Electric Car Chargers Coming to Capitol Hill

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Obama has reportedly approved the installation of electric vehicle charging stations in and around Capitol Hill.

LG EV Charging Station in Korea.

Currently, only two US senators are known to own electric cars: Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (Michigan), whom owns a Chevy Volt EREV, and Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn), whom owns a Nissan Leaf.

There are an estimated 55,000 electric cars on the roads of America, and that is very short of President Obama’s goal to get 1 million on these roads by 2015.

The US needs “to take steps to ensure the infrastructure exists to make these vehicles desirable and accessible to consumers,” Sen. Carl Levin said in a floor statement after the bill passed.
 


 
Electric vehicle charging infrastructure really is very important to mitigating the issue of range anxiety for electric car owners, concern about not being able to charge their car if they run out of battery power.

If charging stations were ubiquitous and electric vehicles could charge in a few minutes, range anxiety would be a minor issue, because even short-range vehicles could simply recharge whenever necessary instead of stranding their owners.

Shorter range vehicles, with their smaller battery packs, are clearer much cheaper, but for them to proliferate, we need more charging infrastructure.

Levin was supported by Sen. Jeff Merkley (Democratic Senator of Oregon), whose spokeswoman told the Government Executive website: ”If we are going to increase the use of electric vehicles across the nation, we need to make sure we have the necessary charging infrastructure.

“Helping encourage more electric vehicles across the country and ensuring we have the necessary infrastructure for an EV future is crucial,” she added.

The location of the stations, as well as when they are to be installed, has not yet been determined.

Source: BusinessGreen
Photo Credit: sunxez

Nicholas Brown (369 Posts)

I have a keen interest in physics-intensive topics such as electricity generation, refrigeration and air conditioning technology, energy storage, geography, and much more. My website is: Kompulsa.


  • dpaschoal

    Infrastructure is what will encourage sales of EVs. In fact, there is a project of patented concept electric cars and a couple-of-seconds automated swapping station at http://www.ev-motion.com

    • Bob_Wallace

      Better Place is already installing swap stations and Renault is building the EVs for their system. Israel is going pretty big time with their system.

      I really doubt battery swapping is how we’ll go. EV batteries are going to improve in range and recharge times are already decent. The Toshiba SCiB lithium-ion battery can be 95% recharged in less than 20 minutes.

      Most people take few long trips. On an all day, 500 mile trip they are probably stopping twice now, once for gas and once to eat. With a ~180 mile range EV and 20 minute, 95% charging you can make the same drive with the same number of stops.

      Battery swapping means having to have extra batteries, swapping equipment, real estate for the swapping and battery charging/storage. Those are all added costs and people are probably going to just stop for a few minutes more and charge their own batteries.

      Honda just released their FiT EV which uses the SCiB and their EV range is rated at 225km/135 miles. We’re on the way….

      —

      Apparently the SCiB is rated for 4,000 cycles. In a 135 mile range EV that’s a 540,000 mile battery pack. Buy one set of batteries and use them across three or four different cars.