The Grand Valley State University Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center recently installed an electric vehicle charging station outside of its Muskegon-based location. The charge station is the first in what MAREC hopes will blossom into a network of charge stations throughout West Michigan, which would in turn increase the practicality and desirability of an electric-based car.

There’s just one problem – with current technology and understanding, an electric vehicle plugged into one of these charging stations could take anywhere from four to eight hours to reach a full charge.

In an Internet age where instant gratification is the “in” thing, four to eight hours is just an absurd amount of time, especially when you could just gas up a regular car in a matter of a minute or so. But that span of time is also implausible from a practicality standpoint. Think about a day in the life of just one gas station. Hundreds of people go to this one gas station every day to fill up their tanks. The process is simple: pay for the gas, put the pump in the car, squeeze for a minute or so until the tank is full, close the gas cap, get in your car and drive off so the next person can do the same.

Now think about that process for an charge station with the same number of “pumps.” Go in, pay for the charge, plug the car in and wait for six hours as the line behind you lingers on for miles and miles with people camping out and waiting for their chance.

Now, yes, in the future you probably will be able to plug your car up at home overnight and not have to worry about waiting for a charge on a daily basis, but what about long road trips or those nights when you forget to plug it in? For an electric car, there will need to be charge stations throughout the country, and to accommodate the number of people who could potentially need a charge would require huge parking garage-like structures and maybe even reservations.

But that isn’t to say there aren’t any practical uses for electric cars. Here at Grand Valley State University, the Department of Public Safety has bought several Dodge Chargers in an effort to reduce energy costs and improve vehicle efficiency. DPS police vehicles seldom have to go very far from the Allendale Campus to answer a call or go on patrol, so electric-based vehicles would be perfect for their use. Just plug the units into a DPS-owned station when it isn’t in use and install a few emergency charge stations around the Allendale Campus, and you have a perfectly practical and perfectly logical reason to use them.

What will eventually spring from this is a medley in which some vehicles would be more practical and environmentally sound as electric-based while other uses would be best fit for gasoline-based vehicles. Electric cars could potentially replace gasoline-based cars, and they eventually should, but until major changes are made to the nation’s infrastructure and the technology involved in their use, gasoline-based vehicles will have a place in American society.