New station may improve your gas mileage

ROELAND PARK, Kansas - If you want to pay less for gas, you might want to swing by Roeland Park City Hall. They unveiled something there that might help you drive more cheaply.

It was a typical ribbon cutting. There were handshakes, ill fitting hardhats, and politicians talking about the future.

But in this case we might actually be looking at the future, or part of it.

They were unveiling the first electric vehicle recharging station in the state of Kansas, located in the parking lot of Roeland Park City Hall.

"It's a demonstration of their commitment to sustainability and their leadership to make it real," said Larry Kinder of LilyPad EV, the company that put in the station.

It functions like a gas station but looks like a parking meter. You can pay with your credit card if it has an RFID chip. Or you can call the number on the charger and read them your charge card number. Then you plug in and walk away while your car recharges.

"Now instead of waiting around for gas you just go to work or you go to school or you go shopping or to the movies or wherever you normally go," Kinder said.

It should effectively extend the range of most electric and hybrid vehicles. The concept is to have them at most public parking spaces.

"Anytime you go to a parking lot you will simply expect to see charging stations in the parking lot," he said.

Right now we're catching up with the both coasts in this field, but state leaders are ready to change that.

Sen. Sam Brownback envisions a day when vehicles use a mix of fuels, including home grown ethanol and electricity produced by Kansas wind.

"One of our key drivers for the future of the state of Kansas is in the energy diffusion that's going to be taking place. Increasingly energy sourcing is going to be more diffuse and we have a good chance of being on the leading edge of that curve," he said.

Hopefully that will result in an economic charge for the Sunflower State.