Coulomb Offers Free EV Charging Stations
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010An article in Autopia offers great news for the future of electric vehicles in America. The folks at Wired Magazine’s car blog are reporting that Coulomb Technologies, in partnership with three carmakers, will give away 4,600 free charging stations.
The Silicon Valley-based company has joined with Ford, GM and Smart to provide both home and public ChargePoint Network stations in nine metropolitan areas around the country. The roll-out will begin with fall, coinciding with the launch of the Ford Transit Connect delivery van and Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric vehicle.
Most major auto companies are currently developing “cars with cords,” with the first of them to be on showroom floors by year’s end, but the ongoing question is where drivers of these electric vehicles will be able to charge them if they live in apartments (where a charging station can’t be installed) or aren’t at home. With the Obama administration pushing us toward EVs, this issue is hardly trivial.
The program, called ChargePoint America, has a pricetag of $37 million, and is being partially funded by a $15 million grant issued by the Department of Energy via the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (aka the ‘stimulus package’). It joins another effort, led by Nissan and Ecotality to the tune of $99.8 million, to bring 11,200 chargers to five states.
Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb told the press, “The Obama Administration has set significant and considerable goals for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the coming years. These charging stations will build upon our already growing and established network of infrastructure and will accelerate the deployment of public and private charging infrastructure, which will in turn encourage people to buy electric vehicles.”
The free charges are destined for Austin, Texas; Detroit; Los Angeles; New York; Orlando, Florida; Sacramento, California; the San Francisco Bay Area; Redmond, Washington; and Washington D.C.. They are all “Level 2″ (220 volt) units and roughly half will be installed in curbside locations and other public places. The rest will be given to consumers who purchase electric vehicles from General Motors, Smart, or Ford.
Coulomb plans to install a thousand chargers by the end of this year, with the rest to be in place by the end of 2011. As BMW discovered when field-testing it’s Mini-E electrics, getting the proper permits can be a nightmare, so Coulomb is working with the cities included in the program in order to cut through as much red tape as possible. While the chargers themselves are free, those receiving them must foot the installation bill.
The ChargePoint stations are network-capable, and can be configured to enable energy usage tracking. As well, they can be configured to bill users so that host-businesses can recoup maintenance and energy costs to offset public charging.