NJ electric vehicle ownership soars, but where do you plug in?

Advocates of electric vehicles claim New Jersey is dragging its feet when it comes to providing charging locations for EV drivers.

Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club says the number of electric vehicles in the state has mushroomed up to 10,000 in just the past year.

"It is a much more efficient car to drive, and it is much cheaper to operate. So that is one of the reasons why they are so popular," he says.

The amount of time it takes to recharge an electric car battery depends on the charger. Fast chargers can recharge a car in about 20 minutes.

"You see more and more businesses putting them in to attract customers," Tittel says about quick-charging stations.

But the number of charging stations here in the Garden State has not been keeping pace.

"Unfortunately, most of the charging stations that we currently have in New Jersey are private, in office parks for those in the office building, or things like that."

Tittel says many other states are ahead of us in offering these charging stations. He says in California, for example, there are stations in most shopping malls.

"I just think that New Jersey needs to charge ahead with electric vehicles."

He also says we are not offering enough incentives to buy electric cars.

"In other states, they offer you rebates, they offer you incentives to buy the cars. Here, you do not pay sales tax when you buy an electric car. That is the one incentive that we do have. But what we are not doing is building out the network to have more and more plug-ins, so that people will feel more comfortable driving."

Joe Cutter is the afternoon news anchor on New Jersey 101.5