23% of emissions here in southwest San Juan Mountains come from transportation. As Mountain Village, Telluride and San Miguel County as a whole have pledged to slash emissions in the coming years, the transition to Electric Vehicles beckons:

“When we think about how to tackle that in rural and remote communities it’s going to look a lot different from urban communities. Because we are so spread apart, vehicles are still going to be a part of our lives, so the EV readiness plan looks at electric vehicle adoption in our region,” says Kendra Held, Climate Coordinator at EcoAction Partners, a non-profit which organizes and advocates for clean energy across here in the state’s southwestern San Juan mountains. 

The EV readiness plan she references is one of EcoAction’s latest projects: it’s a colorful and engaging 70-page document which acts as a roadmap for Electric Vehicle adoption in the region. Who should pick it up? 

“It is for anyone who is interested in purchasing an electric vehicle. Some of the other plans in Colorado haven't included that, but we felt it was important to include those informational materials in the beginning,” Held says. 

The plan contains information for local governments as well, both on electrifying their own fleets, and analyses of current EV infrastructure and future needs. 

The plan lists some 15 current EV chargers in San Miguel County, far higher than its neighboring Ouray and San Juan Counties — and seemingly ample for the 50 EVs currently registered in the county. But many of those chargers are private, difficult to access, or a bit slow. 

EV adoptees in the area express a mixed experience so far. Martin Owens lives in Telluride and bought a Rivian last year. He loves driving it, he says, but “the big problem is I don’t have a place to charge it overnight. We have a garage but it’s full of bikes and gear. Probably similar to a lot of other folks in Telluride, we can't fit a vehicle in our garage, so we have to search around town trying to find a place to charge it.” 

Owens says he often turns to the chargers at the Silver Jack Parking Garage, located in the core of Telluride’s downtown.

Those, says Owens, “are pretty slow chargers so a lot of times I have to leave [my vehicle] overnight and they charge an overnight fee and an hourly fee. So you kind of get punished for charging overnight which is unfortunate.”

Held says the plan does address the need for additional chargers, but mostly from the perspective of visitors. 

“People who live in town or live nearby, usually those people have charging at their home. They want to make sure they have that available to them, that they’re ready to go in the morning — that sort of thing. I think what we’re experiencing right now and what we’ll be experiencing until we have more public chargers is that visitor gap — where we have people driving to town and wondering where to find chargers,” Held speculates. 

Kris Kwasneiski lives in Placerville, and got an EV two years ago. She commutes, she says, “so I drive from Placerville to Telluride everyday and back, and gas is really expensive. And two years ago it was really up there. So an EV made sense.”

Kwasniewski captured the ample tax incentives and rebate offerings to install a charge in her home, and she works near Silver Park, where she park for the ol’ 9-5.

“I am super lucky because I get to charge right below my office everyday,” she says. “I think town is doing a great job with the transition to EVs, and with providing people places to charge.”

The plan includes information on potential new charger locations, equitable and fair rate structures, and ways to beef up the area’s EV infrastructure.

For Owens, that all can’t come soon enough. With the number of renters in town, and the number of street-parkers, those changes will be critical in making the EV pitch to Town residents. 

“We have to support more overnight and longer term charging for people who street park, which is a lot of people here. And until we see that, I think people are gonna stick to gas,” he says. 

The state as a whole has pledged to transition to 100% electric vehicles by 2050, so eventually it will need every EV convert it can get.