No Matter Who's First, U.S. Now Has Two Public EV Quick Chargers

No Matter Who's First, U.S. Now Has Two Public EV Quick Chargers

By John O'Dell August 6, 2010

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

The electric company in Portland, Ore., announced this morning that it has opened North America's first public quick-charging station for electric vehicles.

The item  caught our eye not only because, hey, it's what we write about, but because we wrote a story back in May about the California city of Vacaville being home to the nation's first public quick charger.

Now we really don't care who was first - what matters is that these quick chargers are being installed.

They are capable of bringing a depleted EV battery back up to around 80 percent of capacity in under 30 minutes and will go a long way - once there are enough of them - to eliminating the range anxiety that threatens widespread adoption of battery-electric vehicles.

So just as we applauded Vacaville and Eaton, the company that installed the charger there, we applaud Portland General Electric and NEC, the Japanese electronics company that supplied the Oregon charger.

Who Was First?

But about that claim to the "first public" quick charger...

When Eaton showed us its station in Vacaville, we were told that while it has been installed in a public parking lot in an array of existing EV chargers that all are open to the public, Eaton was waiting for Underwriters Laboratory (UL) certification to take the lock off the quick charger.

Tim Old, Eaton's division marketing manager and the go-to-guy for information about the company's quick chargers, told us this morning that certification is now expected around the end of the year as UL is still working on its quick charger criteria and hasn't certified anyone yet.

We called Portland GE and spokeswoman Elaina Medina told us the utility had checked very carefully before issuing its primacy claim.

No, she said, the NEC charger hasn't been UL certified, but UL is a private company and there are others that do the same job (although they are not as widely known and most of them base their own safety certification tests on UL standards).

In this case, the NEC charger was certified safe and sane by global product testing company Intertec, and was issued a certificate of public use by the City of Portland.

Old said Eaton prefers to wait for the UL stamp of approval.

That means that the Vacaville quick charger (right) cannot yet be accessed by the general public while the Portland charger can.

There are no locks or access cards or other restrictions, said Medina.

 You just have to pay to park in the public parking garage and, of course, you need a car that ran on electricity and had a battery charging system that was compatible with the communications technology used by NEC and other Japanese quick-charger manufacturers (Eaton has licensed that same technology, as have several other U.S.-based charger makers, so it is likely to become the national standard here for quick charging).

That technology effectively provides a custom charge for each vehicle and eliminates the battery degradation that can occur with the heat buildup from an unregulated fast charge. It requires compatible communication software in the car and on the charger.

So far, the only EVs we know of that can use that system are the upcoming Nissan Leaf EV and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV urban electric car, and neither is being sold to the public yet although there are a few i-MiEVs in government and utility fleets, including one that Portland GE expects to receive later this month.

So, our score card has it this way:

• Vacaville and Eaton were first to install a public quick charger.
• Portland GE and NEC were first to get one certified and opened for public use.
• Once the cars start coming and more quick chargers are installed and opened, we'll all be the winners.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.