Coulomb's CT500 EV charging station now available for residential use
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 26th 2010 6:16PM
posted July 26th 2010 6:16PM
Coulomb Technologies has already managed to get thousands of its electric vehicle charging stations installed across the US (and beyond), but it's now looking to grab an even larger footprint -- it's just announced that its CT500 Level II ChargePoint Networked Charging Station is available for residential use. That will give you a 7.2 kw output and full compatibility Leviton's Evr-Green EVSE "plug-and-play" pre-wiring kit for a supposedly easy installation -- and, of course, an industry standard SAE J1772 connector to accommodate a whole range of electric vehicles. No word on pricing, but you can contact the Coulomb distributor nearest you (there's nine in the US at the moment) for a quote and any additional information you might need. Full press release is after the break.
Coulomb Technologies Announces Availability of ChargePoint Network Residential Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles
CT500 Level II Charging Stations Designed for Residential and Light Commercial Use Bring Coulomb's Advanced ChargePoint Network Application Services to the Home
Campbell, CA July 26, 2010 – Coulomb Technologies today announced the availability of its residential charging stations for electric vehicles. Coulomb's new CT500 Level II ChargePoint® Networked Charging Stations are designed for home and light commercial use. The announcement expands Coulomb's spectrum of products for EVs from home to Level III fast charging stations. CT500 charging stations will be sold through Coulomb's OEM and distribution channels. The ChargePoint Network is based on an open interface, standards-based architecture that provides station owners with a complete set of business applications to market and bill for electric transportation fueling services, and provides drivers with EV charging applications to make fueling easy. The CT500 stations will be on display at the Plug-In 2010 Conference and Exposition in San Jose, California on July 26-29, 2010 in Coulomb booth #110.
"Coulomb has the most comprehensive and established product line and application services offering in the industry," said Richard Lowenthal, CEO Coulomb Technologies. "The addition of our residential charging stations coincides with the introduction of electric vehicles to the mass market. Our charging stations are available to order today and will bring all of the features and benefits people expect from the ChargePoint Network."
The CT500 charging station is a 7.2 kw single output station designed for residential and light commercial applications. The station delivers Level II (208/240 V @ 30 A) charging and is compatible with plug-in electric vehicles that comply with the SAE J1772™ plug-in electric vehicle-charging standard. The station's small size and flexible network interfaces make it an ideal solution for utilities, homeowners, fleet managers, and auto manufacturers. The CT500 is compatible with Leviton's recently announced innovative Evr-Green™ EVSE installation system. This industry-first prewire mounting system provides for simple plug-in installation for new charging stations.
Coulomb's ChargePoint Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and provides authentication, management, and real-time control for the networked electric vehicle charging stations. The network of electric vehicle charging stations is accessible to all plug-in drivers by making a toll free call to the 24/7 number on each charging station, or signing up for a ChargePoint Network monthly access plan and obtaining a ChargePoint ChargePass™ smart card.
Availability
The CT500 is available for order by contacting a Coulomb distributor in your area. Click here for more information: http://www.coulombtech.com/sales.php
About Coulomb Technologies, Inc.
Coulomb Technologies is the leader in electric vehicle charging systems and application services, with the ChargePoint Network now operating in 14 countries, and Network Operations Centers in the U.S., London, and Hong Kong. Coulomb provides a vehicle-charging solution, with an open system driver network: the ChargePoint Network provides multiple web-based portals for Hosts, Fleet managers, Drivers, and Utilities, and ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations ranging in capability from 120 Volt to 240 Volt AC charging and up to 500 Volt DC charging. For more information, follow Coulomb on Twitter at twitter.com/coulombevi. To request a charging station in your area, visit www.mychargepoint.net/request-station.php. To download the ChargePoint iPhone App, click here.
CT500 Level II Charging Stations Designed for Residential and Light Commercial Use Bring Coulomb's Advanced ChargePoint Network Application Services to the Home
Campbell, CA July 26, 2010 – Coulomb Technologies today announced the availability of its residential charging stations for electric vehicles. Coulomb's new CT500 Level II ChargePoint® Networked Charging Stations are designed for home and light commercial use. The announcement expands Coulomb's spectrum of products for EVs from home to Level III fast charging stations. CT500 charging stations will be sold through Coulomb's OEM and distribution channels. The ChargePoint Network is based on an open interface, standards-based architecture that provides station owners with a complete set of business applications to market and bill for electric transportation fueling services, and provides drivers with EV charging applications to make fueling easy. The CT500 stations will be on display at the Plug-In 2010 Conference and Exposition in San Jose, California on July 26-29, 2010 in Coulomb booth #110.
"Coulomb has the most comprehensive and established product line and application services offering in the industry," said Richard Lowenthal, CEO Coulomb Technologies. "The addition of our residential charging stations coincides with the introduction of electric vehicles to the mass market. Our charging stations are available to order today and will bring all of the features and benefits people expect from the ChargePoint Network."
The CT500 charging station is a 7.2 kw single output station designed for residential and light commercial applications. The station delivers Level II (208/240 V @ 30 A) charging and is compatible with plug-in electric vehicles that comply with the SAE J1772™ plug-in electric vehicle-charging standard. The station's small size and flexible network interfaces make it an ideal solution for utilities, homeowners, fleet managers, and auto manufacturers. The CT500 is compatible with Leviton's recently announced innovative Evr-Green™ EVSE installation system. This industry-first prewire mounting system provides for simple plug-in installation for new charging stations.
Coulomb's ChargePoint Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and provides authentication, management, and real-time control for the networked electric vehicle charging stations. The network of electric vehicle charging stations is accessible to all plug-in drivers by making a toll free call to the 24/7 number on each charging station, or signing up for a ChargePoint Network monthly access plan and obtaining a ChargePoint ChargePass™ smart card.
Availability
The CT500 is available for order by contacting a Coulomb distributor in your area. Click here for more information: http://www.coulombtech.com/sales.php
About Coulomb Technologies, Inc.
Coulomb Technologies is the leader in electric vehicle charging systems and application services, with the ChargePoint Network now operating in 14 countries, and Network Operations Centers in the U.S., London, and Hong Kong. Coulomb provides a vehicle-charging solution, with an open system driver network: the ChargePoint Network provides multiple web-based portals for Hosts, Fleet managers, Drivers, and Utilities, and ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations ranging in capability from 120 Volt to 240 Volt AC charging and up to 500 Volt DC charging. For more information, follow Coulomb on Twitter at twitter.com/coulombevi. To request a charging station in your area, visit www.mychargepoint.net/request-station.php. To download the ChargePoint iPhone App, click here.
wtf just happend to engadget
@rmbrown09 Don't hate, its electrifying
@rmbrown09 Yeah the article icons got small but yet engadget mobile/alt/hd stayed the same
@rmbrown09 Is it just me that the homepage layout is all jack wagon'd
@rmbrown09
What? What happened?
@Mike10010100 never mind nothing now, it was very bizarre for a second.
@Mike10010100
Its fine now, but there was a double-rainbow. So intense. Almost looked like a triple-rainbow, all the way. Not sure what that means.
@rmbrown09
On-topic... well, it's timely, I'll give it that.
Great news. Will never use it.
@ramia
We need a combo home charging system and a quick-exchange system at existing gas stations. Just like USB, there needs to be a universal standard for replacing batteries for electric vehicles. The batteries must be easily interchangeable and must be swapped in under 5 minutes by automated process via a drive-up exchange that can be built in any gas station. Pop off the (secure) battery, and swap in a new one. The batteries and exchange ports are all identical and interchangeable, like modern AA and AAA batteries. This can allow for competition and customization within the battery and exchange market.
Until this happens, I can see no way for a sustainable electric car infrastructure to be made. Quick charging stations are inadequate, as they cause huge heat issues and degrade the battery.
@Mike10010100
First there would be all the niche markets with predictable routes. Buses, airports, rental cars, taxis, bla bla bla.
Secondly your average commuter and for running errands really doesn't need more than a 100 mile range.
Third, for your truly long trips, one idea is that you hook up your EV infinite-range extender trailer, that houses a small generator that provides the electricity to power the wheels as well as top off the battery:
http://evmaine.org/assets/images/rav4trailer.gif
There were also concepts where the generator would have wheels and just roll up and clip onto the rear bumper of the vehicle, rather than being towed. But either way, you don't have to lug around the weight of a ICE engine 24x7, and for the really long trips you're likely just cruising anyway to where weight doesn't play a huge role in efficiency.
@Ducman69
Ohhh.... I see. Interesting. Keep the generator when you need it and remove the weight when you don't. However, you're asking the consumer to be smart about plugging in his vehicle every night....unless there can be an automatic docking system.
@Mike10010100
Good point, the lowest common denominator is pretty stupid.
Perhaps instead of just a door chime when you leave the lights on or key in the ignition, the vehicle could also announce upon removing the key "You have X% charge remaining". Might remind peeps to plug in. *shrugs*
@Ducman69
Lol. With that it should probably give them an electric shock, force their heads to look at the percentage display, then plug itself in anyways, just to spite the owner's negligent attitude.
I think we've just created the perfect evil car. rofl
But will it charge the iPad?
I'm kidding, relax.
Its nice to see alternative forms of energy replacing oil. Maybe our dependence on oil for energy will be over in my lifetime.
@Firewave how old are you
@rmbrown09
I am 17 rmbrown.
