Jeff Hage / Mille Lacs County Times
A charging station for electric cars with a 220-volt alternating current outlet has been installed in Alfred Olson Park. Charging is free to the public.
The road to attracting people to Minnesota’s small cities is a busy one.
But Milaca civic leaders believe they are ahead of the curve in getting people to turn off Highway 169 and onto the city’s main streets.
In this case, it’s a technological curve leaders are banking tourists will turn to.
The Milaca Area Chamber of Commerce, First National Bank of Milaca, Granite Ledge Electric, The Milaca Economic Development Commission and Bill Weikert have teamed up to install a charging station for electric cars in the parking area of Alfred Olson Park, located in downtown Milaca and on Second Avenue Northwest.
“Some say it’s a frivolous expenditure,” chamber director Rich Melvin said of the $2,500 charging station.
“But I say ‘no,’ ” Melvin said.
“This gets us ahead of the curve and will get people to pull off 169 and see what a gem Milaca is,” he said.
The charging station is for what the automobile industry calls e-cars, or electric cars. The cars use batteries that need a charging system to recharge the batteries.
That’s where Milaca’s downtown charging system comes in.
Drivers of electric cars are destination drivers because a charge will get a vehicle only so many miles.
“We want to be their destination,” Melvin said.
The civic leaders’ vision is that the owner of an e-car will plan an excursion using an application, or app, on a computer or cellphone that shows where charging stations are located. For example, Milaca is the perfect charging stop for people heading north on Highway 169 to Grand Casino Mille Lacs, which also has a charging station. In Mille Lacs County, there are also charging stations at Fat Jacks in Bock, Andrews Inc. in Princeton and the South Isle Family Campground in Isle.
Milaca resident Chuck Andrews owns a Saab auto dealership in Princeton that sells electric cars. It was Andrews who first brought the charging station idea to civic leaders at the economic development commission during a discussion on how to promote economic development in the area.
Andrews told the Times this week that there are currently about 3,000 e-cars in Minnesota. E-cars have traveled approximately 24 million miles in the state on electricity since late 2010, Andrews said. There are between 200-250 public charging stations in the state, he said.
Andrews said it costs him about $7 a month to commute from his Milaca home to his Princeton business. The cost to drive an electric car is about 2 cents per mile. Charging is free at about 80 percent of the public charging stations in the state, Andrews said.
Locally, Jeff Brown of Granite Ledge Electric purchased the charging station and installed it. The Milaca Area Chamber of Commerce paid for the installation, the electricity is running through the building of Weikert’s Specified Components Companies located adjacent to Alfred Olson Park, and First National Bank of Milaca is hosting the station on its park property and paying for the electricity so it can be free to all that use it.
Gasoline powered cars and trucks will be parked in the Alfred Olson Park parking lot alongside e-cars, and later this summer, a new hitching post for the horses that pull the buggies of area Amish into town.
“We’re trying to be a little visionary and let people know that it doesn’t matter how they roll into Milaca — whether its by conventional car, horse and buggy, or with an e-car. Our message is simple, ‘We have a place for you,’ ” Melvin said.
Creative Commons (CC) article source: http://millelacscountytimes.com/2015/05/13/visionary-charging-station-caters-to-area-e-car-owners/