Electric vehicle network

An electric vehicle network is a proposed infrastructure system of publicly accessible charging stations and possibly battery swap stations to recharge electric vehicles. Government, car manufacturers, and charging infrastructure providers have entered into many agreements to create such networks.

Maps

The EV Charger Maps website is a volunteer run effort coordinated by EV Charger News that catalogs EV charging station information across the U.S. It contains information targeted for real-world use by electric vehicle owners.

The California, Arizona and Nevada along with their Automobile Clubs are funding the Clean Car Maps to list the available stations for alternative fuel. The database contains 381 charging stations in California (367 operational) in August 2010.

The LEMnet internet database is operated by Park & Charge^[1]. The database does not only provide locations of the Park & Charge stations but everyone is free to register their stations. As of August 2011 the database lists more than 3100 active charging locations in Europe. This includes some of the 190 locations (March 2011) of the Drehstromnetz initiative which is specialized on privately owned 400 V three-phase charging stations (German "Drehstromnetz" means "three-phase network") and the 200 (May 2010) charging stations of the RWE Mobility infrastructure which also offers 400 V three-phase charging. The LEMnet database does not include all of the 2500 charging stations (March 2010) listed in the ElektroTankstellen internet database operated by the Austrian "Eurosolar" initiative even that there is some overlap in data. All of them offer KMZ map files and POI collection files for navigation systems enhanced with information required for electric vehicle owners to find a public charging point in Europe.

In Spain Alargador.org offers an editable map of EV recharge points in which everybody who wants to share his electric outlet can do it easily. All data is downloadable freely to most common GPS navigators and mapping software. Another source is ElectroMaps.com to find a station in Spain.

POD Point [2] is a UK based provider of electric vehicle infrastructure actually publish the live availability [3] of their charging points online, and in the near future will allow users to book charging points in advance.

Infrastructure providers

• Elektromotive Elektromotive is a UK based company specialising in the manufacture and installation of charging infrastructure for electric cars and other electric vehicles, using their trade name of Elektrobay. The company has partnerships with major corporations including EDF Energy and Mercedes-Benz to supply charging posts and data services.

• Coulomb Technologies´ ChargePoint Network includes public charging stations, a consumer subscription plan and utility grid management technology to help electric utility companies to smooth electrical demands on the grid.^[2][3] Coulomb Technologies is developing their commercial ChargePoint network in the U.S., Norway, the Netherlands and Germany. The ChargePoint network does not include battery swap stations as of 2009.^[4]

• Better Place was started by Shai Agassi on October 29, 2007, focusing on building massive scale Electric Recharge Grids as infrastructure to support the deployment of electric vehicles (including plug-in hybrids). The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 countries around the world. Better Place calls themselves the first Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO)^[5] and is developing commercial electric vehicle networks in Australia,^[6] Canada, China,^[7] Denmark, Israel,^[8] Japan,^[9] the U.K., and the U.S.^[10] Better Place plans to include battery switching, or swapping, stations in their network which will allow drivers to quickly exchange an electric vehicle's discharged battery pack for a fully charged pack. In Better Place's business model, the battery pack is owned by the network operator who then bills the electric vehicle owner for use of the battery based on distance traveled.

• Park & Charge^[11] is a European Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Park & Charge was founded in 1992 by members of the electric car club in Switzerland (ECS)^[12]. Today there is a Park & Charge at nearly 500 locations in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland and Italy, offering a safe and easy way for drivers of electric vehicles to charge their vehicle batteries. The locations of the charging stations in Europe will be published in LEMnet^[13] internet database which is operated by Park & Charge.

• Advanced Energy, in partnership with Rocky Mountain Institute has announced a Request for Information (RFI) for EVSE specific to charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles (EV).^[14]

• EV-Charge America of Las Vegas has developed the first networked charging stations capable of charging up to 4 vehicles simultaneously. They have sold charging stations worldwide and are working to provide the most advanced grid management software tools in the industry for utility companies and vehicle communications.

• CIRCONTROL is a European manufacturer of recharging stations for electric vehicles with one of the most advanced and complete range of products with a real production nowadays (2011)so it is supplying to municipalities and parkings with actually more than 2000 charging points installed and working in countries suchs as Norway, Spain, Sweden, UK, Ireland, Italy, Poland.

• POD Point [4] is a UK based provider of charging point infrastructure. They provide next generation electric vehicle charging with each POD Point able to charge two vehicles simultaneously and are compatible with all electric vehicles which can charge at the standard domestic rate. Pod Points are all linked to the network which allows integrated flexible billing, detailed usage analysis and remote management. They also provide a live availability [5] of their charging stations to update users as to the vacant charging bays. The company has also expanded into Europe with a number of charging stations being installed in Ireland.

