greenleaf
Well-known member
+1oakwcj said:Ecotality won the contract with the Department of Energy for the EV Project. Ecotality is a middleman. They didn't give the EVSEs to us. They got a federal contract to do it. The original contract I signed stipulated that I would get ownership of the EVSE at the end of the contract term in return for supplying usage data to the EV Project. The contract specified that it could be amended only with the consent of both parties. Later on, Ecotality entered into some additional contracts with regional air quality agencies, and obviously realized that the contract wouldn't allow them to meet the conditions of their new deals. That's what led them to try this scheme of turning contracts with quite reasonable conditions into the typical one-sided consumer contract used by banks and TV providers. But these EVSEs don't really belong to Ecotality. They're double-dipping by using hardware paid for by the Federal government to facilitate their new contracts with local and regional agencies. If Ecotality came to me and said, please be a good citizen and help the Bay Area Air Quality Management District compile good data, I'd say sure. That's quite a different kettle of fish than letting Ecotality retain title to my EVSE along with the power to unilaterally change the terms of the agreement according to Ecotality's whim. My contract is with Ecotality acting as Steven Chu's agent; it's not with Ecotality, the profit-seeking company.