The ChargePoint charging stations were unveiled today at a press event at the headquarters of Ecology Action at 877 Cedar St., Santa Cruz with program representatives: Mayor Ryan Coonerty, City of Santa Cruz; Mayor Dennis Norton, City of Capitola; Richard Lowenthal, founder and CTO, Coulomb Technologies; Jay Friedland, Legislative Director, Plug In America; and Sharon Sarris, Monterey Bay Electric Vehicle Alliance Co-chair. A charging demonstration of six EVs at three dual-outlet stations included a Chevrolet Volt, Nissan LEAF, Tesla, Zero Motorcycle, Green Vehicles’ Triac, and Zenn EV.
“Santa Cruz is known for our commitment to the environment and sustainability,” said Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty. “In the near future electric vehicles will be commonplace throughout the region. I am pleased the City and County of Santa Cruz, as well as the entire Monterey Bay area, are building a state-of-the-art EV charging infrastructure to encourage the adoption of these vehicles to help reduce emissions in our region. Santa Cruz is one of the most popular travel destination areas in California. Our visitors will now be able to charge their electric vehicles with lithium ion batteries while enjoying all our area has to offer.”
In addition to the downtown Santa Cruz location, other nearby ChargePoint locations are:
Zero Motorcycles, 170 Technology Dr., Scotts Valley
County of Santa Cruz, 710 Ocean St., Santa Cruz
City of Capitola, upper parking lot behind City Hall, 420 Capitola Ave. Capitola
Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County, 7807 Soquel Drive, Aptos
Coulomb’s ChargePoint America program offers thousands of free lectric car charging stations for public and home charging to individuals and businesses. Installation of the charging stations was provided by Coulomb regional distributor Clean Fuel Connection, which used local contractors for installation with the support of IBEW Local 234.
“Plug In America is excited to see the deployment of the next generation of plug-in infrastructure in Santa Cruz County. The outstanding efforts of MBEVA, Coulomb Technologies and all of the partners will accelerate the market acceptance of electric vehicles in Santa Cruz, the Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay areas.” said Jay Friedland, Legislative Director of Plug In America. “As the organization representing the millions of potential future consumers of plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles, Plug In America believes widespread electric car charging will truly benefit consumers who want the next generation of clean plug-in cars.”
The ChargePoint Network expansion into Santa Cruz County brings EV drivers the easy-to-use unique services including real-time status and location of unoccupied charging stations, tracking and reporting greenhouse gas and gasoline savings, and charging status notification, all by SMS, email or smart phone (iPhone and Blackberry) applications. Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and all manufacturers of electric vehicle charging stations.
Coulomb’s ChargePoint America program will provide nearly 5,000 charging stations to program participants in ten regions in the United States: Austin, Texas, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando/Tampa, Sacramento, Calif., San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, Redmond/Bellevue, Wash., Washington DC/Baltimore, Southern Michigan (including Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit). The program is a strategic partnership between Coulomb and three leading automobile brands: Ford, Chevrolet and smart USA. Coulomb currently has the largest established base of networked charging stations worldwide with more than 3800 systems shipped to more than 500 customers. Installation of the ChargePoint charging stations is currently underway in all regions.
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. ChargePoint America will provide 4,600 public and home ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations by October 2011, adding to the existing ChargePoint Network. Coulomb will work together with its distribution and industry partners to evaluate the demand from the respective geographic regions and allocate charging stations based on this and other factors. The ChargePoint America project will collect data characterizing vehicle use and charging patterns, Idaho National Labs will analyze the data.
