Toccoa Opens Electric Vehicle Charging Station

Toccoa officially opens its first electric vehicle charging station.

The ribbon cutting for the station took place Monday at the historic train depot in downtown Toccoa.

Toccoa had the charger installed last month and it is now open for public use.

It is located in the parking lot of the historic train depot in downtown Toccoa.

Mayor Terry Carter said the city is really excited about the opportunity it provides to bring people in to Toccoa.

“This is an opportunity when the folks are coming through from Atlanta to Clayton or North Carolina, they can stop by here, do a little shopping downtown,” said Carter.

Georgia Public Service Commissioners Tim Echols and Doug Everett were both in attendance to officially open the station.

Echols said the electric vehicle market is growing across Georgia. Officials noted that the state is the number one market for the Nissan Leaf.

He said having public charging facilities provide a nice amenity for those with electric cars looking to travel.

“Most people charge these cars at home at night when we have excess electricity,” said Echols. “But you need the chargers in public so that folks can take the car out and shop and spend money.”

Echols said he feels Toccoa can now be a charging destination.

Toccoa’s electric vehicle charging station supports two vehicles at a time.

Chargepoint, Inc. of Atlanta, the world’s largest and most open electric vehicle charging network will operate the unit for the city.

Doug Serillo is the Director for the Southeast Region for Chargepoint.

He said the goal is to make the charging station as easy to use as possible.

According to Serillo, users can have Chargepoint cards, or use RFID credit cards, or a mobile phone.

He said a session can even be started just by calling a 1-800 number.

Once a session is started, a person just plugs in their vehicle and lets it charge.

The first two hours of the charge are free and an average full charge takes about three hours, according to officials.

The city’s Downtown Development Authority recently received a grant from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority through its “Charge Georgia” program to help pay for the cost of installing the electric car charging station.

Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said the unit cost a total of about $10,000 to put in and the grant covered half of the cost, with the Downtown Development Authority covering the other half of the cost.