger, which provides two connections for vehicles to hook up. It will charge the average electric vehicle to 80% in an hour.
To use the charger, get the Blink Charging Mobile app on your phone and make an account. By allowing the app to view your location, it will direct you to the nearest charging station. You’ll pay to use the charging station through the app. The station is also set up to receive tap-to-pay payments.
About Blink Charging
Blink Charging Co. (Nasdaq: BLNK, BLNKW), a leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment, has deployed nearly 59,000 charging ports across 25 countries, many of which are networked EV charging stations, enabling EV drivers to easily charge at any of Blink’s charging locations worldwide. Blink’s principal line of products and services include the Blink EV charging network (“Blink Network”), EV charging equipment, EV charging services, and the products and services of recent acquisitions, including SemaConnect, Blue Corner and BlueLA. The Blink Network uses proprietary, cloud-based software that operates, maintains, and tracks the EV charging stations connected to the network and the associated charging data. With global EV purchases forecasted to rise to 10 million vehicles by 2025 from approximately 2 million in 2019, Blink has established key strategic partnerships for rolling out adoption across numerous location types, including parking facilities, multifamily residences and condos, workplace locations, health care/medical facilities, schools and universities, airports, auto dealers, hotels, mixed-use municipal locations, parks and recreation areas, religious institutions, restaurants, retailers, stadiums, supermarkets, and transportation hubs. For more information, please visit https://www.blinkcharging.com/.