Electric Car Charging Stations En Route

By Alyssa Danigelis | Fri Jan 29, 2010 04:12 PM ET
With all the electric vehicles on deck, I wonder how recharging them all on the road will actually go. Fast and easy, or like searching an old airport terminal for a place to charge a laptop? New stations could settle it.

In California, several companies have big plans. Electric systems tech company AeroVironment announced a partnership with EV-maker Think to make fast-charging stations. Coulomb Technologies announced a similar deal with Aker Wade Power Technologies to produce stations this fall. Better Place envisions a complete charging network that includes battery switch stations for drivers on long trips. (Todd Woody wrote a Green Inc. post today about lingering regulatory questions over charging stations in California.) Meanwhile utilities around the country, including Pepco in D.C., are racing to study how different charging stations will affect the grid.

Last year the DOE announced a massive grant to the Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. to install 2,500 charging stations in each of five markets: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. The EV Project calls for several hundred of these stations to be fast-charging systems that can charge the vehicle 80 percent in a mere 15 minutes. No one is sure about the pricing for any of this yet, though. We'll have to see what happens when the project gets under way this summer.

One volunteer effort, the EV Charger Map, shows existing station locations--mostly in California--and displays user comments with details like charge time, cost, and warnings ("The Toyota SPI charger has been malfunctioning for a few weeks now"). Maybe this is what it was like in the Model T era. If the map is any indication, we've still got a way to before getting to fast and easy.

Photo: An EV charging station in Portland, Oregon, at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Credit: Pam and Frank on Flickr.

Electric Car Charging Station Debuts at The Market At Fairhaven
posted on January 18, 2010 08:43 Thrifty Foods.com
First Supermarket Location Nationwide
The first networked electric car charging station in Bellingham, the first north of Hillsboro, OR and the first at a grocery store anywhere in the United States, debuted at the newly remodeled Market at Fairhaven in December.
The station, which is free to use, is a place where electric car vehicles can plug in while shopping at The Market, recharging for the trip home or future travel around town.
"We decided to offer the charging station because of the greater Bellingham community's interest in green technology and the large number of people who already drive hybrids," Kevin Weatherill, President/CEO of The Markets, explained. He added that the expected growth of plug-in cars raises the critical question: Where will these cars be plugged in?
The networked charging station was developed by Coulomb Technologies of Campbell, CA, the leader in electric vehicle charging station infrastructure. Charge Northwest is the infrastructure agent and authorized distributor of ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations from Coulomb in the Northwest.
These early models of all-electric cars have a limited range, requiring the operators to "top off" their battery when away from their normal overnight charging locations. Studies show that 80% of electric vehicle car owners want to charge more than once a day. Having a convenient public charging location, like The Market at Fairhaven's, will ease the way for electric cars into the community.
Generally, it takes four to six hours to fully charge a completely depleted battery, but most electric vehicle owners will use the opportunity to "top off" their car while running errands. A half hour of shopping at The Market will result in about a 10% charge, which is enough to add another 10 miles or so.
"Many of our customers shop several times a week, so it's easy to plug in while they are stopping by," Weatherill explained. "Having a charging station in our parking lot, clearly marked, just makes good sense."
And why electric vehicles? President Obama has challenged the automakers to produce one million electric vehicles, road-ready, by 2015. Early adopters are already converting hybrids to all-electric. Using electricity is a clean solution to the problem of green house gases, and also reduces the dependence on foreign oil gas-powered cars require.
Progressive communities, such as Bellingham, WA, which has undertaken a Community Energy Challenge (reducing substantially the area's consumption of electricity and natural gas) are embracing electric vehicles.
"Having a free community charging station, whether it's for our local customers, or people traveling the I-5 corridor who need a place to "re-fuel", is important," Weatherill noted. "We are proud to be able to offer this service as part of our ongoing commitment to environmentally-sensitive iniatives, such as our S.O.R.T. It! recycling program and our "pay it forward" reusable bags."
There are estimated to be about 1,000 electric vehicles in Washington, which includes conversions, plug-in hybrid conversions, neighborhood electric vehicles and electric motorbikes.