• Car Charging Group is a Miami Beach based infrastructure provider that has installed a number of stations in Florida, specifically Dania Beach, Aventura, Pompano Beach and Delray Beach.^[15]

• School Charging is a New York City based not-for-profit founded by Ken Fields that raises funds to install charging stations at schools, with no cost to the school. The organization is open for any school to participate.^[16]

• Next Green Car's Zap-Map [6] is the most comprehensive map showing electric vehicle charging points of all types across the UK.

• Greenlots develops and markets a robust, network-enabled charging system with the flexibility to cater to different socket types, various modes of charging as well as branding customisation. They supply network operators with the hardware, software and support to enable them to install, own and operate their own local network of charging devices. [7] The platform was developed, manufactured and tested in Singapore, and the solution is now rolled out internationally throughout Asia[8] , as well as Europe and North America.

Automobile manufacturers

The Renault-Nissan alliance has made agreements to promote emission-free mobility in France, Israel, Portugal, Denmark and the U.S. state of Tennessee.^[17] Nissan plans to install 200-volt level 2 charging stations at 2,200 Nissan dealers in Japan, and level 3 fast charging stations at 200 dealers.^[18]

Tesla Motors, in March, 2009, announced that they are "working with a government-affiliated partner to set up battery changing stations at various locations" to service their Model S platform cars.^[19]

Initiatives by country

Australia

Australia currently has thirteen electric vehicle charging stations across Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra from Coulomb Technologies. They opened in 2010 and 2011.^[20][20] One charge point from ECOtality has been installed in the car park at 140 William Street in Melbourne CBD with Exigency^[21] providing project management and metering.

Construction of infrastructure has been proposed by Better Place for the major cities Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Australia will become the third country in the world to have an electric car network in a bid to run the country's 15 million cars on batteries powered by green energy under a plan announced in October 2008.^[22]

The proposal includes charging spots connected to the energy grid, located in places where cars park — home garages, shopping centres and carparks; "battery switching stations" where drivers swap batteries to get a longer range for long trips.

The project will involve Better Place partnered with AGL Energy, Australia's largest portfolio of privately owned renewable generation and Macquarie, prominent infrastructure investment group. AGL will provide the required energy from wind and other sources to power the electric vehicles and will work with Better Place to optimise the network. Macquarie will provide financial advice to help raise AUD $1 billion for the initial construction of the network.

In May 2011 CO2 Smart has completed a fast recharge network in test city Perth. Electromotive has provided 11 dual-headed IEC-compatible fast-charge stations at 32A to be used with the CO2 Smart of the test fleet.^[23][24] In the test drive the European connectors have been preferred over the American connectors since Australia (like Europe) does have three-phase power (at 415V) in most home locations.^[24] The fast-charge outlets connect with a special 8-pin IEC-compatible round connector integrating single-phase and three-phase power^[25][26]

China

China's first large electric charging station for electric vehicles—the Tangshan Nanhu EV Charging Station – was put into service on March 31, 2010. Five cities in northern Hebei province - Tangshan, Zhangjiakou, Qinhuangdao, Langfang and Chengde – want to build three charging stations and 100 charging poles in 2010.^[27]

Shandong is the province with most car manufacturers in China. The province planned to start in May 2010 with a charging station for 45 cars. According to China's State Grid Corporation, 75 electric vehicle charging stations are planned in 27 cities across China by the end of 2010.^[28][29] Additionally 6,209 charging posts and some battery replacement stations had been planned for 2010.^[29] The State Grid Corporation China announced success in distributing 7,031 charge poles in Hangzhou-Jinhua and wants to add 211 additional charging poles in 2011 along with 173 charging stations.^[30]

China is planning on installing 10 million electric vehicle charging stations by 2020.^[31] In the 12th Five Year Plan (2011–2015) China wants to deploy 2,351 charge and replacement power stations and 220,000 charge spots.^[32] The reason is to get rid of crude oil imports which makes for 54 percent of the oil usage and cars accounted for 40 percent of national oil consumption (2010).

