San Diego Gas & Electric is offering two on seminars on electric vehicle charging in October! A a seminar on workplace vehicle charging will be held on October 18th and seminars on charging in multi-unit dwellings will be held on October 25th. Details below

Seminar 1 | Tuesday, October 18
Plug-in Vehicles & Workplace
Charging Seminar
This seminar focuses on:

• Charging equipment options, from
  standard outlets to DC Fast Charging
• Important considerations for your
  workplace charging policy
• Factors affecting utility billing costs
  for charging
• Parking management, usage monitoring
  and pay-for-use options
• Available incentives
• Factors affecting installation costs

Read More…

Seminar 2 | Tuesday, October 25
What’s Involved When Residents Want to Charge a Plug-In Vehicle Within a Multi-Unit Dwelling Community?

Learn about the stakeholders involved, the
decision process flow and possible issues for multi-unit dwelling communities interested in the install- ation of vehicle charging units for electric cars.

Read More…

Speakers

Matt Zerega is a Product Innovations Project Manager for SDG&E’s Clean Transportation group. He has a 4+ year academic background in automotive technology and over 15 years’ experience in global consulting, merchant power and utilities focusing on energy economics, financial analysis and information technology.

Joel Pointon is the Manager of Electric Transportation for SDG&E® and has initiated a national emphasis program on plug-in electric vehicle charging for multi-unit dwellings. He serves on a number national advisory panels for electric transportation and has presented on this topic extensively in California and the U.S.

Additional seminars will take place on November 30 and December 20.

For more information and to register please visit seminars.sdge.com

You can view a flyer for the workshops here.

SDG&E offers vehicle charging workshops is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

Here are a few resources on charging stations across the country.

Electric Drive Transportation Association: http://www.goelectricdrive.com website under the National Plug-in Vehicle Initiative. SDG&E has participated in founding the concept, participated in the development of this website through the Steering Committee, Outreach Committee, Technical and Policy Committees that developed this site.

Rocky Mountain Institute’s Project Get Ready: http://www.projectgetready.org. SDG&E serves on the Technical Advisory Committee for this resource which provides resources to cities relative to charging initiatives.

Coulomb Technologies has created an online map www.mychargepoint.net/find-stations.php showing units across the country.

ECOtality also has an interactive map at www.theevproject.com/charging-maps.php, though the company won’t start building its stations until next month.

The Department of Energy runs the Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center, which features a map of stations for alternative vehicles. www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations.

EV Charger News ( www.evchargernews.com ) lists locations as well as driver comments on the units.

Charging Station Resources is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

(Source: Environmental News Service)

SAN DIEGO, California, January 31, 2011 (ENS) – San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders Monday rolled out Smart City San Diego, a broad public-private collaboration that aims to improve the region’s energy independence, empower consumers to adopt electric vehicles, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and drive economic growth.

Smart City San Diego partners are the City of San Diego, San Diego Gas & Electric, GE, the University of California San Diego and CleanTECH San Diego, a nonprofit organization that includes business and financial leaders, academic and research institutes, government agencies and other nonprofits.

“With the San Diego region currently preparing for one of the largest initial deployments of electric vehicles in the country, the first priority for Smart City San Diego is to expand current projects to implement a comprehensive electric vehicle infrastructure,” said Mayor Sanders.

Electric car draws power from a GE WattStation in San Diego. (Photo courtesy GE)

“This is the first of many initiatives that our partners throughout the region will undertake to make San Diego the foremost resource-conscious community in the United States,” the mayor said.

Electric vehicles offer tremendous benefits to consumers and the city while posing significant challenges, the mayor said.

While electric vehicles could reduce U.S. oil importation by 52 percent, and electricity costs per mile are calculated at one-quarter to one-third the cost of gasoline, there are obstacles to overcome.

Grid reliability, consumer impact, public charging and alternative fuel options are some of the issues Smart City San Diego intends to address as part of a comprehensive plan to bring more efficient, reliable and sustainable energy to everyday living.

