Here's the follow up to that story:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/maryland-...170300709.html
I get the feeling these articles are written as if what is going on is a good thing, when the facts disclosed suggest otherwise.
Here's my comments from another forum where somehow, some people reading the same article with the same facts as I, came to the conclusion that this is a big win for EV adoption:
...I'm critical of how this was accomplished because I want to see EV charging grow in a way that makes economic (lasting) sense. It sounds like the only smart business decision this guy (or was it his economic genius 17 year old daughter) has made was to accept a continuation of loosing money on his business, but this time on someone else's tab.
Instead of VW punitive money being wasted on private owner charging stations, which will do zero to accelerate the EV transition, they could have done anything else with it. I like the idea of transitioning school buses to EV since those are the perfect use case. These buses travel relatively little distance and have ample opportunity to charge when not in use. They have huge maintenance costs which could be reduced by the less complex and higher reliability of electric systems. They burn diesel and pollute around children. I'd rather see VW money spent on a project like that, then converting a petrol station that was going under anyhow, into a soon-to-fail EV charging point. Once the charging station goes under, it will be exhibit C for the anti-EV crowd to point to as evidence that EVs suck. It will be a net setback to the cause of EVs as a result.