When I was a young, impoverished second lieutenant taking my Officer’s Basic Course (OBC) at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, the base Bachelor Officer’s Quarters (BOQ) was at capacity, so I was told to get an apartment off-post. I did so; I found an apartment building about a 10-minute drive from the Army Academy of Health Sciences, on Eisenhauer Road. It was a little place but cheap; a basic one-bedroom, second-story walk-up, with hot and cold running cockroaches – at no extra charge! Since everything I owned in the world at that time fit in the back of my pickup, it worked out pretty well, once I had applied some pesticides to deal with the bugs.
That pickup, by the way, was parked under a long carport out back of the building, but that was fine. The truck was covered, and since my truck was gas-powered, as they all were in the mid-80s, there was no problem.
But if I had somehow owned an electric vehicle (EV) back then? Well, then there would have been a problem. No place to plug it in, you see.
In the United Kingdom, that problem is already developing today with EV owners, causing a new class divide between those who can charge their EVs at home, and those who cannot.
But I have an advantage in the electric transition: the humble driveway. Unlike almost half of the country who live in terraced housing or flats, my dwelling has a dedicated parking pot where I have been able to install a wall-mounted charger.
In a petrol-powered world, the driveway divide did not matter. Whatever one’s domestic circumstances, we all had to queue up at the forecourt and pump fuel into our vehicle every few hundred miles. In the electric age, meanwhile, driveway ownership divides motorists into haves and have-nots.
In other words, people who own homes with garages and driveways can plug their cars right in, meaning they are topped up every day before they leave the house. But someone living in an apartment, like that one of mine from long ago? You are either dependent on fee-charging public charging stations, or you have to procure a really, really long drop cord. […]
— Read More: redstate.com