GE is involved through its charging station, the GE WattStation, which charges vehicles quickly and uses smart grid technology that allows utility companies to manage the impact EVs have on the local and regional electric grids.

“Increasingly, competitiveness will be determined by our ability to grow in a prosperous yet sustainable manner,” said Bob Gilligan, vice president, Digital Energy, GE Energy Services at Monday’s event. “GE is helping San Diego and cities around the world strike a balance between these seemingly contradictory goals.”

The Smart City San Diego plan includes five electric vehicle initiatives:

• To streamline EV charging, UC San Diego, San Diego Gas & Electric and GE will demonstrate smart technologies to identify when and where charging will occur, and work with electric vehicle owners to better manage charging loads.
• To ensure easy and rapid deployment of electric vehicle chargers for both home and public-access locations, San Diego Gas & Electric and the City of San Diego will develop an efficient electric vehicle permitting process.
• To test the technical and economic feasibility of achieving zero tailpipe emissions, UC San Diego, GE and San Diego Gas & Electric will use UC San Diego’s solar and fuel cell renewable energy generation infrastructure. CleanTECH San Diego will link anticipated technology needs in the electric vehicle sector and innovators in the region.
• To quantify the economic impacts of the electric vehicle initiatives, such as cluster growth, incremental job growth and training needs, CleanTECH San Diego and the City of San Diego will collaborate.
• The collaborators plan to enlist a consumer focus group of 50 UC San Diego students, faculty, and staff who will be offered commercial leases on electric vehicles, charging their vehicles through UC San Diego’s planned electric vehicle infrastructure.

“UC San Diego is committed to working with our partners to develop and demonstrate innovations that will enable carbon-free transportation,” said Marye Anne Fox, the university’s chancellor.

“Through our collaboration, and the university’s significant investment in renewable energy generation and storage, smart grid communication infrastructure and the expertise of our faculty and staff,” said Fox, “we are poised to help with the successful adoption of electric vehicles in San Diego and eventually mainstream America.”

San Diego Gets EV-Ready With New ‘Smart City’ Collaboration is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

All-new Ford Focus testing, courtesy newfordfocusmedia.com

San Diego is one of 20 urban markets selected by Ford to sell Focus Electric, the Company’s First All-Electric Passenger Car.

From Ford’s media site:

• Ford has announced the first U.S. markets slated to receive the all-new Focus Electric, which debuts in late 2011
• Markets were chosen based on several criteria, including commuting patterns, existing hybrid purchase trends, utility company collaboration and local government commitment to electrification
• Focus Electric is Ford’s first all electric passenger car, and is targeting up to 100 miles of zero CO2-emissions, gas-free driving on a full charge
• Ford has an aggressive strategy that will deliver a range of electrified vehicles in both Europe and North America, including the Transit Connect Electric small commercial van, two next-generation lithium-ion battery hybrids and a plug-in hybrid

DEARBORN, Mich., Nov. 15 – Ford Motor Company has announced first markets that will sell the Focus Electric, Ford’s first all-electric, zero CO2-emissions passenger car.

The first markets selected for Ford Focus Electric: Atlanta, Austin and Houston, Texas; Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Orlando, Fla., Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.; Portland, Ore.; Raleigh Durham, N.C.; Richmond, Va., Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Read more on Ford Names First Markets To Sell Focus Electric, The Company’s First All-Electric Passenger Car. Also from MarketWatch.com, “Ford Names First Markets to Sell Focus Electric…”

San Diego Included in Ford Focus Electric First Sales Market is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

I am happy to report that GoElectricDrive.com the National Plug-in Vehicle Initiative Project of the EDTA is now LIVE! This website will provide a national resource for those interested in learning more about plug-in electric vehicles, charging, PEV rates, incentives, PEVs coming to market, EVSE equipment and their specifications, PEV news and EVSE locations and projects.

