This month, Whitman College more than doubled its electric vehicle (EV) charging capacity by installing four new public charging stations next to Nancy Serrurier Village. Each station can charge up to two vehicles at a time.
“We are pleased to incorporate these new charging stations as part of the Nancy Serrurier Village construction project,” says Derek Mahoney, Director of Facilities Operations. “Being located closer to downtown Walla Walla, we may see more use by community members and visitors as well.”
Together with the existing publicly accessible stations in the Stanton and Harper Joy Theatre parking lots, we now have a total of six general-purpose EV charging stations (each with two charging ports) and one Tesla-specific charging station (with a single port).
While there are no immediate plans to add more EV charging stations, some infrastructure has already been roughed in for further expansion if needed.
On campus support for electric vehicles began with the installation of the first charging stations in the Stanton parking lot in the fall of 2018. In December 2019, Facilities Services purchased the college’s first 100% electric vehicle. Today, 15% of the campus fleet is fully electric.
Last year, Whitman also partnered with Sway Mobility to launch Whitman Wheels, a carsharing program with two electric vehicles and its own dedicated charging station.
