AURORA —The city is taking electric strides to make its automobiles more environmentally friendly.
Aurora is adding three new electric vehicles to its fleet in coming months, two of which will be used for fire inspections, the other for code enforcement. The cost of the new vehicles is being covered through a grant from the Regional Air Quality Council, said Libby Tart-Schoenfelder, senior planner for the city’s planning and development services department.
The grant dollars will help make up the difference between the cost of a standard vehicle — a Ford Taurus — versus the cost of an electric vehicle, in this case, a Ford C-Max, she said. Officials say the grant also covers the cost of two new electric vehicle charging stations, which are being installed at the Aurora Municipal Center.
Once completed, the charging stations will be made open to the public, Tart-Schoenfelder said. The first hour of electricity will be free of charge. After that, users will be required to pay a fee, she said.
“Anybody can come in and charge up,” Tart-Schoenfelder said. “The fee structure after the first hour will be very small. We’re certainly not making any money off of it.”
The city is involved in a handful of initiatives designed to encourage the fledgling electric vehicle market. Last year, Aurora participated in Project FEVER, or Fostering Electric Vehicle Expansion in the Rockies.
The FEVER initiative was designed, in part, to help standardize language in zoning codes for electrical vehicles in the state of Colorado. Aurora City Council voted last week to do just that, adding definitions into the city’s code that define plug-in electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Joey Kirchmer: 303-954-2650, jkirchmer@denverpost.com or
