Filed under: EV/Plug-in
First Coulomb ChargePoint stations now available in San Jose, CA
Coulomb Technologies has launched its first public EV charging stations on its ChargePoint network this week in downtown San Jose CA. The Smartlets, which were announced last summer at the Plug-In 2008 conference, use a subscription service to allow drivers to park and charge their vehicles. When a driver signs up for the service (currently free after a $9.95 processing fee) they receive a smart card. Waving the card in front of the Smartlet unlocks the door and gives access to a plug. After plugging in, the door locks again until the driver is ready to leave (see more details here). The Smartlet is connected to a network and sends the subscriber data to Coulomb's servers for verification and then charges the subscriber's account. Eventually Coulomb will be offering several plans on its ChargePoint network, much like different cellular plans. Currently, there are three ChargePoint Smartlets located near the San Jose State University campus, but ChargePoint is negotiating with several other cities to install its system. If you live in San Jose and have a plug-in vehicle you can sign up at mychargepoint.net and use the system for yourself. The website lets subscribers find Smartlets in their area and will even tell them if they are available or occupied.
[Source: Coulomb Technologies]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
why not the LS2LS7? 2:17AM (1/09/2009)
There is also apparently one in the bad part of Campbell, W of 880 between San Tomas and 85.
The one shown appears to be 110V. Is that the case for all of them?
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gulags 5:37AM (1/09/2009)
I'm sure it's just a trick of angles, but otherwise, that brother has one enormous melon.
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Mike Weston 3:50PM (1/09/2009)
That last line about being able to tell if one is occupied made me wonder if you could reserve one, maybe agreeing to some minimum charge even if you don't show up.
Of course with the new Aptera schedule it's going to be longer than I hoped before this will matter to me, but hopefully it will.
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gorr 8:42AM (1/10/2009)
If we move toward a charging electrical outlet infrastructure from let's say gasoline or hydrogen pumps infrastructure then we have to adds some numbers. Not now because electric battery will not constitute 100% of the car market but in 10-20 years, battery can constitute let's say 90% of the market. The 10% remaining will be old hot rodders driven by bums, billionnairs, racers, repantant greenies dreaming the good old days. These hot rodders will drive with the remaining gasoline still struck in old pipeline and special old gas station hidden in harlem, bronks, philadelphia or even in malibu or in the distant country like minesota or virginia. These folks will enjoy 600 h.p corvettes and hummers with 200$/gallon e87.
But for the 90% remaining downsized hypermilling folks not billionairs or in the mob, they will need electrical outlet covering 40 times the actual gasoline or hydrogen infrastructure space of
today because you have to charge 5x more then gasoline because of the short range and it take 4 hours or more to fuel. So millions car parked everywhere for hours charging slowly. It take 40 times the space to do an electrical charging infrastructure then the actual gasoline infrastructure that fuel cars in 5 minutes once a week then an electrical one that charge cars each day at 4-8 hours each. If we look at the space currently occupied by gasoline stations then 40 times that space is a lot of space...
I said early-on to put on sale a car powered by a water electrolyser near my house because im shopping here and i don't want to recharge each day for 8 hours, i don't want to pay fuel of any sort. I want lightweight, cheap, powerful technology that didn't need to be take car by the grid or big oil. I want rear wheel drive or 500 h.p like a dodge challenger v8 hemi.
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