Fred Meyer Ballard Hits Home Run with EVSE

Over the last year we at EV Support have seen many EVSE installations, and many prospective EVSE locations.  There are quite a few more challenges to locating EV charging facilities than one might think, and most of them have to do with the cost of installing EVSE in the right place.  Use the best parking spots for EVs and you risk incurring the ire of gas guzzlers who think that they ought to be able to park there.  Put the EVSE at the location closest to the electrical source and you may relegate EV parking to a space adjacent to the trash dumpster.  If you need to cross a sidewalk or driving lane to get to that parking spot the cost goes up astronomically.

Given these challenges, the folks at Fred Meyer in Ballard, working with the Ecotality program, have definitely made the right choices for the long run.  The two Blink EVSE that were recently installed are at the front of the store, but not closest to the entrance, are near an electrical room, but required removal and replacement of sections of sidewalk to be installed at the parking spots.  They are adjacent to ADA parking spaces, as suggested by the accepted standards, but do not displace those spaces.

So, kudos to Fred Meyer for getting it right at the Ballard store.  Their installation serves as an example to managers of other retail locations of what to do to make the adoption of this technology attractive and painless.

Stadium Nissan Hosts Leaf Owner's Clinic

Leaf owners got a chance to discuss their cars with the experts at Stadium Nissan as well as get some updates on charging infrastructure and options from Jeremy Smithson of EV Support and Rich Feldman of Ecotality.  Owner Greg Smith, and Executive Manager Kevin Riordan of Stadium Nissan are proactive in their effort to assess how the car is working for the purchasers.  EV Support recently began working with Stadium Nissan on a plan to provide optional Clippercreek LCS-25 EVSE with the purchase of the car.  EV Support would then provide the installation services.

If you are in Seattle and need a couple of kilowatthours come on by our shop at 805 Rainier Ave S. and charge up for FREE.  While you are waiting, you can dine on Vietnamese cuisine across the street, or walk around the corner on Dearborn and check out the Wheego LiFe at MC Electric Vehicles.

EV  Support Installs First Eaton Pow-R-Stations at Eaton’s Auburn Satellite Plant

Back in August we attended an open house at Eaton Corp’s Auburn facility and checked out their prototype Level II charging station, the Pow-R-Station, as well as the Mitsubishi iMiev that they have been taking around the country.  Since then we have become an Eaton Certified Contractor and were chosen to install the first charging equipment at the Auburn plant located at 1604 15th St SW Suite 114, Auburn, WA.     The two units are shown in the picture at the parking lot in front of the plant.

At the 2010 Seattle Auto Show:

The Auto Show this year featured one mainstream BEV and one mainstream PHEV as well as currently available NEVs and the soon-coming Wheego LiFe.   Jeremy headed down there on November 10th to check them out.

The Chevy Volt was enticing as it slowly rotated on its stage, while a lovely spokesmodel testified in the car's behalf.  She clarified that when the battery gets low enough, the gas engine kicks in to generate electricity to run the car's electric motor.  The batteries will not be charged by the car's ICE.  It will, however, get 40-50 miles of electric driving, so around here they will not use much gas.

The Nissan Leaf looked good, but was roped off as well, but showing how roomy the interior really is, with leg room and head room for all.  Nissan's fabric partitions were very effective at creating a warmer and less cluttered atmosphere for the display of the car.

The Wheego model on display was not the LiFe, but a stand-in until the cars begin to make their way out of California.  Ty Rice of MC Electric Vehicles described the impact tests that he was able to observe that were done for the Wheego, and they are impressive in their protectiveness.  These cars look like a Smart 4 Two, but they are longer and higher.

We hope to be able to hop in the EV models next year and check them out a little closer.  More test drives are in order, but there have to be more units available for this.

Ghosn's first electric car, the Leaf, can travel only 100 miles without recharging — putting him in competition with hybrid vehicles that have no such limits.

In December, Nissan brought a Leaf to Seattle to generate interest. By the end of the year, some 900 Seattle-area drivers will have the chance to buy one

Not only will they get one of the first mass-produced, highway-capable, battery-powered autos, they'll also help answer questions about what it will take to make such cars practical.

The driving habits of first adopters — who will spend $28,000 to $35,000 for the car before a federal tax credit of $7,500 — will be closely studied by scientists to help federal and local governments figure out how to build a charging network that's envisioned to one day stretch across the continent.

The biggest stumbling block may be out of Ghosn's control: gas prices. His success, or that of anyone who builds EVs, hinges on whether car buyers get fed up paying increasingly higher prices at the pump, says Jerome York, the former Chrysler chief financial officer who has advised billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian. On Thursday, gasoline averaged $2.71 a gallon in the U.S., according to AAA.

"If gas is $2 a gallon, this whole regulatory effort to promote EVs is going to be an ugly train wreck," York says.

Ghosn has supporters.

"We look very positively on the fact that they're being innovative and have a plan for EVs that it looks like they'll be able to achieve," says Gilles Michel, assistant director of the New Jersey Division of Investment, which began buying its 6.6 million Nissan shares in March 2009. Since then, the stock price has more than doubled.

Ghosn needs a bold move to restore his brands' luster. Nissan's profit peaked in 2005 at $4.8 billion. He's going all out to populate the planet with electric vehicles, starting in December with the Leaf.

Ghosn is upending a century of automotive tradition by selling the Leaf without a battery. Instead, owners will rent the battery pack and pay for the miles used, like a cellphone plan.

Drivers will recharge at home or at public plug-in stations, hitching to 3-foot-high metal posts. Or they may swap the batteries, like exchanging an empty propane tank for a full one. The price: about $120 a month in the U.S. for battery rental and electricity.

  Battery recycling
Nissan is betting on a surge in electric vehicles sales after its Leaf debuts, and has set up a joint venture with a Japanese trading house to deal with a major environmental concern -- recycling the car batteries. The venture with Sumitomo Corporation is expected to begin operations in late 2010 in Japan and the U.S.

Sources: NWautos staff, Associated Press

eTec is partnering with Nissan North America to deploy up to 4,700 zero-emission electric vehicles, the Nissan LEAF, and 11,210 charging systems to support them in strategic markets in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.

The EV Project will collect and analyze data to characterize vehicle use in diverse topographic and climatic conditions, evaluate the effectiveness of charge infrastructure, and conduct trials of various revenue systems for commercial and public charge infrastructure. The ultimate goal of The EV Project is to take the lessons learned from the deployment of these first 4,700 EVs, and the charging infrastructure supporting them, to enable the streamlined deployment of the next 5,000,000 EVs.