Do we have the infrastructure for the electric vehicle revolution?
As automakers prepare the first mass-market rollout of electric cars in the U.S., attention is turning to whether cities and states can support and encourage adoption of such vehicles.
While enthusiasm for electric cars—which do not produce emissions linked to global warming—runs high in many markets, charging stations at homes and in public spaces needed to refuel the vehicles are in their infancy.
“The cars are definitely on their way,” said Bradley Berman, a Berkeley, California-based editor of HybridCars.com and PluginCars.com, two consumer-information sites on green vehicles. “The infrastructure is not yet built, but we’re moving in that direction.”
Nearly all the major automakers are coming out with some kind of electric vehicle—either all-electric cars or plug-in hybrids that come with a backup gas supply—within the next several years. The first wave, Nissan’s all-electric Leaf and Chevrolet’s plug in hybrid Volt, are due to arrive later this year. Daimler, Ford, Mitsubishi, and Volvo are also coming out with electric vehicles of various kinds, and many others are working on prototypes.
As production of electric vehicles ramps up, several charging-infrastructure projects are getting off the ground.
The Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. (eTec), a subsidiary of Ecotality Inc., received a $99.8 million grant from the U.S. Energy Department to install 11,210 charging stations in homes and public places in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. eTec is working closely with Nissan and will install a free home charger for 4,700 Nissan Leaf buyers in those states if they agree to take part in a study that tracks their electric car driving habits.
“The prime purpose is to install infrastructure and study how it’s used,” said Rich Feldman, a Seattle-based regional manager for eTec. “That’s going to inform all the other metro areas rolling out infrastructure.”
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