A Jolt for EV Adoption -- 4,600 Free Electric Chargers, Courtesy of the Feds
I've pointed out in this space before that quite a bit of the early EV charging will be free. Companies installing chargers are more interested in getting early adopters plugging in than they are in collecting the $2 to $4 they'd get for each jolt of electricity. I never said the chargers themselves would be free. But some will -- a $15 million stimulus grant, administered by the Department of Energy, will install 4,600 charging stations at no cost to the private users and businesses receiving them.
I think this is a smart use of government money, leveraging private spending and investment in EVs. When the cost of actually installing the charging stations is added in, the program is $37 million, with $22 million a combination of state and local matching grants with individual investment. In other words, some of the people getting chargers will install them on their own dimes.
The ChargePoint America program will be operated with Ford (F), General Motors and Smart (distributed in the U.S. by Roger Penske) as partners. Mike Tinskey, Ford's sustainability manager, said in an interview that at least one large state grant to help homeowners pay for the charger installations is likely. And he added that Ford -- which has already put a few Transit Connect battery vans on the road, and has both an electric version of the Focus (2011) and a plug-in hybrid (2012) in the pipeline â€" was thrilled to take part in a program that extended the charging infrastructure.
ChargePoint America starts immediately, so it might be a good idea to apply early. The hitch is that the charging stations are available in only nine metro areas, three of them in California (Los Angeles, San Francisco/San Jose and Sacramento). That will account for about a third of the stations, with the rest scattered around Detroit, New York City, Austin, Orlando, Washington, D.C. and Redmond, Washington.
The program is right to put such an emphasis on California, because if EVs can't make it there, they can't make it anywhere. There is already some public charging there, and a huge state incentive that takes $5,000 off the price of a Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt. The Leaf, also benefiting from a $7,500 federal tax credit, will be around $20,000 in California. That overcomes one of the big EV hurdles: high initial price because of $15,000 and up battery packs.
Some of the charging stations will be offering free electricity, but Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb Technologies (which makes the ChargePoint chargers in the program) said he's seeing "some resistance to 'free," especially from multiple dwelling units (MDUs). In apartments and condos, the other tenants don't want to pay $5 a day to help the guy with the $109,000 Tesla Roadster."
ChargePoint stations are dispensing free municipal charges in Amsterdam, but Lowenthal said that some cities in the U.S. view that as a "gift of public funds." Both these issues could mean that EV owners will pay for their charges in places like New York City, which has had little exposure to EVs so far and is just beginning to address these issues. The head of a tenants' association at one large co-op building in Manhattan told me he is exploring adding EVs to the building's existing car-sharing plan, and has called in Coulomb among other companies to explore how that would work.
The next year will undoubtedly include a fair amount of maneuvering, as cities like New York and Washington experiment with EV charging in an environment without private garages. Many chargers will be located in commercial parking structures, with access to them awaiting some kind of orderly system.
One advantage of ChargePoint's stations is that they're networked. Lowenthal explains that consumers with iPhones and Blackberries will be able to use existing apps to check on their state of charge, and to locate unoccupied charging stations in the network. They'll also be able to dial in late night charging, which is essential to avoid transformer overload on urban grids.
The federal investment in ChargePoint America is modest, but it could help jumpstart an urban plug-in movement.
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Photo: Flickr/EJC01