The EV Project expands to Los Angeles, and Washington DC

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Randy

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Apr 22, 2010
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Just received this email this morning from ECOtality (the EV Project people). Awhile back I signed up on their website to be on their mailing list...Good news for those folks in LA and DC, chargers for 1,000 more Leafs funded with the $30M...

The EV Project Expands To Los Angeles, Washington, D.C.
Adds $30 Million to The EV Project,
Adds 2600 Chevrolet Volt and 1,000 Nissan LEAF Vehicles
TEMPE – June 17, 2010 – ECOtality, Inc. (NASDAQ: ECTY), a leader in clean electric transportation and storage technologies, announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy has expanded The EV Project to include two new cities – Los Angeles, California and Washington, D.C. – and has broadened the offer of free home chargers to include qualified new owners of the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle with extended-range capability. The expansion also adds an additional 1,000 Nissan LEAF cars zero-emission cars to the Project.
This expansion will be funded by a $30 million U.S. Department of Energy grant extension to ECOtality's EV Project, which was created through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This new Federal grant extension includes $15 million of ARRA funding, which will be matched with $15 million in private funds, to reach the total of $30 million. ECOtality is the project manager for The EV Project, which began in October 2009 with an original grant amount of $99.8 million and the objective of creating new jobs, jump-starting the economy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lessening the country's dependence on fossil fuel. With the assistance of more than forty partners, The EV Project will deliver nearly 15,000 residential and commercial chargers to 13 cities in five states and the District of Columbia. The mission of the Project is to evaluate the use of electric vehicles and charging systems in diverse geographies and climates, then to use that information to build a foundation that will optimize adoption of electric vehicles nationwide.
With this expansion, ECOtality's EV Project, already the largest electric vehicle infrastructure project ever undertaken, will provide an additional 2,600 home chargers for owners of the Chevrolet Volt, as well as another 1,000 chargers for the zero-emission Nissan LEAF electric vehicles.
"Americans are ready to think differently about how they drive, and are ready to embrace electric vehicle technology," said ECOtality CEO & President Jonathan Read. "Through The EV Project, ECOtality is meeting the demand for new fuel sources by making EV charging simple, smart and available to everyone."
"Nissan is looking forward to bringing the Nissan LEAF and sustainable mobility to Los Angeles," said Eric Noziere, vice president, Corporate Planning, Nissan North America. "We have seen tremendous interest through early reservations from LA consumers. These 1,000 Nissan LEAF 100% electric cars and supporting charging infrastructure will help create a successful environment for electric vehicles as we approach the December launch of the Nissan LEAF. In total, Nissan is supporting The EV Project through 5,700 vehicles, nationwide."
The mission of The EV Project is to collect and study data that will ultimately characterize how consumers actually use EVs in a wide range of climate conditions and geographies, as well as to create a model that will allow charging infrastructure to grow throughout the United States as a sustainable, stand-alone business that does not require long-term government support. Inclusion of the Volt now allows for the study of performance and use patterns for electric vehicles with extended-range capability.
"Many Volt owners will plug their Volt into a normal 120-volt electrical outlet, charge overnight and drive to work in the morning using only battery power," said Tony DiSalle, Product and Marketing Director for the Chevrolet Volt. "For Volt owners who want to install a faster 240-volt charge station, we expect The EV Project to save them a significant amount of money. In addition, The EV Project enables Volt owners to play a role in developing our collective understating of electric vehicles in the market."
ECOtality North America President and CEO Don Karner said, "We are very excited to expand our studies to include additional Nissan LEAF vehicles, to add the Chevrolet Volt, and to add the dynamic transportation environments of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Since The EV Project began last October, we have been busy working with regional stakeholders to plan an effective charge infrastructure deployment. We will soon be entering a new phase of The EV Project to deploy chargers in accordance with these plans."
ECOtality will present EV Project charge hardware in San Jose at Plug-In 2010, July 26 - 29th. For more information about The EV Project, please visit http://www.theevproject.com.
 
well crap. there has been a rumor going for quite a while that extra money was available. was hoping it would be for additional charging stations in my area.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
well crap. there has been a rumor going for quite a while that extra money was available. was hoping it would be for additional charging stations in my area.

Dave, they have already included Olympia in the project. I had posted a story about this from Olympian some time back - yesterday I also listened to the PSRC EV meeting where they talked about it.
 
evnow said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
well crap. there has been a rumor going for quite a while that extra money was available. was hoping it would be for additional charging stations in my area.

Dave, they have already included Olympia in the project. I had posted a story about this from Olympian some time back - yesterday I also listened to the PSRC EV meeting where they talked about it.

well, i do know that they are putting in charging stations, but i am a bit perplexed as to why we have nearly adjoining EV project areas but currently no plans to put in charging stations that would allow me to travel from Olympia to Portland.

i have put in suggestions for a quick charge station in Vancover and Chehalis and Longview.... any word on any of that?
 
evnow said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
well crap. there has been a rumor going for quite a while that extra money was available. was hoping it would be for additional charging stations in my area.

