Note: An earlier version of this story stated there are no public vehicle chargers in Green Hills. This is not true. There are four chargers on the campus of Lipscomb University, which is part of the Green Hills neighborhood. We regret the error.
There are now more than 200 public charging stations for electric vehicles in Middle Tennessee. Gallatin has seven; East Nashville has a whole bevy, with 18. You’ll even find them in small towns like Portland and Springfield. But one of Nashville’s busiest commercial areas is a charging desert.
JP White loves the sound of his 2011 Nissan Leaf firing up. But when the juice starts to run out, he turns to his GPS to find a public charging station.
“It’s showing me a list of stations here and how far away they are.”
Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills is one part of Nashville where the map runs cold. 40,000 cars pass through the area every day. The nearest chargers are at Lipscomb University, about a mile away. White finds the absence puzzling. He says a strip full of shops and restaurants would be the perfect spot to plug in.
“It just seems odd that quite a well to do part of town would be completely devoid of them. And you go say to Antioch where they have a fast charger like this at a BP gas station.”
The company that installs the chargers says it only works with businesses that request them. Because of federal grants, the charging stations themselves are free to the host sites. While the manager of the Mall at Green Hills says there are no plans to install chargers there, a spokeswoman for the nearby Hill Center says they’re thinking about it…but they haven’t made up their mind.
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