Europe

The AVERE / European Association for Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles was founded already in 1978 and it is a member of the World Electric Vehicle Association. The AVERE is also the parent organization of CITELEC / Association of European Cities interested in Electric Vehicles and Eurelectric. The European Commission funds the "Green Cars Initiative" since November 2008.^[33] In March 2011 the European Commission along with forty two partners from the industries, utilities, electric car manufacturers, municipalities, universities and technology and research institutions have founded the "Green eMotion" initiative funded with €41.8 million under the Seventh Research and Development Framework Programme. The defined goal is to provide an interoperable electromobility framework to align the ongoing regional and national electromobility initiatives.^[34] At the same time the partners unveiled the "Transport 2050" plan which includes the aim to half the number of conventionally fuelled cars in cities by 2030 and phase them out by 2050.^[35]

Denmark / Norway

Infrastructure is planned by Better Place and has been installed by Coulomb Technologies for Copenhagen. Denmark has enacted policies that create a tax differential between zero-emission vehicles and traditional cars^[36] to accelerate the transition to electric cars.

Norway has a tradition in building electric vehicles based on the Think Car. It is popular in Southern Norway (Oslo), Southern Sweden (Gothenburg) and Eastern Denmark (Copenhagen). The concept of the "Move About" project will provide 60 new Think cars in a test including charging stations in 50 towns in the area until 2013.^[37] The MoveAbout concept is actually derived from a car sharing system where cars are not offered for purchase but for leasing.

Estonia

The Estonian government has announced to build an charging station network by the end of 2012 in cooperation with Mitsubishi - the 250 fast charge stations will be installed in big cities and along the country’s main highways. ^[38]

France / Italy

In France, Électricité de France (EDF) and Toyota are installing recharging points for PHEVs on roads, streets and parking lots.^[39]

The Renault-Nissan alliance and the largest French electric utility, Electricite de France (EDF) have signed an agreement to promote emission-free mobility in France. The move aims at offering all-electric volume vehicles from 2011 — including a countrywide network of battery charging stations.^[17] The partner Vinci Autoroutes has announced to rebuild 738 car parks along motorways with at least 5 parking lots for charging electric vehicles - construction will start at the end of 2011 and the full extent will be reached in 2013.^[40]

The Environment Ministry of France, led by Jean-Louis Borloo has announced to promote the installation of 400,000 charging points in France up to 2015.^[41][42] Jean-Louis Borloo has assigned 1.5 billion Euros in 2009 to support research and preparations of a first part of the electric vehicle network with 75,000 charging stations.^[41][43]

Meanwhile the pilot project in Paris has started with the introduction of 100 Z.E. cars. The map of charging stations can be downloaded from the city website ("Bornes de recharge pour véhicules électriques") There are 101 locations with 178 charging points across the town and its suburbs (May 2010). The charging points have either Schuko-like sockets (Type E / 2P+T) or a Marechal plug on spiral cord where both variants are rated at 230 V/16 A (mains).

Schneider Electric supports test drives in France with its charging stations that include a Type 3 (EV Plug Alliance) connector. In Strasbourg 100 Toyota Prius were tested with 135 recharging spots beginning Q1 2010. In the suburbs of Paris there will be 300 recharging spots to be installed in the Q1 2011.^[44] In the "Projet Klébér" the Strasbourg vehicle fleet may use the charging stations of EnBW in Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and vice versa.^[45] In Yvelines near Paris the fleet test SAVE (Seine Aval Véhicule Électrique) was started in April 2011 - until September 2011 a number of 200 charging stations will be built.^[46]

The Renault-Nissan group - including EDF - has enlarged its scope with partnering to the Italian utility Enel and Spanish utility Endesa in March 2010.^[47] The Italian Enel company had an early agreement with Daimler to run a test with their Smart line of cars. Renault-Nissan offers a broader range by providing 60 all-electric vehicles – the Kangoo Express Z.E. and the Renault Fluence Z.E - to the new pilot project "E-Moving" in Italy. The project will start to install 270 charge points in the in Lombardy region (including the cities of Milan and Brescia) up to June 2010.^[48] This "E-Moving" network will contain 150 public charging stations to be put up until the end of 2010.^[49] Enel will start the "emobility Italy" program in September 2010 in cooperation with Daimler - this program will put up 400 public and private charging stations^[49] The emobility test will run in Rome, Milan and Pisa.^[37]

The Monacco government has sketched a plan to run a fleet test in 2011 including 300 charging stations and 3 fast-charge stations.^[37]

Germany

Germany has four major transmission system operators being each largely owned by one of the five largest utility companies (Vattenfall↔50HERTZ, EON↔transpower, RWE↔ampirion, EnBW↔EnBWtransport). They try to set themselves into the position to sell electricity power to electric vehicle owners by becoming also the operators of the upcoming electric vehicle networks. To that avail, they offered partnerships to the German car makers, where they provided charging stations for field tests.