Dave, they have already included Olympia in the project. I had posted a story about this from Olympian some time back - yesterday I also listened to the PSRC EV meeting where they talked about it.

well, i do know that they are putting in charging stations, but i am a bit perplexed as to why we have nearly adjoining EV project areas but currently no plans to put in charging stations that would allow me to travel from Olympia to Portland.

i have put in suggestions for a quick charge station in Vancover and Chehalis and Longview.... any word on any of that?
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
well, i do know that they are putting in charging stations, but i am a bit perplexed as to why we have nearly adjoining EV project areas but currently no plans to put in charging stations that would allow me to travel from Olympia to Portland.

i have put in suggestions for a quick charge station in Vancover and Chehalis and Longview.... any word on any of that?

I beleive the idea is to have chargers all the way so that we can go from Vancouver, BC to Eugene. So, you should be able to go to Portland ...
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
I beleive the idea is to have chargers all the way so that we can go from Vancouver, BC to Eugene. So, you should be able to go to Portland ...
Would be nice to have charging points every 50 miles in between San Diego and Vancouver. Would be cool to be able to make it all the way from Mexico to Canada.
 
drees said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
I beleive the idea is to have chargers all the way so that we can go from Vancouver, BC to Eugene. So, you should be able to go to Portland ...
Would be nice to have charging points every 50 miles in between San Diego and Vancouver. Would be cool to be able to make it all the way from Mexico to Canada.

Nissan's Perry said early on that the very first transportation corridor to be developed was I5 from San Diego to Vancouver. EV Project will do some of that, it appears, but they're not the only game in town.

Frankly, living nowhere near the I5 corridor, I'm a bit envious - I want to take long drives to the coast as well! :D
 
AndyH said:
Frankly, living nowhere near the I5 corridor, I'm a bit envious - I want to take long drives to the coast as well! :D

To cover the entire US (area=3794101 sq miles) with one charger every 15 miles (i.e. 225 sq miles), requires 17,000 chargers. Even at $50K per charger that is less than $1B ($850M). Compare that to $4.8B that was paid in tax credits for Ethanol in 2009 alone.

http://www.ewg.org/release/driving-under-the-influence
 
Volt is hosting a chat with ECOtality and Coulomb tomorrow.

http://chevroletvoltage.com/index.php/Volt/webchat-learn-about-ev-charging-stations-with-ecotality-coulomb-and-the-chevrolet-volt.html

To learn more about Chevrolet’s announcement, please click here, and join our webchat, Friday June 18 at 11:00 AM Eastern.

During the live webchat, you can submit questions for:

Tony Posawatz, Vehicle Line Director, Chevrolet Volt
Don Korner, CEO, ECOtality North America
Marc Carlson, Executive Director, Coulomb's ChargePoint America program
 
evnow said:
AndyH said:
Frankly, living nowhere near the I5 corridor, I'm a bit envious - I want to take long drives to the coast as well! :D

To cover the entire US (area=3794101 sq miles) with one charger every 50 miles (i.e. 250 sq miles), requires 15,176 chargers. Even at $50K per charger that is less than $1B ($759M). Compare that to $4.8B that was paid in tax credits for Ethanol in 2009 alone.

http://www.ewg.org/release/driving-under-the-influence


one charger every 50 miles would cover 2500 sq miles not 250. but still illustrates how little money is really needed. just putting 5% of what we subsidize on oil yearly into charging stations and we will have chargers on every street corner in less than 10 years!!
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
one charger every 50 miles would cover 2500 sq miles not 250. but still illustrates how little money is really needed. just putting 5% of what we subsidize on oil yearly into charging stations and we will have chargers on every street corner in less than 10 years!!

I knew there was some problem (last time I did this, it was much cheaper !). Will correct to 15 miles :D
 
garygid said:
Only takes about 25 to 30 L3 chargers, at about 50-mile spacing, to do I-5. They are putting 40 L3 chargers into San Diego alone.

Main problem would be getting 480V supply ...
 
One does not need a 450v 3-phase AC supply, just 240v AC at about 250 amps (and some high-current electronics) should be sufficient to supply the 50kW for (up to) 450v DC Level 3 "Quick" charging.

Also, power is usually distributed at local levels at 5k, 10k, or even 20,000 volts, so getting higher voltages at commercial locations is usually not a BIG problem.
 
garygid said:
One does not need a 450v 3-phase AC supply, just 240v AC at about 250 amps (and some high-current electronics) should be sufficient to supply the 50kW for (up to) 450v DC Level 3 "Quick" charging.

High current = more money. BTW, do truck stops have bigger pipes ?
 
truck stops are bound to already have the power. now we are certain to need more than one every 50 miles which would be fine for a lesser population areas. in big cities, even a dozen in a short span would be overloaded eventually as more and more EV's hit the road. but as more and more of us are out there, the money will flow that way.

its all looking like a pretty good start, but wishing they would move that timetable up a few months...
 
evnow said:
High current = more money. BTW, do truck stops have bigger pipes ?

Yeah - lots of power. And they'll need more as anti-idle laws spread. Some places have 'hoses' that provide a parked truck electricity, cable or satellite TV, and cabin heating/AC while the drivers are parked.

Good Call! It'll be great to add truck stops to camp grounds and RV parks for those cross-country drives. :D
 

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