Thanks ElectricVehicle.
EPB did absolutely the right thing in fighting the court battle with Comcast and building their 100% fiber network to all their electric customers. Comcast fought hard but lost. They and the other cable / telephone service providers are scarred to death that every electric distributor in the country will do the same thing.
The electric distributor needs access to a 100% fiber network. They justified a large part of the cost of the network with the cost elimination from meter reading. But the true value for the electric distributor is in knowing about service interruptions, and eliminating service interruptions. EPB is deploying an extensive network of smart distribution grid "circuit breakers" that will likely eliminate 80% or more of service interruptions. And they reclose in a smart fashion, not just hard reclosing and throwing 100% of the power back on the line potentially creating major arc flash damage. The fiber network is a win - win for everybody, except the cable / telephone service providers. If they'd had the foresight to build a fiber network like some telephone companies such as Ringgold, GA has done, they would have had a good argument to require the electric service providers to use their network. But they didn't.
Sane policy in the US should dictate a single fiber network to each home, with service providers sharing the network. But unfortunately somehow people thought competition and building competing cable systems / fiber systems was smart. It isn't smart, but I don't think we as a country have the wisdom to elect politicians to fix the current inefficient competititive mess.
Chattanooga is also way ahead of lots of places with its efforts on sustainability. Still have a ways to go in implementing, but we have a world class 20 year plan.
How do you think we got Volkswagen?
By being world class in many areas - Communications, Sustainability, Etc.
And once the eV Project builds out the interstate fast charging infrastructure, we're going to be world class in the use of electric vehicles too.
And Volkswagen will also be producing electric or at least plug-in hybrid vehicles, at least based on what they've stated in meetings with engineer's clubs. Its just a matter of when.
I haven't seen Elvis in a long time. Not sure what color Leaf he will be driving, but he will be driving a Leaf.