Illegal to sell a new home without a charging station in one city
The City Council for Palo Alto, California unanimously adopted a new policy making it illegal to sell a new home without an electric car charging station, betting big on electric vehicles – perhaps as the city is home to luxury electric vehicle maker Tesla?
Regardless of the reason, the mandate spells out a shift in features that newly built homes in the area will be required to have prior to sale.
“We have electric-vehicle owners who aren’t able to drive their vehicles to Palo Alto because they can’t charge up when they get to work,” one City Council member told Palo Alto Online.
“It’s incumbent for us to find out what are the obstacles to owning electric vehicles and to get rid of those obstacles,” Palo Alto Mayor, Greg Scharff explains, noting that the mandate is the city’s way of encouraging people to ditch gas-powered cars and adopt electronic vehicle technologies.
Next up for the city: commercial real estate
Neither the Mayor or the City Council effectively explains how this law will change car or home buyers’ habits, and critics note that just because a home has a garage, doesn’t mean an owner will use it for cars, instead may use it for storage, and just because a car features a third row of seats doesn’t guarantee an owner will fill it with people.
Next up, the City Council is considering a more broad push, mandating that all new commercial construction projects feature electronic vehicle charging stations as well, making the option for electronic vehicle owners to charge more possible as the charging stations become more ubiquitous. Or at least, that’s what the city is hoping for.
