SAN ANTONIO – Tesla is officially set to build a plant in Travis County and it is expected to have a big impact on the Texas economy, as well as the popularity of electric vehicles.
The city of San Antonio has a plan that aims to get the city to carbon neutral by 2050 -- meaning less dangerous emissions into the air we breathe, and a big part of that is the use of electric vehicles.
Families around San Antonio have said they are unsure about an electric vehicle and spoke about the concern about the price of owning one.
“Prices are coming down on electric vehicles. New ones are being introduced. And we’re seeing the market really dictate how things are changing and ways to charge your vehicle are becoming more and more convenient,” Julia Murphy, deputy chief sustainability officer for the city of San Antonio, said.
An iconic image of the electric vehicle world is the Tesla and according to Tesla.com, the cheapest car starts at $33,690. But that’s not the only electric vehicle or EV, out there.
“There are also some local incentives as well, such as some offerings around Nissan Leaf, and CPS Energy has worked with Nissan to develop a local incentive for that model. And we also have things like flat rate charging that CPS energy offers as well as preferred parking downtown,” Murphy said.
Another concern we heard about was charging instead of going to a good old fashion gas station.
But according to energy.gov, charging could save you a dollar per gallon when you fill up.
“When you get into the cost of ownership, a person is really going to be saving money, because they’re not going to have to fill up their vehicle as often at the gas station. So electricity as a fuel source is much cheaper than gas,” Murphy said.
The chief sustainability officer said we plan to see more and more charging stations like which are simple and easy to use.
“The city of San Antonio has had a robust charging network for almost a decade. And so there are publicly accessible charging stations around. And it’s really easy to access those on a phone app and go online and see where you can charge,” Murphy said.
At the end of the day the city said this isn’t leadership pushing their beliefs or trying to rid the city of pickups — the plan and advocating for EVs is about the health and future of the Alamo City.
“Transportation contributes a large portion of our air pollution. And so we want to bring that down because we have kids who have asthma. We have elderly people that have respiratory issues,” Murphy said.