Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Carolina Curious: In terms of the environment, when is the best time to charge an electric vehicle?

A Tesla electric vehicle charging station. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A Tesla electric vehicle charging station. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Electric vehicles are a growing option in North Carolina, and for this month’s Carolina Curious, one new owner asks how to charge them in a way that’s most beneficial to the environment. To learn more about the EV landscape, WFDD’s Paul Garber began by taking a spin with a member of a long-running local electric vehicle club.

The Triad Electric Vehicle Association – or TEVA – started in Burlington in 2005. Bill Bucklen, a retired engineer joined in 2008, when he bought his first electric vehicle, a Tesla Roadster. 

Although he has since switched to a sedan, he still appreciates the power that the Tesla’s engine can produce. This is no golf-cart electric vehicle, as he shows while we take a drive on a Greensboro highway.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"Ready," I reply.

"Head on the headrest…"

And then, in what seem

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate