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Coulomb's ChargePoint app now provides EV charging station status
There's unfortunately still no Android version, but Coulomb has now rolled out a fairly significant update to its ChargePoint app for iOS and BlackBerry. In addition to helping you locate EV charging stations in the United States, Europe and Australia, the app will now also provide realtime charging status information, including things like the total cost to charge and the current charging station configuration. Other improvements include a new landscape mode, the ability to view your home ChargePoint station, and the ability to just search for nearby ChargePoint stations (within a thousand foot radius). Full press release is after the break.
PlugShare app lets you share your plugs with other EV drivers
Are you the sort that doesn't mind letting random people pull up in your driveway to recharge their electric vehicle? Then you might want to consider using the new PlugShare app for iOS devices that was just released today, which will let you broadcast your location and plug status to everyone passing by. Of course, there are also some privacy settings if you prefer to control things a bit more tightly, and the app also includes a complete database of public charging stations across the US if you'd rather not bother someone else at all when you're out on the road. What's more, while the app is iOS-only at the moment, the company promises that an Android version is "coming soon." Head on past the break for a quick demo video.
Toyota to start selling home battery chargers in 2012, sate the electrical appetites of the Prii
We've seen the plug-in Prius (a few times, actually), but what we hadn't seen was how Toyota planned to get the juice from the grid to its car until now. Turns out, the automaker plans to sell home battery chargers starting in 2012 so that buyers of PHEV Prii can fully take advantage of that plug in the front fender. The chargers come in two flavors: one for the garage and one for the exterior of your home, and will cost upwards of ¥200,000 ($2411) fully installed, making it quite a bit more than GM's $2000 Voltec charging station. The good news for us all is that Toyota's charger uses the same SAE J1772 plug found in the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, so we're hopefully just weeks away from the first-ever EV charger price wars. Popcorn grabbing seems a must given the circumstances.
ECOtality teams with Sprint to connect Blink EV charging network
ECOtality teamed up with Best Buy a few months back to expand its network of Blink EV chargers, and it's now finally announced which company will actually be connecting that network. ECOtality will be relying on Sprint's Command Center M2M solution, which will handle things like monitoring and electronic payments, and allow ECOtality to display digital content for advertising or other information, among a host of other network-related things. From an end-user perspective, that also means that folks will be able to keep watch on the Blink network from various devices, find chargers near them with GPS, and receive notifications of a charge interruption or completion. Head on past the break for the complete press release.
DC Fast Charger joins the ECOtality EV charging station fleet, looks like a fuel pump
You can't help but smile, can you? ECOtality's latest entrant into the rapidly expanding Blink line of EV chargers looks awfully familiar to avid motorists, and for good reason. Designed to mimic a conventional petrol pump, the DC Fast Charger should blend right in when installed in Best Buy parking lots, gas stations and beyond, with the company aiming to get these positioned in a wide variety of locations in order to ease "range anxiety." We're also told that motorists will eventually be able to utilize the Blink Network Smartphone Application in order to locate the nearest charging station and receive GPS directions, and an RFID-enabled payment system makes it easy to drain your wallet, rejuvenate your vehicle and get you back on the open road. There's even a 42-inch LCD on the top, and while it's primarily engineered for ads and information, we're sure a few wire swaps would have your Xbox 360 displayed in no time flat. The DC Fast Charger should be hitting 16 major American cities in the near future, and there's a video after the break to tide you over.
Best Buy teams up with ECOtality to install EV charging stations at 12 stores
Best Buy has already started selling some electric scooters and motorcycles in its stores, and it's now about to expand even further into the EV business. The retailer has just announced a partnership with ECOtality, which will be providing Best Buy with some of its Blink EV charging stations that will be installed at twelve stores in Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle by March of next year. That's being done as part of the government-funded EV Project that ECOtality is overseeing, and Best Buy says that it may install chargers at additional stores if the initial test phase proves to be successful. Full press release is after the break.
GM announces $490 Voltec home charger for Chevy Volt: $2,000 installed
We've already seen a number of Volt-compatible home EV chargers announced, but it doesn't look like GM is about to pass up on the market itself -- it's just announced its own 240V "Voltec" home charger. The unit itself will only set you back a fairly reasonable $490, but GM estimates it will cost about $1,475 to actually get it installed, bringing the total cost to a considerably heftier $2,000 or so. As Autoblog Green notes, however, that price is at least comparable to what Nissan is quoting for the installed cost of a charger for its Leaf electric vehicle. Head on past the break for the press release, and hit up the link below for an up close look at the charger itself.
