Hawaii's Electric Car Options

San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom Advocated Innovative Electric Cars 2009 and a rate structure similar to the cellular industry. With the announcement of CT&T from Korea striking a Memorandum of Understanding with the State of Hawaii's Governor Linda Lingle to build and sell Electric Cars here in Hawaii, it would behoove us all to come up with various strategies to allow the cars to be in the hands of more people.

On Maui, while distance may not be as much of a problem and easily overcome with Electric Cars, we do have communities with roads that have speed limits higher than those allowed for with many of these types of Electric Cars.

For strictly City use a vehicle that can only run up to 30 MPH is great, but we have 45 Mph roads connecting the different parts of the island. Some possibilities are changing the laws, creating 30 MPH lanes alongside the faster lanes or an even safer method wold be to have a roadway system that was made for lightweight slower vehicles. No SUVs allowed. Knowing how long it take just to get our existing roads up to standards and the expense, it's not likely that new roads would happen, although with the A&B land barely hanging onto sugar production, it would be something to look into.

A series of charging networks located along the streets, since most have home and street lamp wiring existing, in conjunction with the Smart Grid even makes the street side charging a possibility.

With the said, here is a clip on San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2009 discussing the scenario.