ELY- Many Ely businesses rely on the tourism economy. A small but growing number of those visitors now arrive in their electric vehicles, or EVs, and for them the presence of an available charger in Ely can spell the difference between vacationing at the end of the road or going somewhere else.
While many areas in rural Minnesota are EV charging deserts, Ely is not one of them. Two places in town are currently home to publicly available EV chargers: two at the city’s public library and six at the Dairy Queen.
Some local businesses, like Ely’s Adventure Inn, have targeted EV users by making chargers available exclusively for their customers. The Adventure Inn currently offers two eight-kilowatt chargers for its guests, while the International Wolf Center offers two seven-kilowatt chargers for visitors when the center is open.
Other places near Ely, like Bear Head State Park, the YMCA’s Camp Northern Lights and Camp du Nord, the Fall Lake Campground, and the South Kawishiwi River Campground, also offer charging stations.
Hurry up and wait
Not all EV chargers are the same. Chargers are divided into three levels. Level one chargers are the slowest, based off household 110-volt current. These low-wattage chargers are inexpensive to install in a home garage but they are designed for overnight charging, not for drivers who are looking for a quick “fill-up.”
Level two chargers use 220-volt and the same type of outlet as a household drier. According to J.D. Powers, home installation of a level two charger in 2024 ranges from $500 to $2,000.
The commercial chargers in Ely are all currently level two, although the chargers at the Ely library, powered by a five-kilowatt array of solar panels on the library’s roof, has a lower capacity than others. The use of the chargers is free but users are limited to just two hours.
Level two chargers currently make up 80 percent of the commercial chargers in the U.S. They typically have capacities from 5 to 11-kilowatts and generally add about 40 miles of range per hour.
“For me with my Chevy Bolt, that’s okay to top me off while driving around Ely,” Ely-area EV owner Hudson Kingston told the Timberjay. “Most people only drive around 30 miles a day, so 40 miles of charge is fine for driving around locally. But for someone with a heavy EV that has a big battery like a Ford F150 Lightning, two hours on the charger at the library isn’t going to get them much range.”
Kingston has a level 2 charger installed in his garage. If he charges his Hyundai Kona Electric on his level 2 charger, “I charge it once overnight and that’s good enough to get to the (Twin) Cities; but for road trips, it’s best to find direct current fast chargers.”
Direct current fast chargers, or DCFCs, are known as level 3 chargers or superchargers. The current gold standard for EV chargers is the Tesla supercharger network with its 72- to 250-kilowatt charging stations. Teslas are heavier and they have larger batteries than other EVs and they take longer to charge as a result. Despite this, a Tesla 250-kilowatt supercharger can add between 150 to 200 miles of range in 15 minutes.
The downside to the Tesla superchargers is the older ones currently work only for Teslas, though that may be changing in the near future as Tesla adds compatibility features for other EV brands. The nearest Tesla superchargers to Ely are in Tofte, Two Harbors, Hermantown, and Duluth.
Tesla isn’t the only company with superchargers these days. Ford’s BlueOval charging network, which Ford touts as the largest public network in North America, has a supercharger located at the Lundgren Ford dealership in Eveleth.
“Our charger is a level three DC fast charger,” said Paul Swenson at Lundgren. “It’s not restricted to Fords. It’s available to the public for any EV with the right plug or adaptor at $0.55 per kilowatt-hour.
Cost
A level one or two charger at a residence is the most cost-effective way to charge an EV. “A lot of utilities have discounted rates in the off hours,” according to Kingston. “That cost savings makes running an EV significantly less expensive than an internal combustion engine.”
Using Ely’s residential electricity rate of $0.1085 per kilowatt-hour to charge a Tesla with a 75 kilowatt-hour capacity battery, would cost $8.14. Assuming a 250-mile range for a Tesla Model 3, the cost of driving that home-charged Tesla in Ely would be 3.4 cents per mile.
Charging the Tesla at the level two chargers at the Ely Dairy Queen costs $0.26 per kilowatt-hour, for a total of $19.50, or 7.8 cents per mile. There is also considerable time involved. It can take 8.5 hours to charge that Model 3 from empty to full using a level two charger.
For comparison, the cost to charge that Tesla Model 3 would be $41.25, or 16.5 cents per mile, at Lundgren Ford in Eveleth. An internal combustion engine car with gas mileage of 20 miles/gallon costs about 15 cents per mile to run, assuming a gas price of $3/gallon.
Fast charger for Ely
Using a local level 2 charger for one to two hours will give area visitors enough range to reach Eveleth, but it’s not as fast or convenient as having a level three charger in town.
“Who doesn’t want to access a fast charger in Ely?” Kingston asked rhetorically. The city of Ely has plans to do just that.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has a program in place to award grants for the installation of faster chargers. It is funded with the state’s $47 million share of the $14.7 billion settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Volkswagen over air pollution violations.
Ely and a company called ZEF Energy are working together to obtain an MPCA grant for a fast charger. The city will install it at the Ely Regional Trailhead building, which is currently under construction on the west edge of the city. The MPCA grant will pay for ZEF’s costs to install a level three charger.
Level three chargers aren’t cheap and are out of reach for most people to install in their garages. According to J.D. Powers, the 2024 cost for an entry-level 50-kilowatt supercharger is $50,000 and more than four times that for one with 250-kilowatt capacity, depending on local power infrastructure. The costs can go up dramatically if electric utilities need to be extended to a new charger site.
“We’re working on White House funding to pay for our share of the installation,” Ely Clerk-Treasurer Harold Langowski told the Timberjay. “The program has a lot of requirements, but we’ll meet those if we put the charger at the new trailhead building.”
The program Langowski referred to is the Inflation Reduction Act Direct Pay program that offers a combination of grants, forgivable loans, and tax credits. The requirements are items like 24/7 access, free parking, and public restrooms.
“The grant deadline isn’t until June 24, 2025, so we have plenty of time to apply,” Langowski added. Ely won’t be home to a level three charger in 2024, and maybe not 2025 depending on the timing of grant awards and construction crews.