Please visit and familiarize yourself with the site: http://goelectricdrive.com/

Try your zip code in resource locator and check out the resources listed , including SDG&E. or look at one of the charging information pages

http://www.goelectricdrive.com/Charging/HomeCharging.aspx

This site will be announced this morning at the LA Auto Show, and content will continue to increase and improvements and enhancements will continually be made.  SDG&E has been involved in the establishment of this site from the earliest suggestion for the need for such a national resource, through the development and contributions to its content. We are happy to have contributed to this resource now being available to all.   Thank you to the members of the SDG&E Clean Transportation team for their contributions an participation.

Joel Pointon
Electric Transportation Manager
San Diego Gas & Electric
8306 Century Park Ct. CP42K
San Diego, CA 92123
Website: sdge.com/cleantransportation

GoElectricDrive.com goes LIVE! is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

I’ve been test driving a Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle (PHV) slated for release in early 2012…I’ve been mostly driving around town (75% local roads, 25% highway) using EV mode for~50% of the driving and hybrid mode for the other half. I have been averaging 97 miles per gallon. Note: I received complimentary use of this Toyota 2010 Plug in Prius and all comments posted here are my own opinion.

My initial observations:

Battery Charging:

I have solar panels installed on my roof.  Despite not having a time of use plan or smart meter installed yet, I know that my electricity rates are in Tier 1 (13.4 cents per kilowatt-hour, or kWh) so I have been liberally re-charging the battery from home during the day in between trips.

It is easy to plug in the car into a standard 120 volt/3 prong home outlet.  The dash has an indicator light to let you know charging is taking place and the light goes out when fully charged. I recommend you have  a dedicated circuit since it draws a lot of electricity.  My electricity would go out if I was re-charging the car and running the vacuum on the same circuit for instance.

While I am excited to get 97 mpg over the past two weeks, I still have to add in the electricity costs to achieve these fuel savings. If you aren’t on a time of use metering system, you will have a hard time knowing your battery charging costs in real time. You’ll have to wait for your electricity bill at the end of the month.

It takes about 3 hours to fully charge the battery, which has 5.2 kWh of total capacity, and about 4 kWh of useable capacity.

If your electricity rates are really high (meaning your household uses a lot of electricity and you are charged at up to  to 32 cents per kWh) and if you don’t have a time of use system which will allow you to charge your vehicle cheaply at certain times of the day, I’m not sure what the real costs would be or if a consumer would want to pay more for a Plug-in Hybrid.

Range:

The PlugIn Prius Battery as a range of 14 miles which initially seems low to me. However, with mostly driving short distances and making use of the eco driving mode and the “B” option you can add a more more miles onto the battery life through re-charging while driving.

General Driving:

The Prius feels solid and handles well. I like the Power Mode for faster acceleration. The dashboard display takes some getting used to coming from a conventional car dashboard but the driver feedback is great and if you want to maximize your fuel economy, it is easy to do because of the real-time info while driving. It’s too bad all cars don’t provide real time fuel economy info–it was sobering to see just how much fuel you use driving uphill for example.

I generally drove the car in Eco Mode which makes it slightly harder to accelerate quickly when you are stopped but it allowed me to use the battery more effectively.

The visibility out the rear window is limited because of the hatchback design. There is a split screen effect, you can see the road a bit from the window under the rear door but I found myself less confident about what I was viewing out the rear window and relied on the side mirrors a lot more than I normally do. A family member’s Prius I drove briefly two years ago had a rear view camera on the GPA screen on the dash which showed me exactly was what behind me. I don’t know why this feature has been removed. I would recommend adding it back.

Test Driving the Prius Plug-In Hybrid is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

The 25,000 EVs will constitute most of GE’s fleet.

NEWS |  TRANSPORTATION

MICHAEL KANELLOS: NOVEMBER 11, 2010

The electric car industry has clamored for a case study to showcase they economics of electric cars. General Electric is giving them one.

