Lamar Tesla Chargers, Getting Ready to Roll

Stopping for a fill-up, then and now

The major points of installation work have been completed with only one or two connections to be made as well as some state-oriented paperwork, and then the eight Tesla fast-charger stations on East Beech Street will be good to go.

For the under-initiated, it’s a very simple process, as Lamar’s City Building Inspector, Craig Brooks explained.  All you literally have to do, is connect the charging cable to your Tesla automobile and wait until you’re full.  There are some differences between electric chargers and a traditional gas station.   There’s no prompting on a display screen on how you want to pay, what octane you’re selecting or gas or diesel, paying inside, paying by credit card or paying in advance of pumping your first pint of gasoline.

“You don’t need to show a credit card or valid license, once you’ve connected to the charger, it identifies the car and your account is billed for how much electricity you’ve transferred into your battery,” he explained.  For most car models, a general rule of thumb for a charge of 320 miles, about from Lamar to Denver, runs from $17 to $18.

Time will tell how much use the new chargers receive.  At this point, Lamar will be the only city between Limon and Amarillo and from Pueblo to Dodge City that offers the Tesla charge station and that means our area will be added to social media and the internet as a location point for travelers from several states around us as well as Coloradans.

Several other brand chargers are expected to be installed later this year, but according to Brooks, their site is still being discussed, either at an eastern point in the Chamber parking lot, or in the municipal parking lot just south of East Beech Street.

By Russ Baldwin