Carmaker Daimler AG and utility RWE AG are running a joint electric car and charging station test project in the German capital, Berlin, called "E-Mobility Berlin.".^[52] The have set up 60 charging stations in Berlin (September 2009) and are in the process of extending the system to include 500 charging stations.^[53] Daimler has provided for 100 e-Smart to the project. The second phase started in November 2010. The RWE subsidiary "RWE Mobility" has created cooperations with the automobilist club ADAC, car rental service Sixt and car park provider APCOA to equip all locations with charging stations.^[54] since mid of 2009. Renault joined the RWE Mobility program in September 2009 whereby the project goals of erecting charging stations were enlarged to mid of 2011^[55] Renault's partner Nissan has joined the RWE-mobility program on 21. June 2010 announcing that RWE will create a network of 1000 charging stations until the end of the year 2010 focusing on the Berlin and Rhein-Ruhr region.^[56] On 28. August a cooperation with fuel retailer PKN Orlen (owning 2700 gas stations in Poland, Czechia and Germany) was announced - they are starting to equip 30 gas stations in Hamburg with charging points for electric vehicles.^[57] The current list of RWE-mobility charging stations contains 500 locations in Germany, 50 locations in the Netherlands, 11 in Poland and Austria plus a few stations in other neighbouring countries - also RWE has switched all of its charging stations to Type 2 sockets.^[58]

Carmaker BMW and utility Vattenfall run a joint electric car and charging test project called "MINI E" in the German capital, Berlin. They are in the process of erecting 50 charging stations^[59] and the project lends 50 BMW Mini cars to citizens. The project started in June 2009 and a second phase has been started in December 2009.^[60] Up to June 2011 there were 42 public charge points by Vattenfall in Berlin and the company is in the process of building 50 public charge points in Hamburg.^[61] While the earliest charging stations were using CEEplus sockets the newer charging stations are built to Type 2 Mode 3 sockets.^[62]

Carmaker VW and utility E.ON run a joint electric car and charging station test project in the German capital, Berlin and in Wolfsburg.^[63] The "Electric Mobility Fleet Test" ("Flottenversuch Elektromobilität") was started as a research project with mostly partners in German universities using the VW hybrid cars (to be tested in 2010). E.ON has later joined also in the MINI E project providing the infrastructure in Munich which was started in Juli 2009.^[64] erecting an initial series of 11 charging stations (May 2010) enlarging it continuously (21 locations in December 2010).^[65] The region test in Munich has been extended by BMW i3 and BMW i8 prototypes (project i) as well as Audi e-tron models (project eflott) in 2011. E.ON has announced to provide the eflott project with 200 public charging stations the Munich region.^[66]

Carmaker Daimler, the utility EnBW and the government of Baden-Württemberg have announced on 18. June 2010 to enlarge the "Landesinitiative Elektromobilität" program with the „e-mobility Baden-Württemberg“ project that includes erecting 700 charging stations in the state until the end of 2011.^[67] Additionally there will be 200 electric vehicles added to the test including some electric trucks.^[67] The government of Baden-Württemberg has assigned 28.5 million Euros to support EV research up to 2014.^[67] Meanwhile EnBW has sponsored 500 E-Bikes in the Elektronauten project in 2010 which can use 13 charging stations in the Stuttgart region.^[68] EnBW has claimed to offer 250 charging stations for the Elektronauten 500 project in May 2011 although the map has not been updated.^[69][70] Bosch has developed a new charging station type for EnBW that is capable for 63A - the station was certified on 11. April 2011 by DEKRA^[71] and EnBW has announced to install 260 charge stations in the following weeks for MeRegioMobil project in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.^[72]

The German government has announced to support a fleet of 1 million electric cars in Germany by 2020. There are 500 million Euros assigned to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (Germany) to support research and pilot projects in Germany. The ministry has created a dedicated coordination office in the "Gemeinsame Geschäftsstelle Elektromobilität der Bundesregierung (GGEMO)" (Joint Agency for Electric Mobility (of the Federal Government)) which was opened in February 2010.^[73] The GGEMO has coordinated a partnership program with the German car industry named "Nationale Plattform Elektromobilität (NPE)" inaugurated on May 3, 2010 in the German Chancellery.^[74]