The conglomerate said it would purchase 25,000 electric cars for its fleet. GE’s global car fleet right now is 30,000 cars so electrics will come to predominate. GE will buy 12,000 next year, including many Chevy Volts (General Motors only plans to make around 10,000 Volts through 2011, but could expand to 15,000). By 2015, half of the fleet cars will be electric.

This will likely make General Electric one of the largest owners of electric cars in the world. Wal-Mart, UPS, and other delivery companies are converting to electric and hybrid deliver trucks, but the size of GE’s fleet will be tough to match.

Fleet owners will be one of the important drivers for EVs. Nearly half of the cars sold are actually fleet cars, said Brandon Mason, Global Powertrain Lead Analyst, U.S. Auto Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers at The Networked EV this week. It is also easier for fleet owners to incorporate technologies like high-powered charging stations or even battery swapping into the mix. Fleet cars ply circumscribed routes for the most part–employees aren’t taking them skiing on the weekend. As a result, charging stations and infrastructure can be localized.

Better Place, the battery swapping and charging guys, will launch in Israel with fleet customers. Proterra, the electric bus company, sells its buses with high speed chargers.

Electric cars, of course, would help GE’s bottom line. The company sells the WattStation charging station, but also transformers, smart grid equipment, sodium sulfur batteries and all those other components that will be required to beef up the grid for electric drive. Kevin Dasso at PG&E estimates that it will cost $150 million to $175 million to upgrade the grid for uncontrolled (i.e. peak hour) charging. Even with off-peak charging, upgrades will be needed.

General Electric to Purchase Massive Flotilla of Electric Cars is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

Check out this article from Automotive News on a major purchase of PEVs:

GE to buy 25,000 electric vehicles from GM, rivals by 2015 (from Automotive News  –  11/11/10)

November 11, 2010 – 9:49 am ET

DETROIT (Bloomberg) — General Electric Co. will buy 25,000 electric vehicles, almost half of them from General Motors Co., by 2015 in the biggest such order ever.

Electric autos will make up at least half of GE’s 30,000-car fleet, as well as leased vehicles from its GE Capital unit, the company said in a statement today. GM’s portion of the order is for 12,000 vehicles including the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

GE’s order is a boost for the Volt as GM prepares for an initial public offering after its 2009 restructuring in bankruptcy.

“Wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles will also drive clean-energy innovation, strengthen energy security and deliver economic value,” GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt said in the statement. GE’s equipment generates one-third of the world’s electricity.

“Electric vehicles are a real-world technology that can reduce both emissions and our dependence on oil,” GM CEO Dan Akerson said in the statement. The company plans to deliver Volts by the end of this year, he said. The sedan has an electric motor to drive the wheels and a gasoline engine to recharge the batteries once they’re spent.

Immelt is positioning GE to benefit from more energy-efficient technologies by producing batteries, car-charging stations and smart-grid systems. GE said it’s in a “strong position” to help 65,000 leasing customers convert to electric vehicles and sees the electric-car market adding as much as $500 million in sales in the next three years.

In the U.S., the Obama administration has committed more than $11 billion in taxpayer aid to help car and battery makers start producing electric vehicles.

Battery power

Other automakers preparing to sell vehicles powered solely by batteries in the next 18 months include Nissan Motor Co., which starts delivering Leaf hatchbacks late this year; Ford Motor Co., readying electric versions of its Transit Connect delivery van and Focus compact car; and Toyota Motor Corp., which will sell a rechargeable RAV4 SUV.

By buying so many vehicles, GE is helping drive down their price, which will spur production and increase demand for battery plants and other parts makers, Fred Smith, chairman of the Electrification Coalition, a Washington-based organization of transportation and energy executives, said in the statement. Smith is CEO of FedEx Corp.

The move will “make electric vehicles more visible and acceptable to the public at large,” Smith said. “This is good for GE, good for our economy and good for our nation.”

