New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to make the city a ‘national leader’ in electric vehicles.
In his State of the City address on Thursday, Major Bloomberg outlined plan to make 20 percent of New York City parking spaces electric vehicle ready.
The plan calls for the installation of 10,000 charging spots for electric vehicles over the next seven years.
We’re already the most tech-friendly, transparent government in the country and now we’re raising the bar again. We’ll make New York City a national leader in another new technology: electric vehicles. This year we’ll pilot curbside vehicle chargers that will allow drivers to fill up their battery in as little as 30 minutes as opposed to the normal 8 hours.
We’ll work with the City Council to amend the Building Code so that up to 20 percent of all new public parking spaces in private developments will be wired and ready for electric vehicles, creating up to 10,000 parking spots for electric vehicles over the next seven years.
About 10,000 new spaces are created every year in the city, mostly in new buildings. There are only 100 public charging stations in the city now.
The mayor also plans to add 50 more electric vehicles to the city’s fleet of cars, and put the first six fully electric taxis on the road, with the goal of making one-third of the taxi fleet electric by 2020.