The NPE partnership is supposed to detail the plans for network evolution.^[75] The technical standardization part is mostly concentrated in the Deutsche Kommission Elektrotechnik (DKE) of the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE) - the Standardization Overview on E-Mobility shows a wide range of efforts from electric grid management to the charging station infrastructure to the car charger electronics. The NPE partnership has published an interim report on November 30, 2010 showing a test fleet of 2800 electric vehicles and 2500 charging stations in 8 test regions.^[76]

The German government has announced that it will not install a rebate system for the introduction of electric cars but that it will reshape the legal provisions to quickly create a charging station network in Germany. Bernd Pischetsrieder (formerly Volskwagen) points to studies saying that most of the current buyers of electric cars did already own multiple cars so that a rebate plan would merely come out as a subvention of a consumer class that can afford the expense anyway.^[77]

The VDE E-mobility congress on the subject was held in Leipzig on 8./9. November 2010.^[78] During the congress a large consumer study was precented that showed some 64 percent want to buy an electric car. The study did also look at the requirements to the charging process - 51 percent of consumers in Germany expect a car to be charged in less than 2 hours, up to 4 hours is acceptable to 60 percent of consumers. 64 percent of consumers expect to charge in their own garage, 21 percent want to frequent a central charging station while casual charging in parking lots of shops and company grounds is expected by a mere 6 and 4 percent respectively. The maximum travel distance shows mixed results - while 53 percent say that 300 km is enough there are also 31 percent who like to travel 450 to 1000 km until required to recharge.^[79]

The interim report of the NPE partnership classifies electric vehicles in 3 categories, all-electric city cars, family cars and light trucks with an electric range for city transport.^[80] Development is sketched in phases 2010-2013, 2014–2017, 2018–2020 and post-2020 with the government goal to get 1 million electric cars up to 2020 and 6 million electric cars up to 2030 (for comparison there are 44 million cars in Germany in 2010).^[80] Batteries are not expected to show great advancements in terms of capacity but the safety will increase and the prices will fall to 250-300 €/kWh in the 2018-2020 time frame.^[76] In the post-2020 time frame new battery types are expected - instead of lithium-ion the fourth generation batteries will be introduced to the mobility market including lithium-air, lithium-sulfur and zinc-air batteries.^[80] As for charging stations a wide network of fast-charging points is considered possible with 22 kW (400 V 32 A) stations to be introduced in 2010-2013 and 44 kW (400 V 63 A) stations to be introduced in 2014-2017.^[80] For the time beyond 2020 there is an expectation of charging stations at 60 kW (400 V DC 150 A) allowing to charge the standard 20kWh battery pack to 80% in less than 10 minutes whereas this station type requires integration with smart grid technology and a strict world-wide standard (including SAE procedures).^[80] The "early adoptors" of electric vehicles are identified to be from the middle class owning multiple cars as well as owning a garage - the existence of a public network of charging stations is considered to be not (sic!) a prerequisite for market introduction in the first phases. Instead government funds should back the investments in privately owned charging stations for example with faster tax write off and cheap credits from the government KfW bank.^[80]

A preliminary review of the Mercedes / RWE test drive in the smart ed project shows the importance of vehicle-to-grid communications in charging stations as an incentive to charge at night times. While most US households own a garage even for small cars the situation is different in Central Europe where public charging stations are needed.^[81]

Switzerland

The charging station network in Switzerland is derived from research in solar cars. In 1992 the government decided to support a charging station network. The network has since extended to neighbouring countries - in 2010 the Park & Charge network in Switzerland, Germany and Austria did encompass 500 charging locations,^[82] additionally there a few charging locations in the Netherlands and Italy.

Ireland

In 2009-2010 the Irish Government, and electric utility Electricity Supply Board (ESB) entered into tripartite agreements with a number of major electric vehicle manufacturers (Renault-Nissan ,^[83] Mitsubishi Motors ,^[84] Toyota ,^[85] and PSA Peugeot Citroën ^[86]) to promote the uptake of electric vehicles in Ireland.

The Irish government has instituted a package of measures,^[87] including a €5,000 grant (US$7,158) on the purchase of new electric vehicles, exemption from Vehicle Registration Tax, and Accelerated Capital Allowances to promote electric vehicle purchase.

ESB is providing the charging network, which will be made up of 30 fast-charging (50 kW DC) stations located at intervals on inter-urban national primary routes, 1,500 medium-speed(22 kW AC) public charging points distributed across all towns with population over 1500, and home chargers (3.6 kW 1Φ, 16A) at no cost to the first 2,000 grant qualifying electric car owners.

