Location: Albemarle, VA
Fleet Type: Municipal Fleet

 

Narrative

Albemarle County is a large rural-suburban county surrounding the City of Charlottesville, which is home to the University of Virginia. Its highly educated population has embraced electric vehicles wholeheartedly and many can be seen around town. 

In 2021 the County entered into a pilot program with Dominion Energy and ChargePoint to install a large EV charging center in the parking lot of its County Office Building in Charlottesville. The middle parking lot features eight Level 2 charging stations and six DC fast charging stations free for public use with the ChargePoint app. Dominion Energy has been advancing work in the EV space and this County Office Building pilot is giving the utility useful data on charging habits, times and more. The location has been extremely popular with local EV drivers, tourists and the environmental community.

Virginia Clean Cities reached out to County staff to inquire about hosting an electric school bus demonstration event. They agreed and VCC brought a variety of public and private partners to the event, such as Blue Bird Buses, the City of Charlottesville and C3. Local school board and board of supervisors attended the event and it was covered by the local TV station.

Outputs & Outcomes

The following year, VCC worked with County staff to host an electric utility vehicle demo at the charging stations parking lot. The electric three-wheel cycle maker Arcimoto provided two demo vehicles for invited guests to test drive. The University of Virginia and City of Charlottesville also brought electric work vehicles to showcase. At least 35 people stopped by throughout the afternoon event.

Best Practices & Lessons Learned

  1. Listen to the local government to better understand their needs and their community’s needs. In this case, there was interest in electricity off road utility equipment.
  2. Use existing incentive programs to identify fleets that are aggressively electrifying one class of vehicles and solicit them to see if they are considering other classes of vehicles.

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Albemarle fleet Story

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