How a Tesla EV charging station ended up next to a shelter for migrant children
At the former Comfort Inn in Foxborough, where the state is housing migrant and homeless families, there is no playground or lawn, just a few scattered patches of grass in the parking lot in front of the three-story brick building.
So the dozens of children who are staying there play at the far end of the parking lot, away from the main entrance and a Ninety Nine restaurant, with just a couple of aging wooden picnic tables for play structures. It’s not the most desirable setup for families, but Massachusetts has seen its shelter system overwhelmed amid a flood of thousands of migrants from Haiti and other countries, and has begun using converted motel sites across the state to address the crisis.
Starting this month, however, the kids in Foxborough found something new to play with in the parking lot (and some of them did): a dozen shiny, white and red, rectangular consoles, each about the size of a refrigerator, installed by automaker Tesla as a new station for charging electric cars, which can cost anywhere from $40,000 to more than $100,000.
The strange scene reflects the state’s efforts to address two of its biggest challenges: finding beds for an influx of migrants that have overwhelmed the state’s shelter system and meeting its climate goals, which requires installing enough EV charging stations to convince drivers to switch to electric cars.
