Grant Will Support Largest EV Deployment and Charging Infrastructure Ever
By Scott Doggett August 5, 2009
Perhaps the most notable of the stories within a story stemming from today's $2.4 billion grants announcement is the $99.8 million the Obama administration awarded to a little-known company that, together with Nissan, has pledged the biggest deployment of electric vehicles - and creation of the largest charging infrastructure - ever undertaken.
With the grant and matching funds provided by regional project participants, Phoenix-based Electric Transportation Engineering Corp., or eTec, has pledged to install about 2,500 charging stations in each of five selected markets: the states of Tennessee and Oregon, the cities of San Diego and Seattle, and the Phoenix/Tucson region.
Those approximately 12,500 charging stations will be used to recharge up to 1,000 LEAF EVs (pictured) that Nissan will provide for each of the five markets, for a total contribution of up to 5,000 EVs. Whether the zero-emissions vehicles will be donated, leased or sold by the automaker has not been determined, according to a Nissan source familiar with the collaboration.
The project will: collect and analyze data from vehicle use in diverse topographies and climate conditions; evaluate the effectiveness of the charging infrastructure; and, conduct trials of various revenue systems for the infrastructure.
As for eTec, it's a subsidiary of ECOtality, a Scottsdale, Arizona, company that has been involved in every major electric vehicle initiative in North America since the 1990's. ETec is known for its Minit-Charger line of battery fast-charge systems for on-road EVs.
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