charging
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Better Place, charging infrastructure, battery leasing and global pioneer of rapid battery swap stations for electric cars, has just announced it has secured $200 Million of investment in its series C funding. Aiming to make electric car ownership and refueling as simple and as quick as refueling a gasoline car, Better Place’s business model revolves around building a network of quick-swap battery stations where owners of compatible electric cars -- like the 2012 Renault Fluence Z.E. -- can quickly exchange a depleted battery for a fully-charged one. In order to use Better Place’s...
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Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i Rapid Charging Gets Cheaper Thanks To NissanRapid electric car charging stations for cars like the 2012 Nissan Leaf and 2012 Mitsubishi i may soon become a lot more common in the U.S. thanks to a new rapid charging station Nissan says it will launch in the U.S. by early 2012. The charging station, which is based upon the CHAdeMo direct...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Your Electric Car Out Of Juice? AAA Tests Roadside RechargingEveryone makes mistakes once in a while, and we’re sure most drivers have run out of gasoline at least once in their life. But as the saying goes, it's hard to carry a gallon of electricity back to your plug-in car if the battery is completely out of charge. Which is why AAA is now testing...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Confirms Rapid-Charging Corridor Between LA And SFThe 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric sedan isn’t due to roll off the production lines for another 8 months, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants the world to know that the Californian-based automaker is already putting plans in place to ensure that Model S owners won't be running out of charge...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Toyota Confirms Sub-$1000 Electric Vehicle Charger, Installation IncludedToyota has confirmed that its official charging station for the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid will be available to all customers, fully installed, for just $999.
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Charging Networks: Don't Use 'Em To Travel Far, Says CompanyLately, we’ve seen a lot of new charging networks spring up around the world devoted to getting electric car owners the power they need to keep their cars charged up. But a U.K. based, government-backed charging infrastructure company has outraged electric car owners by suggesting that its...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Yesterday, Nissan announced that it had reduced the price of its official 2012 Nissan Leaf home charging station to make it more affordable to Leaf drivers. But while Nissan has dropped the price of a standard supply and installation of the Nissan-branded Aerovironment charging station from $2,200 to $1,818, we think it still isn’t low enough. Here’s why. Installation costs will vary For owners who live in houses with enough electrical capacity left to provide the necessary 7.2 kilowatts of power to the charging station and have a breaker box within easy reach of the proposed...
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At Heathrow, 'Free' Electric-Car Charging Costs $78.50 Per DayLondon's Heathrow Airport provides charging stations for electric car drivers. Accessing them, however, requires parking in the airport's most expensive lot.
Kurt Ernst -
7 Makers Adopt Standardized Electric Car Charging In EuropeThe rumblings of dissent in Europe about different electric car charging standards could now be drawing to an end. For the past few years fans have been worried that electric cars could have a mobile phone-like situation with different plugs for every different manufacturer and different charging...
Antony Ingram -
Nissan Develops 10-Minute Rapid Charger For Leaf Electric Car[EDIT: Since publishing this story, it has come to our attention that this story is indeed about storage technology, not charging technology. We're investigating our sources to try and better understand the advancement made in Japan] The time it takes an electric car to fully recharge from empty...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
DC Fast Charging: Mitsubishi Says You Can Do It Every DayThe 2012 Mitsubishi i batteries will retain 80 percent of their original charge after ten years—and that includes a consideration that the battery might be frequently quick-charged.
Bengt Halvorson -
Tesla's 2012 Model S Charging Equipment. Redesign For Redesign's Sake?Last weekend, Tesla released more details about its up-coming 2012 Model S all-electric luxury sedan at an exclusive reservation-holder and media Model S event in Fremont, California. While some of the new information -- like the sub-4.5 second 0-60 time of the new Model S Sport variant -- got us...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
UPDATE: To answer the question posed in our headline: No, we do not believe Houston has the largest electric-car charging site. See below. When we think of Texas, we think of many things: open roads, desert landscapes, Beyoncé. And of course, we also think of oil, since Texas is one of the country's largest producers of the stuff. So it might seem a little strange to learn that Houston, Texas is now home to North America's largest car-charging site. But then, truth is always stranger than fiction. The site is Houston's Tranquility Park Garage, which has been tricked out with 28...
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Swiss Firm Develops Portable Rapid Electric Car Charging StationAs electric cars become more and more popular, there are an increasingly large number of firms selling electric car charging equipment, from wall-mounted domestic charging stations through to large, commercial rapid charging stations for parking lots, shopping malls and gas stations. Now...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
European Carmakers Propose Single Electric-Car Charging PlugWithin a few years, it may be possible to drive an electric car from northern Germany to the south of Spain after all. Worries over the possibility of incompatible European electric-car charging standards are starting to abate, after a proposal by several European automakers for a single European...
John Voelcker -
Electric Car Charging: Coming To Central Parking Garage Near YouCentral Parking, a nationwide parking garage company responsible for 1.1 million parking spots -- and its Tennessee-based subsidiary USA Parking Systems -- will soon host electric car charging facilities at 2,220 of its parking garages. Under an agreement signed earlier this week, the Car Charging...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Leaf Drivers Publicly Shame Selfish Charging-Station UserImagine the scenario: You’re heading to a meeting and leave your shiny 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car plugged in at the local charging station, confident that it will have enough charge to get you back home when you return in a few hours. Then you return to find another electric car owner has...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Security Breach: iPhone App Releases Private Data of Electric Car OwnersFor as long as electric cars have been on the roads of the world, people have needed to find a place to plug in. So what happens when a company obtains and publishes details of several hundred addresses and contact details for a privately-run and moderated peer-to-peer charging network?...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
California's electric-car advocates are often "true believers," and they can be single-minded in the pursuit of what they believe is right. But the nuts-and-bolts experience they've gained during the state's 15 years of electric-car use can be invaluable--which is why policy-makers and car companies take their views seriously. Usually. Which brings us to the strange case of California Assembly Bill 475, and why it has upset advocates so much that they want it vetoed or completely rewritten. AB 475 is a bill, backed by General Motors [NYSE:GM], to allow Chevrolet Volts (and other plug-in cars...
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Walgreens Installs DC Rapid Electric Car Chargers “Where Practical”You may already know that pharmaceuticals giant Walgreens is installing as many as 800 electric car charging stations at its branches throughout New York City, Houston, Dallas Fort-Worth and Chicago. While we all reeled in horror to the news that it could cost Walgreens customers as much as $4 for...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Faster Electric-Car Charging Gets Smaller, And That’s BetterIf you’ve got a 2011 Nissan Leaf SL you probably ordered it with the included $700 rapid charging port, capable of recharging its 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack to 80 percent full in a little under 30 minutes using an off-board rapid charger. But direct-current rapid charging stations using...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Getting An Electric Car Charging Station? Make Your Contractor Watch This (Video)Here at GreenCarReports we like to cover every aspect of owning and driving an electric car -- from choosing the right model for you through to learning how to get the best range and buying a dedicated charging station. But what about getting your electric car charging station installed? Do you...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
China’s E-Taxis Are Not Quite As Slow to Refuel As You ThinkLast month, we brought you the story of the electric taxis that carry passengers through the busy City of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, based on a low-tech way of quickly swapping out empty battery packs for fully charged ones. At the time, we chose to focus on the process of battery swapping, covered...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Ten Percent Electric Vehicles By 2020? No Sweat, Utility CEO SaysHow many people, how soon, could be driving electric vehicles before it makes a significant difference to the grid and the utility needs to increase capacity?
Bengt Halvorson