Cambridge to consider ways to let renters, condo owners run power cords to charge their electric vehicles at the curb

Except conduits would "work" to the extent that they get an extension cord across the sidewalk to the curb. Not a perfect solution, but better than the status quo.

Please explain to me why we should be spending time and money figuring out how to give predominantly wealthy people even more subsidies for owning a vehicle in "dense urban environments."

"The future" is not Teslas. The "future" is making walking, biking, and mass transit the most attractive options.

Car owners use monumentally more energy per passenger mile than any other form of transportation, they're a top cause of injury and death in most cities, they prevent the effective functioning of our bus transit system, and are the biggest reason people won't bicycle (for literally decades the overwhelming reason people cite for not biking for transportation is fear of drivers), and with population growth, we simply do not have enough room, either in parking spaces, or on the road, at current usage patterns.

We, the carless, already subsidize everything about your car ownership. Your electric car got a big fat rebate, bother federal and state - and most of that revenue comes from urban areas where car ownership is lowest. When you crash, everyone else pays for police/fire/ems to fix the chaos you cause. When you injure people, our insurance pays for that. When you park on the street, assuming there even is a meter - you pay a fraction of the going rate for a parking space. The roads you drive on, especially if you live outside the city, are massively subsidized by the state, and again, most of that money comes from the urban areas. If you owned a gasoline vehicle - the legislature long since repealed the law requiring the gas tax be adjusted to compensate for fuel efficiency improvements and inflation. The tax isn't even a percentage, but a fixed dollar amount!

Car ownership in Cambridge is already incredibly skewed towards highly economically privileged people and this is only going to continue as population densities increase.

If Cambridge doesn't have the money for bike traffic signals, separated paths, bicycle lockup posts, bicycle traffic counts (seriously, the city won't pay for it, so VOLUNTEERS have to do it) - no way in hell should there be money for even *thinking* about putting in charger posts for rich aholes like you to charge up your expensive electric cars.

You already get massively subsidized roads, parking, emergency services...you even got a tax break on your luxury tesla. Now you want charger stations paid for by public money? Buy it yourself, Richie Rich.

Your EV doesn't fix congestion, land use from parking, injuries and deaths of pedestrians and cyclists, damage to public and private property from crashes, and all the time first responders spend going to traffic crashes.

It doesn't even use appreciably less energy, or save pollution, compared to a hybrid by the time you figure in all the efficiency losses at the power station, the transmission grid, the charger system, systems like the pre-heat and pre-cool features that waste gobs of energy, the battery chemistry/internal resistance, the motor controller, and the electric motor itself.

We need to be spending money on bicycle and mass transit infrastructure, not giving you more places to charger your #$@!ing luxury car.

"This is not how EVs for regular use can exist in high density."

That's because cars make no sense in high density. It has nothing to do with the power source.

I think this is the thing to do--see what has worked or not worked in other places with lots of electric cars. So Europe, California and anywhere else. Don't reinvent the wheel--when ever we try that here we end up with weird things like pausing exit gates in the T.

Because we already dedicate enough resources to cars as it is.