Columbia County authorities have released the 911 call from a driver who got upset when U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s team tried to save a spot for her electric vehicle outside a Grovetown Walmart.
The incident – which is making international news – happened in June when Granholm’s staff blocked an EV charging station in Grovetown during a nationwide tour while promoting green energy. Her four-day trip from North Carolina to Tennessee was designed to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.
HEAR THE CALL:
But they soon discovered a bigger issue: lack of charging stations across the country for electric vehicles to be a reliable choice of transportation. Granholm’s staff got into trouble in Columbia County when a local family in an electric vehicle got mad with them for reserving a spot at an electric vehicle charging station with a gas-powered car.
The family was boxed out and called the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office on 911 since it was a sweltering day and they had with a baby in the vehicle.
“There is literally a non-electric car that is taking up a space,” the female caller says. “They said they are saving the space for somebody else, and they are holding up a whole bunch of people who need to charge their cars.”
From an NPR article:
Her advance team realized there weren’t going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station’s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.
The sheriff’s office was not able to do resolve the situation since it’s not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot, at least not in Georgia. But the family soon used another spot when it opened up.
According to media reports, Energy Department staffers scrambled to fix the problem by redirecting several vehicles so Granholm and the family’s cars were able to charge simultaneously.