The first station of the charger network was commissioned in August 2010.^[88]

Netherlands

Amsterdam announced it will set up 200 charging stations by 2012.^[90] In the first step the city will put up 100 stations from Coulomb Technologies in cooperation with Dutch utility Nuon and grid company Alliander.^[90] The project "Amsterdam Elektrisch" project includes 100 street-side charging stations plus 100 charging stations at car parks^[91] The first one was put up on 6. November 2009, the 100th street-side charging station became operational on 4. March 2011, with also over 100 charging stations at car parks.^[92] In April 2011, the City of Amsterdam announced the expansion of the street-side charging network with another 1000 charging stations, to be installed by Essent and a joint venture of Nuon and Heijmans.^[93]

The Dutch government created the “Formula E Team,” a working group collaborating with local governments, private companies and research institutes to create national and regional electric vehicle initiatives. The Foundation E-Laad.nl has the ambitious plan to put up 10,000 charging points by 2012.^[37] The Dutch government and the regional grid companies help Foundation E-laad.nl to put up a charging station network adding 65 million Euro investment support in the timeframe 2009 to 2011.^[94] The point of 500 charging stations (disributed over 125 communities) was reached on 24. June.^[95]

According to the roadmap of Formula E-Team the office has been created and the first RFI has started in August 2010; the results will be published in early November for comments and proposals with a definite guide for the infrastructure to be published in March 2011. The integration tests will run in mid of 2011 and the back office system for the networked charging stations to go live in late 2011 along with the "Charge Authority Board" for further development.^[96] On 19. July 2010 the Formula E-Team has resolved that charge points in the Netherlands will be equipped with Type 2 Mode 3 sockets, based on a decision by providers from 9. April 2010 that will replace the earlier 5-pin CEE red sockets.^[97][98]

The Netherlands is one of the first European markets for the Nissan Leaf;^[99] Holland is also the first European country to adopt stations for the "level 3" fast-charging supported by the Leaf. Epyon has unveiled the first charging station at a gasoline station in Leeuwarden, in the northern province of Friesland.^{[100][101][102]}

Poland

RWE and the Green Stream Cluster have started in June 2010 to put up a network of 130 charging stations in Warsaw.^[37] The Grean Stream Cluster project will run until mid of 2011.^[103] The Green Stream Cluster will put up overall 330 charging stations in five cities: Warsaw, Gdansk, Katowice, Kraków and Mielec.^[103] Ekoenergetyka-Zachod works on an electric vehicle network in the western cities of Zielona Gora (Grünberg), Sulechow, Pila (Schneidemühl) und Sieradz.^[103]

Portugal

Renault-Nissan have signed a contract with MOBIE.Tech that was started back in 2008. There shall be 1300 new charging stations and 50 fastcharge stations within the 2011 timeframe.^[37]

The government wants to enlarge to renewable energy sector up to 60% and usage of electric vehicles is considered an important strategy to cut dependency on imports. The MOBI.E network has installed 100 charging stations and it is deploying 1300 charging stations as well as 50 fast-charge stations in 25 cities up to June 2011.^[104] The MOBI.E stations work with magnetic stripe card and bills are sent to the cell phone - the government hopes to export the concept to other countries.^[105]

Spain

The Alargador.org map has 190 (August 2010) contributors of charging stations in Spain and Portugal (May 2010). They are mainly hotels, camping sites, restaurants, commercial centers, foundations, associations, EV dealers and private individuals with most systems operated manually.

In Madrid, Spain, a trial project will convert 30 former telephone boxes into charging points for electric cars. They are considered suitable, since telephone boxes are generally located at the roadside and are already connected to the electricity supply network. They would form part of a planned network of 546 charging points in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, subsidised by the Spanish Government.^[106] The charging grid is created for the MOVELE pilot project of the Institute for Diversification and Saving of Energy (Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía, IDAE) that is also providing for 2,000 electric vehicles to the field test.^[107][108] The Spanish government has committed itself to have 1 million electric vehicles (fully electric and hybrid cars) in Spain by 2014.^[108]

The Chairman of Endesa, Borja Prado, together with the mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón, and the Chairman of Telefónica, César Alierta, have the phone booth in Madrid which can also be used for recharging electric vehicles. Reserved parking spaces will be located next to this and all other booths set up in Metropolitan areas where users will be able to park their EVs and recharge at no cost once they have obtained their free "zero emissions" pre-paid card from the Madrid city council.^[110]

The Live Barcelona map (sponsored by the Barcelona city council, the Energy state department of Catalonia, utility Endesa, car maker Seat) lists 138 charging spots in Barcelona with 55 of them functional (February 2011).

