Greetings everyone,
Yes, it's been three months since I've last posted. Shame on me. Then again, it doesn't appear that anyone has read my blog on environmental matters yet, so I guess I don't need to feel too ashamed. I still have hope that I will, someday, gain some interested readers.
Well, the blog news today is about electric vehicles, specifically how some companies are ramping up their charging technology and marketing plans to provide a feasible way to provide electric charging service for those brave folks, admittedly few still, who are, and will be, purchasing all-electric or mostly electric vehicles (such as the Chevy Volt) in the very near future. For those electric car owners who don't own their homes, and thus do not have a garage in which they can plug their cars in, say overnight, to charge them up, the company 350 Green LLC, based out of San Diego, California, has agreements with the city of Chicago to install 73 public charging stations within city's metro area by the end of 2011. The agreements call for a total of 280 charging stations with no specific date mentioned in the Chicago Tribune articles of February 16 and 27, 2011 (Please see the Business sections for both dates).
Isn't that amazing? Our city, Chicago, is actually taking real and tangible steps toward the realization of electric vehicle power here and now, in the present. I find this simply wonderful, despite the risks and potential pitfalls. And there seems to plenty of those to chew on. Without getting into too much detail here, one problem has to do with the charging power of the stations to be installed.
The first 73 stations, Level 1 stations, will have quick-charging sockets that will be able to fully charge a vehicle in 30 minutes, at a cost of $65,000 per station. The remaining 146 stations to be built will be Level 2 stations, which will fully charge a vehicle in around 7 hours. These will cost under $10,000 per station. 350 Green is planning on charging customers around $50 to $60 for a month's worth of charging service. Will they have any takers? And what will be the cost to use the slower-charging stations? In any case, while paying $50 to $60 per month for electric "gas" might not seem like all that great of a deal, when compared to the $120 to $200 per month that many of us most likely are now paying, and compared to the probably significantly higher prices we'll soon be paying for gasoline, the cost for charging an electric vehicle is going to sound more and more like a warm hum instead of a loud buzz.
Well, that's all the environmental buzz for this blogpost. I hope someone will read and enjoy this, and please, tune into the buzz surrounding electric vehicles entering the American car market in the very, near FUTURE!
Rudy G
