School reserves parking spaces and provides electric chargers for hybrid cars
This past summer Hockaday installed two state-of-the-art electric car docking stations where students and faculty can park and charge their hybrid cars. The project, which was completed on orientation week, cost around $11,000.
Nearly 200 organizations around Dallas continue to make major changes to support the environment, and many companies, such as Half-Price Books, even provide their customer parking lots with electric car chargers. These public accommodations have encouraged the total amount of registered hybrids in the United States to well-surpass 1.6 million cars.
Upper School science teacher Richard Taylor, an owner of a hybrid car, suggested installing the chargers to Hockaday’s CFO Mary Pat Higgins last year.
Higgins decided to buy the chargers to “show the school’s commitment to sustainability and support people who are trying to personally become more sustainable.”
The school began by communicating with various contractors already working on- campus at the time. It decided that one docking station with two chargers would be the most reasonable starting point; however, Higgins says that “if more students or faculty buy electric cars, then the school will definitely add more docking stations.”
Right now, seniors Maddie and Claire drive eco-friendly cars, but neither of them use the new station because neither car is fully electric.
Currently, only Taylor parks and charges his hybrid car at school everyday, but anyone on campus is highly encouraged to utilize the new technology. In fact, Upper School junior Ali, says that she “would be willing to drive an electric car in the future, especially now that I can charge it at school.”
Hockaday considers the high price of the chargers very small in comparison to the amount it helps the environment, and Higgins claims that “Hockaday’s $500,000 electricity budget easily covers the low expenditure of charging the cars daily.” By charging a hybrid car, one pays only $1 per gallon versus the $3 or $4 per gallon that fully gas-consuming cars need. These money saving abilities greatly increase the number of hybrid sales throughout the country, and, as a result, around 22 new hybrid models are added to the market each year.
Ali, along with many other students, supports the car chargers “because they encourage people to be more eco-friendly.” The school views the implementation of the chargers as one of the first steps to remodeling the science and fine arts buildings.
With this new innovation, Higgins says that Hockaday constantly moves toward the “way of the future and hopefully will have more electric cars.”
– Everest
