The Renault-Nissan Alliance had added another locale to its roster of partnerships for spreading electric drive to the masses. This time the Franco-Japanese alliance is hooking up with its US home base, Tennessee. The state of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley Authority will work together to promote zero-emission vehicles. Gov. Phil Bredesen has committed to exploring strategies that the state can use to promote electric vehicles including a public charging station infrastructure. For its part Nissan has committed to bringing electric vehicles to the use for fleet testing beginning in 2010 with a global mass-market introduction in 2012.


[Source: Nissan]

At the Plug-In 2008 conference in San Jose CA Coulomb Technologies has announced its new Smartlet charging stations and ChargePoint network system. The plan is for the company to sell the Smartlet stations to municipal governments and parking lot owners and then provide the ChargePoint network to provide a subscription based public charging system for consumers. The Smartlets are equipped with electrical metering and wireless communications capabilities. Drivers would get a subscription through ChargePoint and then when they park their plug-in vehicles, the Smartlet would authenticate and then allow them to start charging. Parking lot owners and cities would take a cut of the revenue while a car is being charged. Coulomb plans to make the Smartlets and the network available later this year and San Jose wants to be the first city to install it. New ABGer Shannon is on hand in San Jose for the conference and will put some more info later.

[Source: Coulomb Technologies]