Why you shouldn’t swallow these Manhattan EV-charging numbers
At first glance, the headline on the Bloomberg story — “Manhattan’s EV-Charging Sites Now Outnumber Gas Stations 10 to 1” — was gulp-inducing. The gulps then grew in reading the introductory paragraph, which claimed that charging an electric car in New York City’s most iconic borough is “much easier than finding a gas station.”
Er, sorry, but finding a gas station in Manhattan has always been hard — and in recent years has become even harder. Why? Because land is too darned expensive. Thus, most of the 29 fill-up spots are on the fringes and in neighborhoods such as East Harlem and Washington Heights.
To be fair, the article’s authors later ’fess up to their misleading gas station count. As they say, “Land on the island is simply too valuable to waste on a business that’s minimally profitable and needs a convenience store or car wash to survive,” and point out that “One by one, the borough’s gas stations have been bulldozed to make way for condos and offices.”…
Subscribe to Callaway Climate Insights to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
