It’s fitting that this happen in the Motor City, a place that’s re-inventing itself and investing heavily in electric automobiles. Detroit Metropolitan Airport is installing a quartet of plug-in electric vehicle charging stations. They’ll be in the airport’s two main parking decks – a pair on the eighth floor of the McNamara Terminal’s deck (that’s the terminal that serves Delta) and another two stations on the Big Blue Deck by DTW’s North Terminal.
Here’s the kicker: they’re free. “There will be no cost for PEV (Plug-in Electrical Vehicle) drivers to use the charging stations,” says a prepared release from DTE Energy.
DTE is doing this via a grant from the United States Department of Energy.
Electric cars make scant sense if the only place you can readily plug them in is your garage at home, a fact not lost on Trevor Lauer, DTE Energy’s vice president for Marketing and Renewables. “A key factor in the widespread success of electric vehicles will be he ability of utilities to supply ‘fuel’ on demand at reasonable cost” says the energy exec.
Detroit Metro is not the only airport in the country to install places to plug in and charge up. Recently Cheapflights chronicled what’s happening at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where an octet of stations recently went in. Hotels are catching on too, specifically The Peabody Hotel in Memphis.
Amidst the doom and gloom that seems to pervade the country these days, it’s good to remember we’re at the cusp of a consummately exciting age, one where the very way we power airplanes (biofuels) and he vehicles that transport us to the airport are fundamentally changing. Cheapflights will keep up in the loop as to just what’s happening and how it promises to affect you.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: Scooter the Photographer)
