Home > About BNE > Press Room > Current Articles > January > Medical Campus gets charging stations for plug-in cars

Medical Campus gets charging stations for plug-in cars

By Sandra Tan

BUFFALO NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Published: November 30, 2011

Sprinkled throughout the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus are 21 electric charging stations for plug-in cars that many are betting will be the wave of the future.

The blue-lettered chrome boxes are being unveiled today with great fanfare even as some wonder when and how often these special parking spots will be used.

"Most people think we're nuts when we start doing this stuff," said Matt Enstice, the Medical Campus' president and chief executive officer, "but I'm telling you, it's the right path."

The 240-volt GE DuraStations represent a $300,000 investment, heavily subsidized by federal grants and tax credits. They are sprinkled throughout four parking areas around the campus in hopes that they will see use from top scientists down to regular staff and hospital visitors.

No one expects all these spaces to be occupied in the very near future. Even area auto dealers who rave about fully electric and hybrid vehicles say they're selling these cars by the handful, not by the hundreds.

Joe Caldarelli, president of Mike Barney Nissan, said his dealership got its first all-electric Nissan Leaf demonstration car five days ago.

"This is the future," he said, ticking off low-maintenance electric trucks, sports cars and luxury sedans in the car manufacturer's pipeline. "Nissan has promised us that they will have four more totally electric vehicles within 24 months."

But right now, among major car retailers, customers who want to buy plug-in cars are limited to the Leaf, which purports to have a 100-mile range on a single electric charge, and the Chevy Volt hybrid, which has recently had some negative publicity over battery fires that occurred in crash safety tests.

Many current gas/electric hybrid vehicles, like the Prius, cannot be plugged in, though the Prius is being reconceived as a plug-in version next year.

Auto market watchers believe that while consumers are wary of new technology, it won't be long before the all-electric vehicle catches on. And the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, in partnership with AAA and others, will be among the first to capitalize on it.

With federal grants available to encourage electric-car growth, it's easy to see why the charging-stations project has appeal.

"I think you're going to be seeing them around plazas, movie theaters and shopping malls," said Jim Basil, president of Joe Basil Chevrolet.

Rich Wilkinson, general manager for the West Herr Chevrolet dealership in Orchard Park, agreed. "We believe that there will be a greater need for these types of charging stations in our area because of the technology and commitment by the manufacturers to making these vehicles more mainstream," he said.

The Medical Campus appears to offer the highest concentration of charging stations in the state, with so many of them clustered within a few blocks.

The campus qualified for $150,000 in federal grants administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. In addition, AAA was able to purchase the charging stations, which it is leasing to the campus with help from tax credits that the nonprofit campus is ineligible to receive.

"We're one of the few clubs that have gone to this extent to start moving ahead with this technology," said Wally Smith, vice president of AAA of Western and Central New York.

Only AAA of Southern California and AAA South, based in Florida, have done as much to make electric-vehicle charging stations available to the public, he said. AAA's area Car Care Plus locations also have new charging stations.

Mark McGovern, project manager for the Medical Campus, said the charging station project took only five months from "paper napkin sketch" to full-scale reality.

He and Enstice said they expect the charging stations to appeal to the Medical Campus' scientists, researchers and doctors who have higher incomes and see the environmental value of owning electric vehicles.

McGovern also said he sees the charging stations indirectly contributing to more employees using public transportation at a time when parking is growing increasingly limited as the Medical Campus expands.

He explained that the campus may invest in a small fleet of electric vehicles that would provide employees who use public transportation "a guaranteed ride home" if there's an unforeseen circumstance that requires a worker to borrow a car.

The medical campus will offer the charging stations' electricity for free until it can better assess demand for the stations.

"We're trying to be leaders in this area and have this area thought of as as cutting edge community when it comes to energy and innovation," Enstice said. "We know we can do this stuff. We just need to start doing it."