Hundreds of electric vehicle charging stations planned for California
California will receive about a third of the 4,600 electric vehicle charging stations that Coulomb Technologies plans to install for free around the country.
The company, based in Campbell, Calif., will immediately start setting up public and private stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose and the San Francisco Bay Area. The stations will also go up in Austin, Texas; Detroit; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Redmond, Wash.; and Washington.
More than 1,000 stations are scheduled to be installed by December, with the rest in place by September 2011.
Partnerships with major automakers mean that charging stations will be available in metropolitan areas where electric vehicles including the Chevrolet Volt, the Ford Transit Connect, the Ford Focus and the Smart Fortwo from Daimler will be sold.
A wide network of charging stations is expected to help quell fears that future electric car owners won’t be able to drive far beyond their home charging base.
The installations are part of a $37-million project called ChargePoint America, funded partly by a $15-million stimulus grant administered by the Department of Energy through the Transportation Electrification Initiative. Once the stations are in place, Purdue University and Idaho National Labs will analyze data about vehicle use and charging patterns.
At the end of last year, Coulomb already had 700 stations operating around the country.
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