Firm envisions network to charge electric vehicles
One of the many questions surrounding the development of electric cars is surprisingly prosaic: Will there be someplace to plug the darn things in?
A Palo Alto company unveiled a $1-billion plan Thursday that it said would help answer that question -- at least in the Bay Area.
Under the proposal from Better Place, a firm that pushes the development of advanced transportation systems, electric-vehicle charging stations would be installed in homes, parking lots, government buildings and other locales in San Francisco and nearby cities.
If the plan comes to fruition, about 250,000 charging points would be installed by 2012 around the Bay Area, said Shai Agassi, founder and chief executive of Better Place. Users would pay for their charges by credit card. In addition, about 100 battery “switching stations” would be set up around the Bay Area, and as many as 100 more along the freeways leading to the region.
At these stations, owners of electric vehicles that have easily removable batteries would be able to replace a depleted battery with a fresh one in a matter of minutes. That would remove a major obstacle to EV use -- the amount of time, usually several hours, it takes to fully recharge the battery.
Agassi plans to raise money for the project from private sources. Better Place has followed a similar plan in Israel and Denmark, where the country’s top utility is an investor.
The mayors of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose said they would work with other Bay Area towns, regional organizations and companies to make it easier to own and use battery-powered vehicles.
As automakers have begun a sudden rush to bring practical electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to the consumer market, experts have noted that many Americans -- apartment dwellers, for example -- don’t have access to outlets where an electric vehicle can be plugged in overnight to recharge the batteries. Also, few parking garages are equipped with charging stations that would enable commuters to recharge their vehicles while at work.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom noted that 70% of San Franciscans are renters and may not have easy access to a recharging station. The city is already installing charging points at parking meters and light poles, he said.
Despite all of this activity, very few privately owned electric vehicles are on the road in the U.S.
Nissan Motor Co. announced plans Wednesday to sell an electric car in the U.S. by 2010, and BMW, General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers are working on vehicles that either will run solely on battery power or will be plug-in hybrids that need a place to recharge.
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