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Washington State To Fit I-5 With EV Charging Stations

 
6 817 views July 23, 2010

Public Charging Station for electric cars, courtesy Mitsubishi Motors

Public Charging Station for electric cars, courtesy Mitsubishi Motors

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I'm on the highway to ... Canada. Yes, Canada, via its southern neighbor, Washington state.

Washington state has a plan, and that plan is to build electric vehicle charging stations.

By this fall, the State of Washington plans to turn a 275-mile section of Interstate 5 (running from Oregon to Canada) into an electric highway, just in time for the next generation of electric vehicles being released later this year.

wsdot.jpg

Sign Posts for the stations might look something like this.

With a $1.32-million Federal grant, the state plans to build both Level-2 and Llevel-3 charging stations, in partnership with private firms for the latter). Level-3 charging stations take only about 30 minutes to recharge an electric vehicle's battery to 80%.

The maximum distance between each of the Level-3 stations is set at 80 miles, and with Level-2 stations also available, most electric vehicles should always be within range of a charging station.

That would be a big step in reducing "range anxiety," a key barrier for wider acceptance of EVs.

[nissan-leaf.net]





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Comments (6)

  1. By ev enthusiast Posted: 7/23/2010 10:48am PDT

    big waste of money, unless it is at truck stops.
    range anxiety only exists in the minds of those who are not familiar with evs. it will disappear quickly, as people become familiar, and battery range increases.
     
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  2. By Bryan Posted: 7/23/2010 4:53pm PDT

    Nice to see my native state taking the lead in introducing public all-electric automobile re-charging stations. Not surprising at all, really. Good ta see.
     
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  3. By Jimza Skeptic Posted: 7/23/2010 8:50pm PDT

    So the level 3 unit takes 30 minutes and I have heard the turn-key cost is close to $5K-8K per unit. (These are not the cheaper home units). How many of these will be in a single location? What if you pull up and there are 5 cars ahead of you? LOL Then you have Level 2 units which take 4-6 hours to charge. This is not a good idea. GM Volt with gas back-up (EREV) is the right idea. The Leaf and similar have their place, but road trips are not the place!
     
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  4. By Bryan Posted: 7/24/2010 4:22pm PDT

    Yeah, road trips are part of the final frontier to get solved before more people will let go of serious greenbacks and buy all-electric rigs.
     
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  5. By Chris O Posted: 7/24/2010 11:20pm PDT

    I agree that the battery of the Leaf is just too small to be practical for road trips so in practice it's only suitable for about 90% of all trips. Not a problem in the US I reckon since 2/3 of households own more than one car anyway. If you don't want more than one car, you really want to save one gallon a day (based on the Volt's 40 mile electric range vs a 40MPG Chevy Cruze) and money is no object you can buy the complex,(basically)double drivetrain GM Volt.
     
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  6. By bob Posted: 7/30/2010 10:12am PDT

    Glad somebody read my post, thanks all.
    @ ev enthusiast - It remains to be seen whether or not this is a waste of money, after all Washington state isn't footing the bill, most of the money comes from a Federal Grant, and if the government is serious about alternative energy the data collect from the use and operation of these charging stations could be invaluable in plans for constructing some sort of national infrastructure to service electric vehicles.
    If you liked this check out my blog at http://blog.earthgarage.com/
     
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