Electric vehicle chargers are often out of commission

I wanted to make you aware of what I think is a travesty as more and more people purchase electric vehicles.

This is a follow-up to an article published by the Observer over a year ago regarding the lack of available electric chargers on Longboat Key. 

What people don't realize is the vehicles are only as good as the charging infrastructure.

A perfect example is the huge parking garage on St. Armands Circle. This is our fourth season in Florida and the DC fast charger has been down for three years and counting. I have asked numerous times about the status and always get a response, "they don't know when it will be fixed."

The sad part is the $200,000-plus DC fast charger has not only been out of service for three years but often only two of the other six chargers are often offline of and there's no repair in sight.

To make matters even worse there is a dual charger available at Marina Jack that has been offline for the last couple months, last year one of the units broke, and now the other one is broken, so bottom line of eight available level 2 chargers, and one DC charger, for a total of nine. On average only two of the nine are available at any time.

I have no idea what deals are the city has with Chargepoint, but if this is the future of transportation, we are going to have a bunch of stuck cars! I am happy to pay to charge, but they need to have units that work.

I thought you would want to know. I can give you any information about all of my experiences with Sarasota chargers over the last three years. It is not pretty.

— Steve Johandes, Sarasota