Elektromotive debuts billable charge station for electric vehicles
By Darren Murph 
posted May 19th 2009 11:17AM
posted May 19th 2009 11:17AM
posted May 19th 2009 11:17AM
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That would be fine by me as long as it didn't take hours to fill up.
Here's to hoping for non-jack move rates.
insert obligatory "and as long as it comes with the pretty lady too" comment here :)
@ash
I don't see how they could when your other option is charging your vehicle at home. My idea is that in 3 or 4 years either our batteries will hold enough charge so you would never need to charge on the go or we find another solution. If so this company is about to waste a lot of money because they won't get enough return laying down this new infrastructure.
We have to stop talking about charging stations and start talking about battery swap stations.
I dont care if the *average* commute is less than 40 miles or whatever, I'm not buying a car that needs to get towed when it runs out of fuel, and I can never drive to my closest airport, my parents house, my friends in Carolina, or even take a nice relaxing drive on the weekend in the country without worrying about getting fucked.
WOW. new comments link...
wtf. its all BIG now and shi-
im trippin out! they changed the comments link back to the old format!!! anyone else notice the temporary change or is my laptop fucked up??
Its possible you saw the page ment for mobile phones instead of the normal one, happens on aol's website all the time. (and notice who owns the building here)
Does anyone have the numbers on how much it would cost at todays electricity prices to fully charge any type of fully electric car; and does it compare to filling the same vehicle with gas
For what area? Not sure what electricity prices are in the UK but I'm sure it's way way over US prices.
Many EU countries have electricity prices that are upto 5 times as high as the US (no that's not an exaggeration, really 5x).
The future isn't cheap. Neither are the 1.21 gigawatts it'll take to get back there.
Something like the new Chevy Volt has a 16kWh battery for an estimated 40 miles per charge. Something like the Tesla Roadster has a 53kWh battery for 240 miles per charge.
Check your electricity bill for the price per kWh for home charging: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
So, for me at $0.11 per kWh, the Volt would cost $1.76 per charge for less than $0.05 per mile. The Tesla would cost me $5.83 per charge for less than $0.03 per mile.
My current gasoline powered car costs about $30.00 to fill for a range of about 350 miles. That's about $0.09 per mile.
I remember seeing the data worked out a few years ago when gas prices were around $3.00 USD with an average sedan, and assuming the charging would be done at night on off-peak hours.
I don't remember the exact figures, but I believe it was around ~20 cents per mile for gasoline versus 3-4 cents for electric. Obviously with gas prices lower it is less of an advantage but it is still far cheaper.
Combustion engines are very inefficient, giving off most of the energy in fuel as heat. You could probably burn oil/gasoline in a high-tech power production plant that uses advanced technology to maximize efficiency and then use the electricity generated to charge an electric vehicle and still get more energy/gallon than using the same volume of fuel in a standard car engine.
Caca poo poo...
I hope this doesn't drive up already extortionate british electricity rates :(
You can bet your house it would. :-(
Not all electric cars can charge quickly... is there no way to lock the power cables into your car and the pole to make sure no one else uses your juice? I can see this becoming very useful if it is installed in parking meters (with a cord lock), one swipe pays for parking as long as you're there and charges your car.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Parking meter takes credit card, park & charge. Or at places where people stay for ~3 hours at a time (movie theaters, etc).
What's stopping me from unplugging the power cord, and having the smug EV driver stranded at the end of the work-day?
muahahaha
Well, why not make batteries easily swappable?
Drop the dead battery at the charging station, then a freshly charged battery will dispense, put it back in the car, and done. Only problem would be not having enough charged batteries to go around.
"Drop the dead battery at the charging station, then a freshly charged battery will dispense, put it back in the car, and done"
This isn't Fallout 3.
@Alex.. he said battery not EMF cells
Security cams and prison terms are there to stop you, if common decency fails that is.
What's there to stop you from throwing a molotov cocktail into an orphanage?
Wwhat, its usually the windows that stop me.
The real-life experience in Norway shows that despite crazy prices of electricity up there, it costs many times more to actually collect the money than what the electricity is worth. After careful analysis the Norwegian authorities came to a conclusion that it was cheaper for them to set up the charging stations and provide free electricity for all EVs than to run an agency to collect the money from the people.
They should do what the government here does, add 120% tax on top of the product price, and then add 20% tax again on the total as 'sales' tax. (yes they charge tax for paying tax)
here's an idea, include these charging things into parking meters. simple location, and payment system all in one.
Over here they have parking meters on the corners for the entire street, having cars stand still on corners while they charge.. sounds less than intelligent.
And you'd have to make deals as power supplier with the people running parking meters, which aren't nice people really and will probably shaft you.
What happens when > 50% of a country's population plugs in at once?
Multi-level parging garages should come with these power plugs as standard at every parking space included in the fee for using the place. The non-EV vehicles would pay the same price as they use similar amount of power to clear their exaust gases from the building when they enter or leave. Have one of those near every shopping mall and under every office building and there will be 80%+ EV penetration in no time.
As long as it doesn't rain, it's all good : )
I'd expect them to change it to end up being a flat monthly fee based on the vehicle you have at some point just because trying to charge based on each watt you use will quickly become impractical.
they should combine these with parking meters
I don't get that phone-pay system, how is that better than a chipcard? Who wants to wave his phone to pay, that just doesn't sound that secure at all, and locks paying to a communication device.
Well at least phones now accept viruses eh.
The plug shown in the picture will only tale up to 13 amps, is there a heavier duty socket on there?
what's to stop someone from, i don't know, unplugging your car and plugging theirs in thus charging their car on your dime? Does the plug lock into the car until you're "full"? If so how do you handle having to leave in an emergency before your car is full?
Who said anything about free juice, Engadget?
The bad news? The generator runs on gasoline. :o
Dude shhhh....
Haven't you heard? Electric cars are like totally the latest bandwagon on which to jump. Don't question.
Rabble rabble.
I cant wait for everyone to start driving these, even in my crappy toyota, i'll be passin cars like they was parked.
Instead of waving your key fob in front of the pole, why don't they build in a data line into the charging plug that identifies you or your car to the network for billing? Just thinking out loud.
needo, my Electrical Energysystems prof told us about it today. He seems to be involved in it, thats why he wasn't there for us last week.
The wire in the picture couldn't even handle 5 amps, even less 32 amps (continuously for hours).
she should be wearing a sundial, not an analog-face watch.
tomo