Council Approves Electric Vehicle Charging Station

If you’re driving an electric vehicle, you’ll soon be able to park and recharge in Saline—and it might not even cost you a thing.

During a long discussion Monday night, the Saline City Council approved the installation of an electric vehicle charging station. The station will be housed in a parking space in the municipal lot behind Murphy’s Crossing.

The council voted 5-2 to approve the installation after acknowledging the Planning Commission’s approval of the site plan. Mayor Gretchen Driskell and council members David Rhoads, Dean Girbach, Linda TerHaar and Brian Marl voted in favor of the motion. Councilors Glenn Law and Pat Ivey were opposed. In February, Law and Ivey were opposed to the deal Saline struck with DTE to build the charging station. The deal stipulated that DTE will foot the bill for installation of the station, up to $12,500, with the city responsible for any amount over that cost.

DTE officials present at Monday's meeting said the station could be installed within the next two weeks.

What council was unable to determine Monday night was how much, if anything, electric vehicle owners should pay to charge their vehicle. As part of the agreement with DTE, the city cannot charge on a per-kilowatt-hour basis. But the city can charge a basic user fee.

Rhoads’ motion to allow users to charge at no cost ended deadlocked in a 3-3 vote. Rhoads, Driskell and Girbach voted in favor of the motion. Law, Ivey and Marl were opposed. TerHaar, who owns an electric vehicle, abstained, citing a potential conflict of interest.

The discussion took up nearly an hour of the 112-minute meeting. Law and Ivey have both stated several times that they believe that providing this service should be the business of the private sector. But when it came down to the issue of paying for the service, Law and Ivey were joined by Marl.

“I am in favor of the concept of an electric vehicle charging station downtown, but I also favor some sort of user fee for utilizing the service. I’ve heard it said that charging for using the station would be akin to charging for using a parking space, but I think this is a combination of a parking space and a refueling station. I don’t think the city would subsidize somebody refueling their vehicle with gasoline,” Marl said.

Driskell noted that other cities with charging stations aren’t charging users.

“I have mixed feelings about charging people to use the stations. Two of the cities we reached out to (Ann Arbor and Dearborn) are not charging a fee. If we start charging, will people go to Dearborn and Ann Arbor, where they don’t have to pay?” Driskell asked.

Rhoads noted that charging customers for fueling their vehicles may cost more than the city collects in fees. He pointed out that if the city attached a credit card reader, it would have to pay for installation. There are also monthly charges that come with connecting to a credit card system. A memo from City Manager Todd Campbell to the council showed rates for 50 cents to $1 an hour.

While the cost of a credit card reader might be prohibitive, there may be another way to make users pay for a charge. Campbell said that DPW Director Jeff Fordice has talked about the possibility of installing an old-fashioned parking meter on the spot.

Muddying the discussion was confusion about an anonymous donor who has reportedly offered to reimburse the city for electric charges incurred by the station—but only if the council agreed to a user charge for the service. Early in the meeting discussion, the council considered a motion that both approved the installation and set the user fee. Driskell, perhaps seeing that the votes against free charging would kill the entire motion, asked Rhoads to split his motion.

The council was unable to come up with a user-fee structure. Marl asked city staff to come up with cost estimates for various ways to charge those who use the service.

In the meantime, once the station is installed, electric vehicle users are invited to plug in at no charge.