Tampa claims to have more electric car charging stations than any other Florida city

TAMPA - The City of Tampa now claims to be on the leading edge of alternative transportation with more electric car-charging stations than any other city in Florida.

On Wednesday morning, Mayor Bob Buckhorn pulled into the Jackson Street surface parking lot in a borrowed Chevy Volt to try out the first of ten new electric car charging stations installed downtown. Buckhorn joked about the high price of the latest electric cars.

"When I can convince the drug dealers and pimps to start buying electrical cars, I will confiscate them and we will use them," said Buckhorn.

The cost is no joke.  The gas-electric Chevy Volt will run just under $46,000 less a $7,600 rebate, putting it out of the range of most car buyers.

"You can't justify spending that much money when they can go buy a $15,000 car and continue to buy fossil fuels," said Tampa restaurant owner Bill Nelligar.

Other car buyers worry about the range of these cars. And though the Volt has a back-up gas engine should you run out of battery charge, car dealers like Dave Jenquin of Maher Chevrolet believes more charging stations will help drive sales.

"It just makes the whole mystique of owning an electric that much easier," said Jenquin.

The new charging stations installed by Tampa Electric were paid for in part with Federal stimulus money, making them essentially free to the city.

The plan is to have up to 150 stations throughout the city at parking lots, hotels, hospitals, and businesses. And though there are only a handful of plug-in electric commuter cars on bay area roads, the company supplying the stations insist they will be well used.

"We have bikes. We have Segways, neighborhood electric vehicles. We have golf carts, bikes and scooters so all those units will also be serviced," promised Novacharge President Helda Rodriguez.

The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf -- two of the latest electric vehicles -- weren't supposed to be available at bay area dealerships until 2014. But there has been so much demand, the companies are sending models to local dealers now and they are available.