I've said it before and I'll say it again, for electric vehicles to gain widespread adoption, there must be a robust infrastructure of available charging stations (and an improvement in battery charging times).
Even though lots of municipalities are rolling out EV charging stations (with mass curbside charger saturation promised this year by companies like GE), the chargers are still slim pickings in most places. The all powerful Google is hoping to change that.
In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and using data from the Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center, you can now locate over 600 stations nationally by typing "EV charging station near [city/location]". The station locations are pinpointed and listed in the viewing pane to the left of the map, just like any other Google Maps search result.
Seriously, do you think this will help ease the "range anxiety" of prospective EV owners? If you knew all you had to do to find a curbside charger was pop over to GoogleMaps on your iPhone or Android device, would it ease the tension?
Surinder Saini
said on March 23, 2011