A US politician's publicity stunt designed to highlight the benefits of electric cars has backfired, after staffers blocked a charge point so the journey would run smoothly – prompting a stranded family to call police to intervene.
Above: US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
The US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has been caught up in controversy after a four-day road trip in a convoy to promote the electric vehicles resulted in police being called to save a stranded family.
According to a report from news outlet NPR – which was invited to ride along on the trip – Secretary Granholm's advance team realised there wouldn't be enough chargers during a stop in a suburb of Georgia, and despatched an aide in a petrol-powered vehicle to 'reserve' a charger for the senior politician.
The practice, known as 'iceing', is when an internal-combustion engine (ICE) car blocks an electric charger – usually out of malice, lack of consideration, or ignorance that it is an electric-car parking spot.
The report claims "on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle" a family was blocked from recharging their own electric car, with the frustrated parents eventually calling the police in an attempt to remove the aide's vehicle.
While many jurisdictions in the US and Australia have introduced fines to stop the blocking of chargers by non-electric vehicles, the local sheriff's department wasn't able to help, as blocking an electric-car charger isn't currently against the law in the state of Georgia.
The secretary's staff scrambled to fix the situation, eventually making room for both the family and Ms Granholm's electric cars to charge.
Above: US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in 2022. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.
Despite the media stunt being designed to encourage the switch to electric cars, the incident has been widely reported and has instead highlighted the infrastructure bottlenecks accompanying the emerging technology.
"Clearly, we need more high-speed chargers, particularly in the South," Secretary Granholm told NPR at the end of the road trip, but highlighted a $US7.5 billion ($AU11.7 billion) investment by the US Government in building electric-car chargers throughout the country.
"By the end of this year, I think we'll start to see [those chargers] popping up along the charging corridors."
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