San Francisco Bay Area gets $5 million for EV chargers, Detroit will charge $40 per month
Electric vehicles are inching closer, with several already priced and rearing to go, but so far would-be owners won't have to pay for the devices to charge their cars. Free charging stations are popping up at every red dot on this map, and apparently not satisfied with the 1,600 that Coulomb's installing in California and the three at City Hall, San Francisco and neighboring cities have just approved $5 million for over 5,000 more chargers -- of which only 50 will appear along public highways, for some reason. Meanwhile, the state of Michigan has approved the first standardized rate for EV charger use -- a pilot program by provider DTE Energy will see 2,500 customers paying $40 per vehicle per month (or a variable off-peak rate) through December 2012. Gotta wonder how those grey states are feeling right about now.
Evatran's Plugless Power gives your wheels a wireless proximity-based charge
Trading gas nozzles for electric sockets may be the green thing to do -- in more ways than one -- but wouldn't plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles be that much sweeter if you could just forget about the plug? That's what Evatran is trying to do with its Plugless Power technology, shown off at Plug-In 2010 in San Jose, which charges your car automatically when you pull up to the company's specially-designed curb. The "station block" above is a wireless induction charger (yes, a car-sized Powermat) that beams electricity to a shoebox-sized device you mount to the undercarriage of your vehicle, magnetically detecting and gravitating towards said shoebox even if you park somewhat crooked. The system presently works with 80 percent efficiency when firing electrons across a two-inch gap (engineers are shooting for 90 percent by the time it hits production) but of course the base station itself doesn't get power from the ether -- it requires one of the company's own Level 2 wired chargers (and compatible wiring) to run. Should your residence or place of business be equipped, the 240 volt towers will set you back $3,245 this December, and the proximity charger will be available to early adopters in Q2 2011 (we're hearing April) for the bargain price of $800.
ECOtality and Frog Design debut eye-catching Blink EV chargers
Coulomb Technologies isn't the only company that's announced some new electric vehicle chargers at this week's Plug-In 2010 conference in San Jose -- ECOtality has also taken advantage of the show to debut its new Blink EV chargers. Those were developed in partnership with Frog Design, which is responsible for the eye-catching look that the companies hope will become a "new icon for a smart EV ecosystem." Of particular note with the home version is a modular set-up that lets you place the garden hose-like cord reel separate from the main unit, which the company says makes it particularly well-suited for cramped garages. It also looks like you'll soon have a decent chance of spotting the commercial version out in the wild -- the first charges will be installed this Fall as part of the public-private, $230 million EV Project, which will eventually see ECOtality install nearly 15,000 chargers in 16 U.S. cities. Head on past the break for the complete press release, and a video overview from Frog Design's Andy Hooper.
Coulomb to electrify California with 1,600 shiny new EV chargers
Fret not, Cali residents. Your state government may be desperately sinking into the quagmire of its own extravagance, but cash will always be found to fund good old "private" enterprise. Coulomb Technologies is expected to today announce the rollout of 1,600 ChargePoint stations across the sunny state, aided in part by a $3.4 million grant from the California Energy Commission. The principal aim of these installations will actually be research, as the state tries to figure out EV usage and recharging habits. Happily though, once that academic exercise is over, they should still be operational and might well make Coulomb's home patch the most advanced in terms of EV infrastructure yet. Yes indeed, we'll all be driving our Volts along potholed streets with nary a public servant in sight... it'll be like Mad Max: Beyond Budgetary Deficits.
Coulomb partners with Ford, Chevy, Smart to deliver 4,600 free EV charging stations in US
Looks like Australia and Poland were just the beginning: Coulomb Technologies is looking to roll out nearly 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the US, effective immediately. If one of those cherry-red push pins is pointed at your neighborhood, you'll likely see the stations popping up at local businesses soon, and if you're looking to purchase a Chevy Volt, Tesla-powered Smart or one of Ford's two new EVs, you can even qualify to have a free station installed in your home. Partially paid for by a $15 million grant from the Department of Energy, the ChargePoint America program won't necessarily give you free electricity to go with it -- that "charge" in ChargePoint has a double meaning, after all -- but we're happy to see the zero-emissions future is finally on a roll. PR after the break.
Europe gets first fast-charging EV station, hungers for more
Epyon, a small Dutch startup, is showing the big boys how it's done with its recently unveiled fast-charging station for electric vehicles. Billed as Europe's first commercially available charger of its kind, this unit will recharge anything up to a nine-seater taxi van within 30 minutes, thanks to its 50 kilowatts of power capacity. It's now installed alongside more conventional petrol and diesel refilling points in a fueling station over in Leeuwarden. That's the capital city of Friesland, a Dutch province that has set itself the ambitious goal of having 100,000 EVs on its roads by 2015. That aim is shared by the wider European Union as well, which yesterday agreed on defining a common electric recharging standard, whose universality might attract skeptical consumers and more cautious investors into the field. They've set themselves a deadline of "mid-2011," though the broad outlines and new incentives for buying greener cars are likely to appear by the end of this year.
