The Bates Sustainability Roadmap sets ambitious goals for both the electrification of our internal fleet of vehicles, as well as incentivizing our staff, faculty, and students to adopt electric vehicles for transport.

Electrifying Our Campus Fleet

We have been moving aggressively to transition our internal fleet of vehicles from fossil fuels to electricity, most recently with the purchase of five new electric vehicles. Each year moving forward, we will realize our roadmap’s goals by swapping out older, gas-powered vehicles with new EVs.

More EV Chargers on Campus

Bates continues to be a leader in accessible electric vehicle charging for our staff, faculty, and students. These EV chargers, as well as our growing fleet of electric vehicles, was the result of the work of our sustainability students, who wrote successful grants and researched policy incentives in order to accelerate the transition to a more electrified transportation system.

_{Tamsin Stringer ’22 stands in front of EV chargers for which she wrote two successful grants.}

How to Use the Electric Chargers on Campus

Our EV chargers can be found on any charging app, as well as our campus map. Our chargers use the Enel X Way app, which can be downloaded and set up ahead of time. There is a nominal hourly fee for our chargers, primarily to encourage availability for a finite resource.

To set up the app, go to the Wallet section of the dashboard (My Account > Wallet > Payment Methods), and enter in payment info. Early on, the app will ask if you want to set up a charger, by which it means your home charger. This is not necessary for the app to function on campus. Once the app is set up, you can park at any EV spot in order to charge. Use the lower navigation bar to select Map, then hit the QR code icon in the lower left corner, and scan the QR code on the face of the charger that you’d like to use. Alternatively, you can also go to the Map, and click on the charger that you’d like to enable. Follow the prompts until you see a button that says Start Charging. Press that button, and it should initiate charging.