Northern Michigan Starting To Plug-In Its Cars

Electric cars are not quite in every northern Michigan garage, but the region is quickly catching up to the national trend, with vehicle owners, charging stations and even a supplier of parts to an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer.

Local owners of Nissan Leafs, BMW i3s or i5s, Teslas or other EVs point to three primary reasons for their pioneering purchases: environmental benefits, reduced dependency on foreign oil, and growth in the number of charging stations, making ownership more practical…though some owners admit to a fourth motivation: The cool factor.

“I’m a car guy,” says Rick Wanroy, owner of a high performance Tesla Model S. “It will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under three seconds. That’s faster than a Ferrari,” he says. “The tires don’t spin out. You just go like warp speed.”

Wanroy is working with Tesla and Leland Township -- where he runs the Cove Restaurant -- to install charging stations at the marina. And he hopes someday to program his car to “open the garage door on its own, drive itself to the restaurant and pick me up,” something Tesla promises soon.

One of the most active local proponents of electric vehicles is Jim MacInnes, president of Crystal Mountain Resort in Benzie County. An electrical engineer by training and a member of a statewide group that promotes EV technology, he bought a Chevy Volt four years ago and just recently upgraded to a Tesla.

“I still have the Volt,” he says. “Now it’s the resort’s security vehicle.”

He calls his Tesla an “an elegant device” that is “silent, very powerful, simple to drive and in many ways, it’s just like any regular car.”

He cites many of the standard arguments for electric cars. “It’s part of a big picture, energy security issue for our entire country,” he says. “There’s always trouble in the Middle East, this is a way of inoculating ourselves from that.”

Keeping an electric car charged in Northwest Michigan can be especially challenging because the existing network of recharging stations here, by most accounts, still lags well behind many other regions.

The city-owned parking deck on Eighth Street has a few parking spots equipped to recharge electric cars. Otherwise, there are only a handful of recharging stations at places like Crystal Mountain, Cambria Suites and those tucked away in owners’ garages. But MacInnes remains optimistic.

“We know this is not going to happen overnight,” he says. “There have been lots of new developments, even if not everyone knows that.”

To get that message out, MacInnes – with support from local car dealers – included a display of electric vehicles at Crystal Mountain’s recent Beer and Brats Festival, an annual event that drew some 3,000 people.

Another proponent of EVs – and more charging stations in northern Michigan – is Kimberly Pontius, executive vice president of the Traverse Area Association of Realtors. Improving the infrastructure for electric cars, he says, demonstrates we have a progressive business climate, one that embraces new technology.

But he understands that making EVs mainstream takes time.

“When Henry Ford came along, there were no gas stations,” he says.

The question for economic developers, he says, is, “Does having this limited number of recharging stations make us less attractive to folks who visit or might come here to live?”

Meanwhile, Mike Cote, plant manager at Magna International Trim Component in Benzonia, says 65 of his facility’s 290 employees make interior trim parts for Tesla.

“We cut the material, sew the patterns, apply adhesive, hand wrap, inspect, pack and ship each part,” he adds. “Trucks leave our plant three times per week for Freemont, California, where Tesla Motors assembles the vehicles.”