GE will open two customer centers to evaluate vehicle-charging, driver experience and maintenance requirements and to display an array of models and manufacturers. One will be near Detroit in Van Buren Township, Mich., as part of a new technology center GE announced last year, and the other in Eden Prairie, Minn., where GE Capital Fleet Services is based, according to the statement.

GE is investing $10 billion in the next five years in clean energy across its business lines. Its products include lithium ion batteries for cars and trucks via a venture with A123 Systems Inc. and sodium-based batteries for use in large vehicles such as locomotives.

GE Energy Infrastructure is the company’s biggest industrial unit, accounting for $37 billion of the parent company’s $157 billion in revenue last year. GE is also the world’s largest maker of locomotives, jet engines, medical-imaging equipment and related information technology systems.”

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101111/OEM/101119974/1429#ixzz14zh0z2TQ

GE to purchase 25,000 PEVs is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

Good news from the SAE publication, Automotive Engineering International, September 7, 2010, issue, AEI-Online.org, page 10, “SAE standards bring order to EV battery world.”  140 volunteers from 80 countries has joined the Battery Standards Committee. Each of 10 taskforces is working to develop a new standard.  Here are the ones identified:

1. J2929 – Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Propulsion Battery System Safety Standard
2. J1798 – Recommended Practice for Performance Rating of Electric Vehicle Battery Modules
3. J2758 – Determination of Maximum Available Power from a Rechargeable Energy Storage System on a Hybrid Electric
4. J2936 – Vehicle Battery Labeling Guidelines
5. J2946 – Battery Electronic Fuel Gauging Recommended Practices
6. J2950 – Recommended Practices (RP) for Transportation and Handling of Automotive-type Rechargeable Energy Storage Systems (RESS)
7. J537 – Storage Batteries

“People’s lives and livelihoods depend upon our expertise as a group of industry professionals to write these standards correctly,” said Robert Gaylen, Chair of SAE’s Battery Standards Committee and General Manager of the Batteries and Materials testing Group ii the newly formed E-Car group at Magma.

Tom Bartley

EV Battery Standards is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition

Source: Vancouver Sun

SHENZHEN, China — In a bid to get a fully electric car on the road with appeal beyond the “green market,” China’s BYD, Build Your Dreams, has taken one big step ahead of most of its competitors.

In May, the small automotive company, which U.S. financial wizard Warren Buffett put on the map when he bought a 10 per cent stake, watched the first 30 of its e6 purely electric models roll onto the streets of Shenzhen and begin cruising the city as taxis. By the end of June, BYD expects to have 100 e6 taxis on the road and, although the company won’t confirm it yet, some sources say 560 by the end of the year. The ultimate goal is 1,500, about 10 per cent of all Shenzhen cabs.

The red and white taxis have “zero emission” printed on them and emblazoned across the back in Chinese characters is the boast: “This is not a conventional car, this is a declaration of environmental protection.”

It’s interesting to note the reactions because the taxi driver appears totally indifferent to the experiment he’s involved in.

“A car is a car,” he said. “For a taxi driver it’s to make money. If passengers like it better, then we do, too.”

Paul Lin, spokesman for BYD bridles slightly when asked about the e6 experiment.

“It’s not a test program, frankly speaking. It’s a real business. It’s a beginning,” he said.

Lin explains that in China, where there are more than a million taxis on the streets and they are all owned or controlled by some level of government, it makes a lot of sense to begin e-car sales by penetrating the taxis market. So, BYD invested in Pengcheng

Electric Taxi Company with Shenzhen Bus Group, a company that is ultimately controlled by the city government.

“It should give confidence and guide the public,” Lin said. “If the government uses purely electric vehicles, it will be a very big sign for the public. ‘Oh, the electric vehicle, it works!’ It spells it out for the public.”

What Lin doesn’t say, but clearly implies, is that it is also a way to get governments to begin investing in e-car charging stations before, likely well before, they wholeheartedly commit to policies promoting purely electric cars.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: VANCOUVER SUN

Electric Taxi Fleet is a post from: San Diego Clean Fuels Coalition