Green Right Now
One reason people keep driving old-fashioned, CO2-spewing automobiles is that it’s awfully easy to find a gas station.
The LEAF on display in Phoenix (Photo: Clint Williams)
Widespread adoption of emission-free plug-in electric cars – the kind that run solely on battery power – has been hampered by a classic chicken-or-the-egg conundrum: no wants to drive an electric car until charging stations are widespread and no one wants to build a network of convenient charging stations until there are enough electric cars on the road to make it pay off.
The EV Project directed by ECOtality, Inc. of Scottsdale, Arizona is bringing the chickens and the eggs to key markets in five states by the end of the year. This summer more than 6,500 public charging stations – the chicken, or is it the egg? – will pop up in public and commercial locations in Phoenix, Tucson, San Diego, Portland, Eugene, Salem, Corvallis, Seattle, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. In December, Nissan LEAF zero-emission electric vehicles will be on dealer showroom floors in those cities ahead of a widespread launch in 2011.
Partners in the project emphasize that this is a practical alternative to the internal-combustion engine, starting with the LEAF.
“The LEAF is a real-world vehicle,” says Paul Hawson of the Nissan LEAF product planning team. “You can get a ticket in it, the top speed is 90 mph.”
The LEAF seats five adults and has a range of 100 miles. The average driver travels about 40 miles a day, Hawson says (according to government statistics). The car has zero emissions and saves as much as 436 gallons of gasoline a year, assuming 12,000 miles a year.
“This vehicle was designed in the wind tunnel,” says Hawson, noting the design details to reduce drag: a flat, smooth undercarriage, headlamps that funnel the air.
The car’s headlights and taillights use LED lamps to reduce the draw on the battery bank. And you can run the air-conditioner, although heavy use will reduce the range 10 or 20 miles.
Nissan officials say pricing will be announced this spring and it is expected to be competitive with the top of the lineToyota Prius, which has a sticker price of about $27,000. Owners would qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit, lowering the real total cost. (Follow LEAF developments by signing up for email alerts.)
The LEAF will have a cutting-edge navigation system as standard equipment, Hawson says. The map on the display screen will have a halo circling the “you-are-here” icon showing the current range of the car.
The location of public charging stations will be displayed on the navigation screen.
Another standard feature: remote access. Hawson says LEAF owners will be able to send commands to the car using the Internet or a wireless telephone. A driver, for example, could turn on the air conditioning of a car plugged into a charging station in a hot parking lot, cooling the interior before driving off.
Test driving Nissan's LEAF at Phoenix event
Test driving Nissan's LEAF at Phoenix event (Photo: Clint Williams)
The first 4,700 LEAF owners in the test markets will get home charging stations installed for free as part of The EV Project. The EV Project will collect and analyze data from the home and public charging stations to characterize vehicle use in diverse topographic and climatic conditions.
Charging the car at home will take four to six hours and cost 50 cents to $1.50 a day, depending on local utility rates.
Operating costs of the LEAF compare favorably to even the most efficient hybrids, Hawson says. If you’re paying 11 cents/kilowatt hour, driving 100 miles will cost about $2.75. At $3 a gallon, it would take $6 of gasoline to travel that same 100 miles in a hybrid.
The EV project will install 260 fast-charge systems in the test markets.
“The fast charge stations provide a meaningful charge in 15 minutes,” says Colin Read, vice president of corporate development at ECOtality.
That 15 minute charge will add 80 miles to the car’s range, Read adds.
How drivers pay for power at public charging stations will vary from market to market, Read says. In some cases, a shopping mall or coffee shop may provide free charging stations to attract customers. Drivers may get a swipe card that allows them to buy electricity through their home account.
“All the electricity has to be paid for,” Read says. “We can’t depend on government handouts for infrastructure.”
A government grant is priming the pump, however. As part of the federal economic stimulus package passed in early 2009, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), a subsidiary of ECOtality, Inc. was awarded a $99.8 million grant last August from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The EV Project is expecting to create 750 jobs by 2012.
ref. http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2010/01/07/the-ev-project-brings-charging-stations-and-electric-cars-together/?NFM_T=nfm_1-8-10
