It's still a rare sight in the five boroughs: A car plugged into a New York City sidewalk charger.

A Con Edison representative joined NY1 to the streets of Williamsburg to get a sense of how drivers might feel about finding a place to power up their electric vehicles.

“The driving experience is fantastic, the operating cost is lower,” said Britt Reichborn-Kjennerud, Section Manager of Electric Vehicles at Con Edison.

What You Need To Know

  • At the moment, there are only 92 curbside chargers in New York City

  • New York lags behind other major cities in electric car adoption

  • Private companies starting to offer the battery charging service

  • In 2019, transportation was responsible for 28% of the city's carbon emissions

Despite that, New York lags behind other major cities: out of the close to 2 million vehicles registered here, only 21,000 of them are hybrid or fully electric. Many drivers worry the charging options are limited.

“Even at a national basis, the primary reason why people don’t adopt electric vehicles is concern about access to charging," Reichborn-Kjennerud said.

For those without a private garage where to install a charger, powering up in the street might be the only option. And as of today, there are only a total of 92 curbside chargers, a partnership between the city and Con Edison.

Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodríguez says the city will meet its goal of having 1,000 curbside chargers by 2025 and 10,000 of them by 2030.

This Revel fast-charging station in Williamsburg is another option for drivers of electric cars looking to power up. (NY1/Juan Manuel-Benitez)

“We always should be aiming for more. And I believe this is a moment when we have to bring public and private sector together in order to have electrical charging, but also to make electrical cars affordable to working class New Yorkers,” Rodríguez said.

There’s no time to waste.

The White House wants half of all vehicles sold by 2030 to be electric at a time when gas prices keep going up.

A full charge for an electric vehicle can cost around $20, according to Reichborn-Kjennerud.

Drivers are also starting to find fast-charging stations like this one, also in Williamsburg: twenty minutes plugged-in will power up the car to go for one hundred miles.

“What people wanna see is that I can go charge here, I can go charge there, I have charging options. Once that charging availability is widespread, people are gonna say, these vehicles are pretty cool,” Reichborn-Kjennerud said.

That will need to happen in the next few years if New York wants to meet its ambitious mitigation goals.

As of 2019, transportation was responsible for 28% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the city.