Electric vehicles in paradise: the newspaper column that was

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Anne Ku

Four years ago, I started writing my first newspaper column: EV in Paradise for Maui Weekly, the free local paper with a website. A year later, funding for the electric vehicle project ended. The project produced several substantial reports: planning report (2012), report by DBEDT,  EV in Paradise brochure (2013), and  final management report (2014) as well as a chapter in an EV business model book (2015).

Nine months after the project ended, the newspaper folded. The website disappeared overnight. What happened to those articles?

As an educator and director of the EV project (see final management report ) and , I felt compelled to write timely articles that were timeless. Such was the exact motto when I wrote for McGraw-Hill’s Global Energy Business and Energy IT as editor. By “timely” I meant relevance, that people were ready and hungry to read it. By “timeless” I meant no sell-by-date: the article would not expire because it was educational.

Regular visits to the local EV dealership

There was plenty to write about. Every time we had an EV meeting, new questions would be asked. When EV drivers met, they spoke in their own language. Writing a regular column was more efficient than sending press releases and hoping someone would cover an event or interview.

I started with a topic everyone talked about: range anxiety. What is it? What’s the big deal? Is there a prevention or cure?

University of Hawaii at Hilo found a special place for its first charging station

Next, for Maui especially, there was the obvious link between photovoltaic panels on your roof and your electric vehicle. It didn’t make sense to charge at home if you didn’t have PV.

In time, I invited my new colleague Steve Campbell to write two of the articles: The Electric Flagship and The Cost to Own and Operate EVs on Maui.

Inspecting charging stations in Ka’anapa’ali

Partly because I got tired of broken links on my Energy page, I decided to look for those EV articles on the Internet Wayback Machine, an invaluable tool that serves as a back-up for webpages and websites.

Digital photography class of Lahaina Education Center on an EV shoot

EV in Paradise, Maui Weekly Newspaper Column January 2013 – April 2014

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