You can’t get tourists to spend money unless they show up and a tourist with an EV is likely to find NH a less-than-welcoming destination since we have relatively few public charging stations by Northeast standards.
Clean Energy NH estimates that avoidance by vacationing EV owners could cost the state a gazillion dollars by 2031 – they give a more specific number but I think that conveys the essence of the idea.
According to the report, what’s holding back investments in New Hampshire’s EV charging infrastructure is the requirement that any utility investment must be approved by state-appointed public utilities commissioners. “As a result, they are not able to make business decisions to enhance the opportunities to sell their product in the way that the purveyors of other transportation fuels can,” the report concludes.
Another bottleneck is that the utilities’ rate structures must also be approved by regulators, and are designed for traditional use of electricity and not aligned with the performance profile of EV chargers.
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