The solar lot near Canal Park Lodge has spots reserved for electric vehicle charging. Thursday night, those spots were filled.
Several power cooperatives hosted an Electric Vehicle Show & Tell.
Scott Dejong and Justin Jahnz both participated for the first time. Dejong brought his Volkswagen ID.4.
“I wanted to get something that was a little better for the environment was kind of my first motivation. And I loved the idea of driving by gas stations,” Dejong said.
Jahnz was driving a Tesla.
“It’s the funnest car I’ve ever had to drive,” he said.
Jahnz typically charges his vehicle overnight at home.
“I can charge at the equivalent of a dollar a gallon. So if you do the efficiency and work it all out, it’s about like buying gas at a dollar a gallon,” he said. “So definitely my electric bill has gone up, but my gas purchases have pretty much been gone.”
Ryan Ferguson, a senior engineer with Lake Country Power, drove from Cohasset to Duluth for the event in a Chevy Bolt.
“So we used about 22 kilowatt hours to get down here, which on our off-peak program would cost us about $1.47. So we keep joking … our lunch was $23 for me and a coworker, so it cost significantly more to fuel us to get here than our vehicle,” Ferguson said.
Lake Country has a program for people with electric vehicles to save when they charge in off-peak hours.
The event took place as part of National Drive Electric Week. Minnesota Power is hosting a Drive Electric event at Bent Paddle on Saturday.