@Firewave but from source does the energy that powers the car come from? If everyone in America got one of these things, the power grid will pull an AT&T and fall on its face because of the load. BTW your car is probobly going to be powered by a fossil fuel power plant. So your not reducing global emmisions at all.
Sad truth. Sins of our fathers got us into this mess with our dependince of fossil fuels. Yet sustainable energy at the turn of the 20th century would be impossible without fossil fuels. Its a love hate relationship with fossil fuels and renewable energy technology is in it's infancy.
/nerd rage
@Scrubs
1. There is plenty of power available at night
2. Most of the cars won't need to fully recharge on most days
3. People like me buy renewable power from the power company. If they don't generate enough, they need to buy more green power production.
4. The 'grid' can be made into smaller pieces and more power generated where it is needed.
5. The cars can act as a giant battery with really smart chargers and share power (drains 2% of batteries from 50 cars to charge one really fast)
6. Some people like me know how to produce our own power at home.
/nerd being intelligent
This will go great with my Tesla.
@Dante of the Inferno
You mean the tesla you wish you had:P
Very coul!
FIRE THE LASER!
Why do we need proprietary connectors for cars anyway? Why can't they just connect to a regular power outlet? If a normal three prong isn't enough, why not something existing like the kind used on major appliances?
@Ducman69
Im no expert Ducman, but I dont think the kind used on appliances can supply 7.2 kilowatts. Just a guess though
@Firewave
Most dryers, that jsut about every house is wired for, are 220V 40amp circuits.
Thats a crapton.
@Ducman69
Being painfully honest, I know next to 0 about electricity. So I still dont know how that fares against the item mentioned in the article
Althought, that charger goes into your is connected to your house, so Im assuming it must be similar to the 220V 40amp you mentioned.
@Ducman69
At least they have agreed on a standard plug. It has safety features built into it that an ordinary plug does not.
Now, where do I get a female end for my electric car that I am building?
Hydrogen is still the cool thing IMO
I didn't understand how Hydrogen cars worked until I watched a show last night. Basically they combine (back, after it was separated) Oxygen and Hydrogen to make H2O, which makes electricity.
So in terms of what in the end is powering the car, Hydrogen turns into an electric car. But Hydrogen is much more efficient, and renewable and is a better solution then just zapping a car till it's dripping with electricity.
Plus you could get a car that could re fuel itself.
1. Put in Hydrogen...
2. Outputs pure drinking water...
3. A Swedish company has already made a device to turn water into Hydrogen that is about the size of a fridge.
4. Continue to evolve that until you can fit it in a car.
5. Car runs, emits water as a emissions, reuse that water to make Hydrogen, it's a circle.... never fuel up again.
@rmbrown09
Sorry to burst your bubble, but hydrogen is very energy INEFFICIENT compared to all EV (electrical verhicles)!
It costs a lot of energy to make hydrogen (low efficiency) and you waste a lot of energy converting it back to electricity (low efficiency). Hydrogen, is not the way forward I'm afraid.
@rmbrown09 You missed out the part here you say
??????
PROFIT
@Forumgod The bigger problem with hydrogen is that there is zero infrastructure.
You end up with a chicken and egg problem.
There are no stations and distribution channels for hydrogen since there are no cars, and no one wants to buy hydrogen cars since there's no place to fill it up. How do you change both simultaneously overnight?
but will it power my nVidia video card?
No Highest ranked comments.......... yet.
I dont see the electric car selling like hotcakes ihere in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Power Authority(AEE) currently charges .27 KWH for residential use. in theory, charging your EV at night in PR is going to cost you (that is, if you used this charger at its full 7.24KW capacity) S1.94 Per hour, so presuming you plug it in each night with a presumable 3 hour charge for 30 days were talking about $174.60 per month in aditionl to your regular electrici bill .here is my formula its not perfect but it gives you an idea.
(KWH rate X KWH consumed by charger X hour it takes to fully charge X days of charging)
@Illankid Using your math, $174.60 per month if you drive 100 miles per day. 100 miles per $5.82. So unless you're driving 3,000 miles per month (30 days * 100 miles) on the island, you're not spending $174.60 a month.
@Illankid
3000 miles in a 20mpg car uses 150 gallons of gas. At $2.90 that would be $435 going to support companies that spill oil in the water, require us to send troops to protect oil in the Middle East, spend billions of taxpayers money on subsidies to keep drilling domestically, and throw up a lot of air pollution to move someone around quickly...
@Kermee I forgot to add that a vehicle in a traffic jam will affect its MPG severely we have to wait and see how drastic it is on a electric car.
@rcappo
i hear ya, but if people pay their gas as they use it, not like the electric bill wich comes monthly. this can be an oportunity for the electric company. the other idea would take and additional investement of solar panales and wind generator to "charge" your car for "free".