Green Options

Dell has been a trend-setter when it comes to the incorporation of greener technologies to reduce their corporate carbon footprint and they’re doing it again! Although this time they are following the lead of Google, by installing solar trees in the parking lot of their head office in Round Rock, Texas.

-Above: the Nissan “Leaf” Electric Vehicle (learn more on the Nissan/eTEC partnership).

With $99.8 million from the Federal Government, ECOtality is on a mission to make America plug-in ready.

There’s been a tremendous flurry of activity in recent weeks with President Obama’s announcement of $2.4 billion in grants to accelerate the manufacturing and deployment of the next generation of U.S. batteries and electric vehicles. We at ECOtality and our subsidiary Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec) are thrilled to be a part of that activity as the recipients of $99.8 million grant for the largest electrification transportation project in history.

Our history in electric transportation dates back to 1989 and we have worked on every EV initiative in North America since then. Today, through our grant from the federal government, we’re embarking on an exciting project to truly make America plug-in ready: we are partnering with Nissan to deploy 5,000 zero-emission battery electric vehicles and 12,750 charging stations in five markets across the United States.

As part of the Senate’s proposed tax stimulus plan, tax credits of up to $7500 have been included for plug-in electric vehicles! This is huge proposal and signifies the Senate is willing to work with President Obama to wean the United States off its dependency on foreign oil.

The Senate proposal would double the number of cars eligible for the credit, as well as stimulate the economy through sales of plug-in electric hybrid vehicles when they hit the showrooms [...]

In a recent television ad released by the McCain campaign, the Senator picks up on the critical issues of energy and the economy. But the League of Conservation Voters isn’t buying it.

In a slew of announcements this week, a picture of what the future of plug-in vehicle charging might look like is starting to emerge.

The Problem:

There are 54 million garages for the 247 million registered cars in the US, meaning that the majority of cars are parked overnight in parking structures, parking lots or curbside.

As a result, most potential plug-in vehicle consumers do not have an adequate place to charge their vehicles. This problem is even more pronounced in urban areas like San Francisco, where only about 16% of cars are parked in garages overnight and the rest end up curbside or in parking lots.

Also, although the US power grid probably has enough overall capacity to supply energy to a nation of plug-in vehicles, it may not have the ability to charge them when they all plug-in and demand energy at the same time — say 6 pm every weekday.