{"id":55959,"date":"2012-12-05T13:01:08","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T18:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=55959"},"modified":"2012-12-05T13:01:08","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T18:01:08","slug":"evgo-hopes-to-make-a-go-of-it-with-vast-ev-fast-charge-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2012\/12\/evgo-hopes-to-make-a-go-of-it-with-vast-ev-fast-charge-network\/","title":{"rendered":"eVgo Hopes to Make a Go of it with Vast EV Fast-Charge Network"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An EV owner prepares to plug into a Level III charger at an eVgo Freedom Station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While battery sales have been improving in recent months they slowed unexpectedly in November despite the surge in the overall U.S. automotive market. While analysts will likely debate what this specific setback means, even electric vehicle proponents acknowledge sales are being constrained by two key challenges: price and range.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely to take some time \u2013 and some significant developments to lower costs and increase the capacity of today\u2019s lithium-ion battery technology.\u00a0 But a Texas-based start-up is betting it can help overcome the issue of range anxiety by setting up a network of high-speed chargers dubbed \u201cFreedom Stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Your Inside Source!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe think we can overcome the issue of range anxiety and provide EV owners range confidence,\u201d says Terry O\u2019Day, the director of California Business Development for eVgo.<\/p>\n

A new subsidiary of Houston-based power company NRG, eVgo wants to install nearly 400 \u2013 and possibly more — high-speed Level III chargers in Texas, California and along the Mid-Atlantic region.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A map showing current and planned eVgo Freedom Stations locations in the Houston area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These are significantly more powerful than the so-called \u201chigh-speed\u201d chargers that are now being installed at homes, retail or business locations around the country.\u00a0 Using 480-volt direct current allows a battery-car such as the Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus EV to get an 80% \u201cfill-up\u201d in as little as 15 to 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

With rare exception, such as the 160 to 300-mile Tesla Model S, most of today\u2019s electric vehicles can manage less than 100 miles between charges. That means that even fully charged, a motorist is setting out with what would be, in a conventional gas vehicle, the fuel gauge closing on \u201cE.\u201d Charging at a conventional home or public charger can take four to eight hours, effectively limiting the functionality of pure battery-electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

Proponents believe that Level III charging, if widely available, will make it possible to drive greater distances without constantly worrying about getting to a destination \u2013 or back home.<\/p>\n

Yet, until this year, there were only a handful of these fast-chargers in the entire country.\u00a0 But that could soon change.\u00a0 Tesla recently announced plans to set up a network of \u201csuperchargers\u201d that would provide Level III charging for its products \u2013 and for competitors\u2019 vehicles that can use the same plug. eVgo has even bigger ambitions.<\/p>\n

It has committed in its first market, Houston, to have 50 stations, 70 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, 40 in the Mid-Atlantic and 40 in California \u2013 to start, with the longer-term goal of setting up as many as 200 in the Golden State, including Freedom Stations at regular distances along California freeways. It has committed $50.5 million to that goal.<\/p>\n

When in place, O\u2019Day suggests it will be a \u201cwell-distributed network that looks sort of like your cellphone network,\u201d meaning a motorist will be able to travel anywhere within a defined region and know there\u2019ll always be a charger within range.<\/p>\n

Each station will have a minimum of one Level III charger \u2013 with wiring for more once demand increases \u2013 and several slower Level II chargers.<\/p>\n

The company also is trying to win over businesses and even apartment landlords to let it set up Level II chargers in their parking lots and garages \u2013 for the foreseeable future at no cost. The goal is to have as many as 10,000 spaces wired up in the next few years in cities like Santa Monica \u2013where the majority of residents either live in apartment buildings or condominiums where they might not otherwise have a place to plug in a battery car.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the conundrum, he acknowledges. Proponents often argue that the real market for electric vehicles will be in urban settings \u2013 but in normally eco-friendly Santa Monica, where O\u2019Day happens to serve on the City Council, as much as 80% of its residents don\u2019t have access to a place they could easily install a charger right now.<\/p>\n

Putting chargers into apartment buildings \u201cwould make a meaningful dent\u2026necessary to seed the (battery car) market,\u201d O\u2019Day contends.<\/p>\n

While \u201cfree\u201d is not a word that one might immediately connect with a profitable business plan, the goal is to eventually charge landlords and businesses to set up the eVgo stations \u2013 once there are enough battery cars on the road that, he suggests, having chargers would be an advantage for an apartment building owner trying to attract new tenants.<\/p>\n

As for EV owners, the NRG subsidiary is modeling itself after cellphone companies, offering a mix of plans, including an all-you-can-charge package in Texas for $89 a month that would include the use of both apartment-based chargers and Freedom Stations.\u00a0 That would cover unlimited energy demands and not restrict a motorist to charging in off-peak hours when energy rates are reduced.\u00a0 The company is currently working up a rate plan for California.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Day himself has been involved in the nascent battery-car industry since 1998 when he began a company renting EVs at a number of airports \u2013 a business he sold off a few years later.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s clearly a proponent of the technology but not a wide-eyed one.\u00a0 He admits that battery-car sales have been slower to ramp up than many might have hoped for.\u00a0 \u201cWe haven\u2019t convinced everyone this industry will be a success story,\u201d he concedes, adding that a key problem is that, \u201cThe (support) infrastructure hasn\u2019t developed as fast as we\u2019d like.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where eVgo is betting it can step in.\u00a0 And if the company is right it will be able to encourage more battery-car buyers will also making a potentially lucrative business case for itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Battery-car sales are running well behind optimistic expectations and the lack of a public charging infrastructure is one reason often blamed. But a new start-up, eVgo, hopes to charge things up with a network of high-speed chargers it plans to set up in California, Texas and other parts of the country. TheDetroitBureau.com plugs into the story,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55959"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=55959"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=55959"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=55959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}