That's not a gas pump outside of Medical Office Building East at Logansport Memorial Hospital.
But it will provide certain vehicles with the fuel they need to run.
Electric vehicle owners can now charge their rides at the hospital. Several staff members have been and a hospital official along with a research organization expect the trend to continue growing.
Logansport Municipal Utilities installed the charging station at the hospital earlier this month. It can charge two vehicles at a time.
David Brumett, vice president of facility operations at the hospital, said the motivation for the station was to accommodate several employees who own electric vehicles. Some of them travel long distances and could use a place to charge before heading home at the end of the day, Brumett continued.
But it's not just for staff.
"Anyone can use it," Brumett said. "This is basically public parking so if you happen to be a visitor or stopping by the hospital, you can pull up and charge your car."
SemaConnect out of Bowie, Maryland, makes the kind of charging station at the hospital. The company's website indicates its stations use a North American standard electric charging plug known as a J1772, which "will charge all commercially available electric and hybrid electric vehicles available in the North American market."
It's $2 per hour to charge for the first four hours at the hospital and then $20 an hour after that.
Users can pay with a card SemaConnect provides, through mobile apps or with credit or debit cards over the phone. They can even receive a text message when their vehicle's battery is completely charged.
Brumett and Bob Dunderman, electric distribution manager for Logansport Municipal Utilities, said it takes about three hours to charge an electric vehicle at the station.
LMU bought the station for about $7,200, Dunderman said. He anticipates a payback period of about three years from the revenue LMU will get from the electricity. Hopefully it will be sooner, he added, but that depends on more people buying electric vehicles.
Brumett said LMU installed conduit near the station so that more stations can be installed if the hospital wishes. He expects that to be likely one day.
"We'll see that trend grow," he said. "We're going to see more electric cars in our lifetime as the battery technology gets better and fossil fuels continue to overtime go up in price."
Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales have risen every year globally from 122,000 in 2012 to an estimated 1.6 million in 2018. The report anticipates 559 million electric vehicles will be on roads by 2040, a third of all vehicles in the world, with China being the biggest market.
Dropping battery prices along with rising government incentives and automaker plans are driving the trend, according to the report. Challenges remain, the report continues, like charging infrastructure being a barrier in many countries and the supply of raw materials like cobalt.
Brumett said he's grateful for LMU and Dunderman's help on the project.