March 21, 2019—Maine plans to add 50 public vehicle charging stations as well as a $5.1 million subsidy in efforts to uplift residents and companies to buy electric vehicles, the Portland Press Herald reports.
The announcement was made by Gov. Janet Mills where funding for the initiative comes from a 2017 multi-state settlement with Volkswagon regarding environmental damage done as a result of the company cheating U.S. emission tests.
“Maine people shell out $5 billion a year to out-of-state fossil fuel companies, and a lot of that money is spent on gas for vehicles that just becomes carbon dioxide pumped into our atmosphere,” Mills said in a statement to the Portland Press Herald. “We can do better. It is time to used in the next generation of technologies that will move our state towards a renewable future.”
According to the Portland Press Herald, the state's rebates could put up to 900 new EVs on the road, twice the number registered today.
