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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

A good first step to the chicken and egg problem. Living in Wisconsin I have never seen an electrical charging station.

>Local government entities and state agencies would not be allowed to operate public charging stations but could run their own stations to charge their vehicles.

I'm confused at why this was included in the regulation. Would companies really refuse to build stations without this stipulation? It reminds me a lot of telecommunications companies lobbying hard against municipal and related telecommunications services.

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>> A good first step to the chicken and egg problem. Living in Wisconsin I have never seen an electrical charging station.

There are approximately 35 active Tesla Supercharger stations with almost 300 individual chargers in Wisconsin. (More than I would have guessed...)

> in Wisconsin I have never seen an electrical charging station

As per the article, in Wisconsin any company that did would be regulated as a utility company; the law makes exemptions so non-utilities can set them up.

> Would companies really refuse to build stations without this stipulation?

The funds that are freed up are federal funds. No idea if that's a result of the above deregulation, or if those funds can't be used directly by municipalities.

Either way, as a business owner I'd be hard pressed to invest in putting chargers in my parking lot if the city came along and put in a bunch for street level parking.

Small towns have set up speed traps on highways passing nearby so much that many states have enacted laws to restrict the ability of such towns to annex land for this purpose. Since EV chargers aren't a natural monopoly, local governments could use their power of zoning and other regulations to create an artificial monopoly for themselves over EV charging. State enterprises also have a history of being inefficient when they can lock out non-state competitors or drive those competitors out of business through state power.

State ownership of utilities are a mixed bag but at least they're generally answerable to those in their service area. Due to the transient nature of vehicles needing charging, it's not difficult to see some small towns that happen to be near road junctions setting themselves up as the only charging choice in the area. Maybe you have enough charge left to bypass pass the chargers that are 25% more expensive than the state average. Or maybe you just stop and pay it.

Eau Claire, WI - a pretty small town has at least three DCFC - EA, Tesla & a local electric company plus tons of level 2 all over.

> I'm confused at why this was included in the regulation

The WI GOP. At least you can pay by the kWh in WI now instead of by the minute with this law.

Eau Claire is the biggest settlement at the junction point where Minneapolis travelers either go to Wausau and the UP, or to Milwaukee/Chicago.

Yea I guess I'm just surprised OP hasn't seen any. The junction point explains the fast chargers, but the Level 2 would presumably be used primarily by locals.

I mean even middle of nowhere cities like Ellsworth are getting DCFC - granted at a dealership, but still it's happening!

https://www.plugshare.com/location/560842

MG&E built one on the Madison isthmus[0], but they’re already a utility company.

[0]: https://www.mge.com/lovev/charging/charge-go#/find/nearest?c...

They do not stand out as much as a whole gas station so it can be easy to miss charging stations. Once you start looking though, they are much more common than you might think. In any case, what matters, if you aren’t charging at home, is that you can find chargers using an app or the car’s navigation system.

I think I’ve seen them in Kohl’s parking lots… but that’s about it.

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