Electric Vehicle Charging Corridor
by walter on Sep.22, 2009, under Energy Efficiency
Visited 1036 times, 1 so far today
A new electric vehicle (EV) charging corridor is being established along a corridor linking LA and San Francisco for owners of electric vehicles to recharge their battery. Its the first of its kind in the country.
At five locations along the corridor, companies Rabobank and SolarCity have set up 240V 70A charging stations that can recharge in typically 1 to 3 hours. The locations are positioned near retail areas to provide a means of killing time while the charging happens. Currently the stations are fitted to charge only Tesla electric vehicles but when a universal charging plug is agreed upon by a standards committee, expected in a few months, any electric vehicle including Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, etc. should be able to use the charger.
The stations cost the companies from $7000 to $12000 to install, and currently the service is free using solar cells to generate the power. More details at Wired.com
2 Comments for this entry
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September 29th, 2009 on 5:32 pm
Here is an interesting slant on the electric car idea–
http://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html
Talks a lot about the economics etc, but a key concept is replace the charging station with a battery-replacer station–separating the ownership of the car from ownership of the battery. Rather treating the electricity as gasoline, think of the battery as gasoline. Obviously lots of details to be worked, but a nice stroll outside the box.
September 29th, 2009 on 9:49 pm
Wired magazine had an article about that exact thing and Shai Agassi about a year ago. Its an interesting idea. I’ll watch the TED video and see if there’s been any progress on the idea.
http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi