SAN FRANCISCO—It just got easier to charge electric vehicles if you live in California. According to SolarCity, a firm involved in the project, there are four 240-volt electric vehicle (E.V.) charging stations along Highway 101 from San Francisco to Los Angeles. A fifth will open in mid-October, all in an effort to push electric-powered vehicles to the mainstream.
The project was developed in partnership with Rabobank and Tesla Motors. The charging stations might go solar in the near future.
New EV Charging Stations Three Times Faster
In a statement, SolarCity said that they see the advent of the charging stations as a drastic increase in convenience for E.V. drivers. The company claims that these stations are three times faster at charging a vehicle than other public recharge stations, and at no cost. The full charge time would be about three and a half hours.
Critics of electric cars say they are inefficient because of the slow recharge time due to battery limitations. For other charging stations, the electricity has to come from fossil-fuel powered sources.
SolarCity's CEO Lyndon Rive said in a statement that a “charging station corridor” in California is important because it promotes a carbon-free lifestyle. All of the recharging stations are located in Rabobank parking lots, near restaurants, and department stores.
Recharging stations won't be useful to the vast majority of the drivers on the road today. Charging stations only work with the $109,000 Tesla Roadster, an E.V. which caused a stir in the auto industry earlier this year.
The Tesla Roadster is reported to get about 250 to 300 miles on a fully charged "tank." All the stations cost $7,000 to $12,000 to install, with the funding provided by the Californa Air Resources Board. SolarCity says that they will retrofit the stations for other E.V.'s in the future.
The four charging stations are located in the California cities of San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Atascadero, and Salinas. Another one in Goleta will open on mid-October.
In the past, SolarCity did home installations for 100 solar charging stations designed for Tesla owners.
