Tag Archives: Electric Vehicles

Automobile, Energy, Travel

Accelerating Availability of EV Charging Stations through Legislation

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Are you planning on traveling this week for your vacation?  Bought a gas guzzler instead of an EV because of the time it takes to charge, and chargers were not readily available on your commute or a road trip?  Don’t want to get stuck without a charge, or kill a half day recharging your wheels?  It looks like with the release of the Tesla Model 3 it will address most of these items such as:

  • Range Per Charge – 215 miles
  • Supercharging
    • Tesla Supercharger provides up to 170 miles of range in as little as 30 minutes.
  • Relatively Affordable – 35k

But how wide spread are the charging stations, and what could be done as a catalyst to rapidly improve EV charging coverage?   We can look at EV charging coverage, US map like we do for cellular coverage (and range).  One possibility is to tack on a rider to federal funding requiring states that use federal funding for their highways implement EV Charging Stations at EVERY rest stop along the road.  

However, there are a vast array of EV Charging Stations on the market.   Although adoption across the US is currently sporadic, there are several brands/standards of EV Charging Mechanisms

  • A heterogenous mix of N EV chargers per rest stop / station, may allow for a diverse set of solutions.
  • Each state may declare N companies to install, maintain, and periodic upgrades for each EV Charging Station.  Each rest stop / station can be awarded to separate contractors, or clustered
  • The ‘bid winning’ companies per state responsible for the rest station EV chargers must perform ongoing evaluations of EV charging station adoption, and use quantifiable data for upgrading solutions, after N period of time.
Stakeholders to Gain from Expansion of EV Charging Stations across the United States of America.
  • The Consumer
  • EV Manufacturing Car Companies (Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Tesla, Toyota, etc.) Click here for the complete list.
  • Car Rental Firms
    • Is the cost of maintaining an EV vehicle (e.g. batteries) more expensive than the combustible engine?
  • Retail / shops across the US; i.e. at least 1/2 hour to charge
Who is in a position to accelerate / fast track this program?

Finally, is there really a “lack” of EV Charging Stations across the United States?   Here is a map from the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) list of charging stations.

I found several EV Charging Stations in my area such as  the Molly Pitcher Service Area, Mile Marker 71.7 New Jersey Turnpike, Cranbury, NJ 08512

Business, Technology

Bloomberg initiates Driverless, Electric Vehicle(EV) Lane on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, NYC

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Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg had been rumored to have started a stealth works project on New York Cities’ Belt Parkway.  It has already launched with private seed money intent at setting up the company to run the project.  It is initially going to be a private and public joint effort to add an additional lane to the Belt Parkway, currently two lanes, and runs through the Borough of Brooklyn.  The intent of this new lane is to be used solely by electric cars (EV), as well as driver-less  vehicles.  This new, bold experiment, rumor has it, is to be announced at the cities IT expo later in the year.

Although companies like Google, Chevy / GM, and Verizon are salivating privately regarding the potential contract opportunities, they are staying at bay until the announcement later this year.  It is also rumored this project includes a share and ride program, with automated transportation housing system for the vehicle storage.

Those close to the story would not articulate if this ambitious program is directed more toward clean energy and saving money for the state, or if this is a larger political move to step into the national arena for Bloomberg.]