JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- We've seen the commercials, heard the hype.
But you probably don't see a lot of electric cars on the road.
In Florida, we did find plenty of electric car charging stations, and you paid for them! That got a lot of reaction from people we spoke to.
"You ever see anyone using this to charge their car?" we asked one man. "No, never."
"There are things I'm in a quandry over and that's another one," said another man.
Each one of these stations costs between four and five thousand dollars of your money. So we decided to stake out the station and see if anyone came by. Hours later--tumbleweeds.
And if you think that's ridiculous, wait until you hear what we found!
South Central Florida has more than 200 charging stations. They were part of a stimulus contract with the Feds worth tens of millions of dollars.
But here's the kicker: There are only 120 electric cars registered in the entire state of Florida.
"I think it's a waste of money," said former Florida Senator George Lemieux.
"We have more charging stations than people that have these cars," he said. While in the US Senate, Lemieux railed against stimulus spending as a waste of your tax dollars.
"The stimulus money was going to stimulate the economy and what it ended up doing was being a wish list of projects for folks that don't do anything," he told Action News.
So who's closely following Central Florida's lead on charging stations?
The Jacksonville Electric Authority.
"We have the opportunity to learn from Orlando," said Jay Worley with JEA. "Electric and other fuels are a journey."
A journey which has only netted Jacksonville three electric car charging stations.
"What we've done is had relationship building with dealerships. Learning who's using them," said Worley.
So the idea is to first provide these stations, and eventually people will buy more electric cars. But in the meantime, you're being charged for stations that so far seem to fizzle.
