MNDOT Wants Your Opinions On Electric Vehicles To Plan For The Future

Whether you own one soon or decades into the future, electric vehicles are definitely not going away.  It only makes sense that someone asks for your opinion.

Long range planning at an agency like the Minnesota Department of Transportation need to incorporate a wide range of potential scenarios.  That's why they're starting to incorporate electric vehicles into future plans for the state highway system.

A new survey will help them make those plans.

Officially, it's called the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Plan Survey.  The results of the data they accumulate during it will assist MNDOT with goal to "become a leader in electric vehicle use in the midwest".

The survey will help the state agency as they work on a plan to invest federal funds that are available for electric vehicle charging stations.

While our current transportation system - which uses gasoline (or diesel) as a combustion source for powering engines - has a vast infrastructure in place to supply them (i.e. gas stations), a new system doesn't.  Even though there are some electric vehicle charging stations in use around the state, there aren't enough locations to provide a consistent source of resources.

That's why the Minnesota Department of Transportation has put together a survey to poll the general public about their interest and expected use for electric vehicles.  MNDOT suggests that the survey will only take five minutes, and they're providing links to it in a variety of sources - including on their Facebook page.

Their hope is that the data compiled will allow them to better determine where those electric vehicle chargers should be installed throughout the state.

MNDOT wants you to help them "become the leading state for plug-in electric vehicle use in the Midwest".  Their goal is pretty ambitious:  to have a 20% increase in "light duty electric vehicles in the state by 2030".  In order to accomplish that, they'll need the necessary infrastructure that a charging station network will provide.

To ease the sting of what creating such a vast infrastructure would potentially do to a budget, the federal government is incentivizing states with funding.  "As part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program was created to provide funds for states to install fast chargers for electric vehicles.  Minnesota expects to receive around $68 million from this program over five years, along with a 20% non-federal match".

That's a lot of money available.  But in order to use it, there needs to be a plan.  In order for Minnesota to be eligible for the federal program, they need to submit a Statewide Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Plan by August 1, 2022.

Click here to visit the MNDOT homepage get started taking the survey. May 3 is the deadline to have your input used as part of that plan.  However, MNDOT expects to leave the survey up and any responses or input added and collected after that date will still benefit statewide planning for electric vehicle infrastructure spending.