United Kingdom

Électricité de France is partnering with Elektromotive, Ltd.^[114] to install 250 new charging points over six months from October 2007 in London and elsewhere in the UK.^[115]

The Renault-Nissan Alliance and UK company Elektromotive,^[116] a provider of electric vehicle recharging stations, are collaborating in the Partnership for Zero-Emission-Mobility, with the aim of accelerating the installation of charging networks for plug-in vehicles in cities. The Alliance and Elektromotive have signed a Memorandum of Understanding.^[117]

A fleet of electric cars and charge points will be rolled out across Coventry (England) as part of a multi-million pound pilot project.^[118]

The Department for Transport (DfT) announced in April 2009 that £230 million would be allocated to incentivise the market uptake of EVs in the UK. The scheme will become operational in 2011 and each EV purchaser could receive a rebate of between £2,000 -£5,000. Electric vehicles are exempt from purchase and annual vehicle tax. From April 2010, purchasers of an average new car (Band G) will pay a one off £155 showroom tax and an annual vehicle tax of £155.EVs are tax free.^[119]

On the 25 February 2010, London, the North East region and Milton Keynes were selected to be the lead places for electric vehicle infrastructure. In total, their plans will result in over 2,500 charge points in the first year and over 11,000 in the next three years, at a variety of publicly accessible car parks, transport hubs and workplaces.^[120]

The London mayor called for an E-revolution in March 2009 and he presented the "Electric Delivery Plan for London" in May 2009.^[119] The plan projects 25,000 charging points London by 2015 including 500 on-street, 2000 off-street in car-parks and 22,000 privately owned locations. London itself will buy 1000 electric vehicles up to 2015. Owners of the an electric car will not need to pay the Congestion Charge for the city of London being worth up to £1,700 a year. At that point (May 2009) London already had 100 charge points in public places which will be increased to 250 by 2012. Beginning 2011 20% of new lots in car parks must have access to a charging outlet. Additionally, the parking in the Westminster boroughs will be free for electric vehicles saving the user up to £6,000 a year and a flat rate of £200 electricity cost is charged for the usage of public outlets in Westminster.

As of February 2011 the "Source London" project has contracted Siemens to build a network of public charging stations in London. At least 1,300 charging points will be installed by the end of 2013 in public locations and streets across the Capital. Transport for London (TfL) has also finalised a contract that will see Siemens manage the operation of the network and registration of drivers. The deal between TfL and Siemens will see Siemens run the Source London back office to March 2014 at no cost.^[121]

In July 2011 a charity called Zero Carbon World announced their Charge Points Everywhere network, their aim is to help business's install free to use charge points on their business's with the implicit understanding the person using the charge point will use the services of that business. The connections themselves are standard 32 and 13amp connectors and the inclusion of the 32amp connector means that car with powerful chargers such as Tesla can charge much faster than with the 13a connectors on the majority of chargers^[111]

Israel

Better Place is building its first electric vehicle network in Israel in conjunction with French car-maker, Renault.^[122] Better Place will conduct its first market tests in Israel, Denmark and Hawaii ^[123] as their small size also makes them suitable as test markets.^[124] The company opened its first functional charging station in Israel the first week of December 2008 at Cinema City in Pi-Glilot, and additional stations in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Kfar Sava, Holon, and Jerusalem are being planned and installed.^[125]

Israel has enacted policies that create a tax differential between zero-emission vehicles and traditional cars, to accelerate the transition to electric cars.^[126]

In March 2011 Betterplace presented the detailed plan on network construction including 40 battery swap stations and 400 charging station location agreements across Israel. 200 locations are under construction to be finalized at the end of 2011.^[127]

Japan

Infrastructure is planned by Better Place and Nissan for Yokohama.^[128]

Singapore

Infrastructure is planned by Greenlots and Keppel Energy for Singapore ^[129]

