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Charging Station standards

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Charge Point Network
A Car Charging Infrastructure Takes Shape

Having shipped hundreds of electric vehicle charging stations, and with repeat orders now coming in from Europe, Coulomb Technologies, a privately-held Silicon Valley company, expects to be profitable by the 2010 introduction of the Chevy Volt, according to its chief executive, Richard Lowenthal.

(Mr. Lowenthal appears in the video, explaining the company’s ChargePoint Network.)

“Our plan was to sell a thousand stations, but we will probably double that,” he told Green Inc. last week after the company secured its third Bay Area order this year. “Our company is structured to be profitable based on early adopters.”

Founded in 2007, Coulomb is looking to crack the chicken-and-egg riddle that bedeviled the hydrogen fuel cell industry. Without a refueling infrastructure, consumers won’t buy vehicles. But no one invested in refueling stations without potential customers on the road.

These guys are doing a few of what we have been talking about, too bad it's only a pay for use system.
[youtube]IkXm-7lR1D4[/youtube]
 
http://www.motoring.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1828&fPicId=116120
116120
 
I like the part that looks like cast aluminum. Smooth and rugged.

Will Martin need to make a Foundry pigtail for this plug or will Tesla have a equivalent "MC120" for it?

Come on J1772! (say it like throwing dice in craps)
 
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These guys are doing a few of what we have been talking about, too bad it's only a pay for use system.
A Coulomb rep has called to speak with me about their ideas....and I've failed to do that. :( Bad Darell.

One thing that this vid reminded me of - when you sign up for the service, you choose "night charging", "grid friendly" or "anytime." Deciding what you want in advance is a tough one. What if you night charge 95% of the time, but want the option of a daytime charge on one trip? Seems to me that you should be able to charge any time, and just pay different rates for the different times - not sign up in advance for what you think you'll want to do. The whole concept of this privatized way to charge is that EV drivers will be happy to gasoline rates for charging an EV. I'm not sure that's going to be the case. People who drive EVs already know that home charging is where it's at. Those who haven't experienced EVs think that public charging is a MUST for everybody. And yes, I realize that there are those with no place to charge at home...

And now I'm rambling.
 
Underwriters Laboratories approves SAE J1772 charging plug

The SAE standard J1772 charging connector for plug-in vehicles passed another threshold on its way to finalization this week. Underwriters Laboratories has completed its certification testing on the connector developed by Yazaki. The UL testing has verified the safety and durability characteristics of the 5-pin connector. Virtually all of the automakers from the U.S., Japan and Europe are planning to use the standard plug on upcoming electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, including in the Chevy Volt.
 
Until a little while ago, pictures of the the Volt charging port looked like this:

volt_port.jpg

Here's how it looked on the concept car:

vplug.jpg

Now it looks like the first picture I posted.

Changes cost money. It would make sense for GM to avoid unnecessary changes. If they didn't have a final socket design but knew they had to move the port would they go to that much trouble?
 
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Until a little while ago, pictures of the the Volt charging port looked like this:

volt_port.jpg

Here's how it looked on the concept car:

vplug.jpg

Now it looks like the first picture I posted.

Changes cost money. It would make sense for GM to avoid unnecessary changes. If they didn't have a final socket design but knew they had to move the port would they go to that much trouble?

Yes, I read from somewhere that Volt will be using J1772 standard.