ge wattstation electric car charger on street

I have seen the future of EV charging, and it’s really cool looking. ECOtality just emailed me a photo of its station, which will be unveiled at the Plug-In 2010 trade show in San Jose on the 27th. I can’t show it to you until then, but it’s proof that we’re in a designer race with these babies. ECOtality’s Jonathan Read says its’ “way smarter and easier to use than any other similar product. It makes it very easy for consumers to switch over to electric driving.”

Soon, we’ll be buying EV chargers in big-box stores, and they’ll be competing to make them visually appealing. Maybe Apple will have one, too, and Steve Jobs will be up there in his jeans introducing it. Stranger things have happened.

EVs have arrived, and they’re not yesterday’s super-clunky nerdmobiles. If even the chargers are getting cool, we’re on to something. I was watching a video of an old-technology solar EV charger in action, and the thing was so boxy, so ugly, so poorly labeled (dozens of confusing buttons) that it’s no wonder they didn’t take off back then. Just look at the thing:

I can’t show you the newest charger, but this was a week for innovation in the space. I got a first look at the pretty sleek Coulomb ChargePoint charger in New York this month, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced it to his city with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan in attendance. The station is one of 200 coming to New York, paid for with a $15 million Department of Energy grant.

Bloomberg plugged in a Smart car, which like most coming EVs is “smart” in more ways than one–it can interact with the grid and charge itself only at night when the rates are lower and demand is down. ECOtality’s station offers “smart phone appliations for status charges and notification of completion or interruption of charge.” That means you’ll get a text on your phone letting you know your charge is complete.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!