[b112]

This seems misguided to me.

It costs the city nothing, and is a revenue stream from those which don't comply. Win #1.

It allows tourists, travellers a place to charge, which they know is maintained, and works, and is enroute to somewhere.

There is no downside here, for the city.

[neither_color]

>There is no downside here

The gas station needs to pay a design firm + engineers to submit plans to the city for permitting to construct the new EV charging location, they have to pay the electrical utility to increase its service, they need to pay more for electricity every month, they need to buy commercial car chargers and pay an electrical contractor thousands to install them. The gas station therefore likely has to raise prices on either its gas or its other products and services, hurting locals who can't afford EV cars to the benefit of the better off who likely already have car chargers installed in the garages of their expensive homes. Bear in mind also that they're not guaranteed to make money off the car charging, this is the city deciding their business plans for them. The cost of building a charging station takes away what could've been a car wash, more retail space, a mechanic's garage, etc. The city should be offering tax incentives, not punitive fines IMO.

[giantg2]

"There is no downside here, for the city."

Emphasis mine. Sure. The city could fine every store with parking spaces for not supplying charging infrastructure. We also have to see what those fines do to the businesses. It's possible that many gas stations decide to close or substantially raise their prices to cover the increased costs.

Basically, the city isn't the only stakeholder.

[xboxnolifes]

> There is no downside here, for the city.

There are no immediate downsides. I'm not going to pretend to predict the future in it's entirety, but requiring any business to maintain any sort of additional infrastructure seems like it will lead to additional costs. I'm not saying that as a reason to avoid ever doing it, but let's not pretend it doesn't have consequences. This either means more expensive gas station visits (for at least some people), or it means fewer gas stations exists due to being priced out from the additional costs. Now, how those changes affect the local economy at large is anyone's guess.

[s1artibartfast]

The downside for the city is trampling over businesses and their resident owners.