Coulomb is working with Ford, Chevrolet and smart USA, all of whom have announced plans to introduce EVs in the Bay Area in the coming months. The first two ChargePoint America stations are now installed at the McEnery Convention Center Parking Center.
The ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations will be unveiled at a press conference today at 2:00 P.M. Pacific Time at the McEnery Convention Center Parking Center Second Level, 150 W. San Carlos Street, San Jose, Calif. 95113. Mayor Chuck Reed, Coulomb CEO Richard Lowenthal, Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino and former San Francisco 49er Roger Craig will present. Also attending the ceremony are ChargePoint America program vehicle partners Ford and smart USA.
“The installation of San Jose’s first ChargePoint America station is an important step forward in our efforts to make the Bay Area the Electric Vehicle Capital of America,” said Mayor Chuck Reed. “Our partnership with Coulomb Technologies is the perfect example of how Silicon Valley can lead the world in clean tech innovation and create new green jobs in our community.”
“Coulomb’s first customer was the City of San Jose and we’re pleased to be back, both to welcome the electric vehicle transformation to Silicon Valley and also to bring jobs to install and maintain electric vehicle infrastructure,” said Richard Lowenthal CEO of Coulomb Technologies. “Thanks to our $37 Million ChargePoint America program, San Jose will be one of the first cities in the nation to enable its residents to buy vehicles that don’t pollute and don’t depend on oil.”
Coulomb’s ChargePoint America program will provide nearly 5,000 charging stations to program participants in nine regions in the United States: Austin, Texas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Fla., Sacramento, Calif., the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, Bellevue/Redmond, Wash., and Washington DC and is a strategic partnership between Coulomb and three leading automobile makers: Ford, Chevrolet and Smart USA. Coulomb currently has the largest established base of networked charging stations worldwide with more than 700 units shipped to more than 130 customers. Installation of the ChargePoint charging stations is underway now in all nine regions.
ChargePoint America will offer both public and home charging stations to individuals and businesses. Businesses in and around the Bay Area interested in receiving free public charging stations should visit the ChargePoint America web site www.chargepointamerica.com and sign up by completing the application form. Individuals interested in purchasing an EV should sign up to receive more information about qualifying to receive a home charging station. Additionally, the ChargePoint America web site provides a way for drivers to suggest public locations for charging stations.
Coulomb’s ChargePoint® Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and provides authentication, management and real-time control for the networked electric vehicle charging stations. ChargePoint Network’s unique features include:
* Charging status by SMS text or email notification
* Location of unoccupied charging stations via smart phones
* A ChargePoint iPhone App
* Authenticated access to eliminate energy theft
* Authorized energizing for safety
* A billing system for those station owners who want drivers to pay for charging
* Smart Grid integration for utility load management with future V2G capabilities
On October 7, 2007, Mayor Chuck Reed introduced San Jose’s Green Vision, which sets 10 ambitious goals for environmental protection and economic development. This 15-year plan envisions: creating 25,000 Clean Tech jobs; building or retrofitting 50 million square feet of green buildings; installing 100,000 solar roofs (1/10 of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1 million solar roofs for California initiative); reducing per capita electricity use by half; becoming a zero waste city; recycling and reusing 100 percent of the city’s water; and moving to 100 percent renewable energy. A key part of the San Jose Green vision is the creation of a Green Mobility system—an integrated and sustainable way to get from place to place. Working to generate demand which further elevates zero emissions/alternative fuel transportation viability, San Jose is confronting the global climate crisis and end domestic dependence on fossil fuels.
The $37 million ChargePoint America program is made possible by a $15M grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Transportation Electrification Initiative administered by the Department of Energy. ChargePoint America will provide 4,600 public and home ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations by October 2011, adding to the existing ChargePoint Network. Coulomb will work together with its distribution and industry partners to evaluate the demand from the respective geographic regions and allocate charging stations based on this and other factors. The ChargePoint America project will collect data characterizing vehicle use and charging patterns, and Purdue University and Idaho National Labs will analyze the data.
Coulomb Technologies is the leader in electric vehicle charging systems and application services, with the ChargePoint Network now operating in 14 countries, and Network Operations Centers in the U.S., London, and Hong Kong. Coulomb provides a vehicle-charging solution, with an open system driver network: the ChargePoint Network provides multiple web-based portals for Hosts, Fleet managers, Drivers, and Utilities, and ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations ranging in capability from 120 Volt to 240 Volt AC charging and up to 500 Volt DC charging.