United States of America

Infrastructure has been installed by Coulomb Technologies in Arizona; California - San Francisco, San Jose, Walnut Creek, and Sonoma; Colorado; Washington, D.C.; Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Massachusetts; Detroit, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York; Cary, North Carolina; Ohio; Portland, Oregon; Nashville, Tennessee; Texas; Seattle, Washington; Wisconsin. Gilbarco Veeder-Root are partnering with Coulomb to advance public charging facilities. Gilbarco exhibited Coulomb Technologies' Smartlet Charging Station at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) show in October 2008.^[133] At the end of 2008, Coulomb Technologies planned to roll out five curbside charging stations in downtown San Jose that drivers can access through a prepaid plan. The company was working with entities in Las Vegas Nevada, New York and Florida to do something similar there.^[134] Coulomb Technologies has announced to provide 1000 free public charging stations until December 2010.^[135] They also plan to expand its ChargePoint network to 4600 free home and public level-2 charging stations until October 2011 in nine regions: Austin, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; Orlando, Florida; Sacramento, California; the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, California; Redmond, Washington; and Washington DC.^[135] The $37 million ChargePoint America program is made possible by a $15M grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Transportation Electrification Initiative administered by the Department of Energy. So far 149 stations are operational according to the ChargePoint map, 51 stations are in California.^[136] New York joins the ChargePoint network building more than 100 charging stations in public places until October 2011.^[137][138]

Infrastructure is planned by Better Place for Hawaii, Oregon, and California - the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the highway and freeway corridors between them.^[139][140]

Other companies that are building charging stations throughout the U.S are ECOtality ^[141] and SolarCity ^[142]

In the first phase 11 cities are participating in the initial phase of the "EV Project" of ECOtality: Phoenix (AZ), Tucson (AZ), San Diego (CA), Portland (OR), Eugene (OR), Salem (OR), Corvallis (OR), Seattle (WA), Nashville (TN), Knoxville (TN) and Chattanooga (TN).^[143] The contract for the "EV Project" was signed on October 1, 2009 with the US Department of Energy and it includes 8,300 Level 2 chargers installed in owner’s homes; 6,350 Level 2 chargers installed in commercial and public locations; and 310 Level 3 DC fast-chargers.^[144] The EV project will run for 36 months. The public charging stations will be put up beginning in summer 2010. Texas has joined the EV Project in July 2010.^[145] San Diego will take a share of 1,500 public charging stations and 1,000 home base charging points.^[146][147]

Portland General Electric installs 12 electric vehicle charging stations in Portland and Salem, Oregon till September 2008^[148] and it has installed 20 charging stations by 2010 as part of a demonstration project to develop the transportation infrastructure needed to support electric vehicles and plug-in cars.

Drivers can now plug in at two park-and-ride lots in King County, which includes Seattle. The county plans to add sockets at three garages under construction. There are about 30 reliable sites in the Seattle area to plug in. Most are free, others charge the same as parking a gas-powered car -- $7 an hour.^[134]

In recent months, the cities of Edmonds and Lacey invited drivers to plug in their electric vehicles at free public stations.^[134]

In Virginia, with the participation of the Town of Wytheville, and several businesses, Plugless Power inductive charging stations began field testing in March 2010.^[149]

South Carolina has unveiled its "Plug in Carolina" program including 100 public charging stations in December 2010^[150]

In San Antonio, TX, a downtown church (Travis Park United Methodist Church) made Level 1 charging available in its parking lot in 2009.^[151]

The DBEDT ministry of Hawaii had a state rebate program "EV Ready Grant" that was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - the program was offering $4500 for a full-speed commercially available electric vehicle and $500 for electric vehicle chargers.^[152] The "EV Ready Grant" program is followed by the "EV Ready Rebate" program offering 20% of the purchase price with a maximum of $4500 for a full-speed commercially available electric vehicle and 30% of the purchase prices with a maximum of $500 for electric vehicle chargers.^[153] Charging equipment is expected follow the standards including SAE J1772.^[153] The designated Transportation Working Group expects 200 charging stations to be available in 2010^[154]

In California the car maker Tesla has put up 18 public charging stations.^[155] Within the SF Bay Area Activities & Coalition has identified 109 locations to put up public charging stations beginning 2009 based on funding by ARRA.^[156] The last California ZEV Program Review symposium was held on 23. September 2009, the next one is scheduled for late summer 2010.^[157] In the past there had been a charging station network to support the General Motors EV1 that had installed 500 public charging station.^[158]

The U.S. Department of Energy offers a list of locations of the available alternative fuel infrastructure. The historic trend summary (1992–2010) shows a total of 541 electric charging locations by 2010 which is still lower than the peak count of 873 charging locations in 2002.^[159]

See also

• Better Place
• Coulomb Technologies
• Charging station

References

External links

• Park & Charge
• LEMnet
• Better Place
• Coulomb Technologies
• School Charging
• Car Charging Group
• Elektromotive
• Greenlots
• alargador.org
• AeroVironment EV Charging
• Electromaps
• Chargelocator
• Circontrol