Posted on 11/25/2010 9:30:47 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
RALEIGH -- The city introduced two electric-car charging stations Tuesday, the first of many sprouting up across Raleigh as electric and hybrid cars become more common. Officials showcased the recharging stations in front of City Hall on Hargett Street. A third station is scheduled to be installed near the convention center next week.
The plan is for Raleigh to have at least 30 stations by September, most of them downtown in public parking garages or near N.C. State University's Centennial Campus. Those will be part of a bigger wave that will bring more than 350 recharging stations to North Carolina, most of them financed by federal stimulus money.
Raleigh's efforts are part of a partnership the city formed last year with Indianapolis and Portland, Ore. Mayor Charles Meeker said the move will make Raleigh a leader in electric vehicles in the Southeast.
"We're trying to get ahead of this, but also trying to anticipate consumer demand," Meeker said. "There are a lot of people interested in green activities right now, and this is certainly one of them."
The recharging stations, with 9-foot cords, will provide free electricity, though drivers will need to pay the parking meter.
The parking spaces in front of City Hall are not reserved for drivers with electric cars, so anyone will be able to use them for now.
Meeker said the pods are meant for drivers who fully charge their cars at home but want to recharge for an hour or two to get a few extra miles of power while they're downtown.
Raleigh's initial stations are being donated by Eaton Corp., an Ohio-based company with operations throughout the Triangle and the state. They would have cost about $3,000 each had thecity paid for them, said Nelson Daniels, Raleigh's sustainability technician.
Assistant City Manager Julian Prosser said the company's offer to donate its technology helped Eaton's product get selected for the initial rollout.
Auto technology companies are eager to have their products on Raleigh streets by summer, when the city will host the annual electric car conference of the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit, utility-industry think tank.
The Triangle is seen as a future proving ground for electric and hybrid vehicles. NCSU installed a station on its Centennial Campus this year so prospective students can take campus tours in an electric car.
City of Raleigh staffers use 10 hybrid cars for city work, and they expect to get 10 additional electric cars next year.
Ultimately pointless but at a considerable cost to taxpayers
Drive your gasoline car to city hall; plop some quarters into the parking meter, and plugthe cable into the charger for the battery packs in the trunk.
Drive home, and plug the battery packs into your transformer that feeds your 12V (don't need permits to install them) lighting circuits, and light up your life with free electricity.
Just takes the usual combination of larceny, ingenuity, and elbow grease...and a trip to Home Depot.
Looks like two homos deciding who will try it first. The guy on the left has that i dunno look but the guy on the right can’t wait to try. The guy in the suit looks like he is measuring it up. What a waste of time but typical of a southern town over run by people from the north.
>Not only that. All these electric cars ACTUALLY run on COAL......<
is there a down side?
All we need now is 100 mile long extension cords.
“We’re trying to get ahead of this, but also trying to anticipate consumer demand,”
I can anticipate the demand right now, for free.
I see they fooled you too. Those buttons were NEVER connected to anything. They NEVER worked.
They are just there to trick people into standing passively on the curb instead of running through traffic.
The electricity is free? How is this possible, with utility bills “necessarily skyrocketing?”
That means that someone else will be paying for it. Electricity cost to produce and to transmit. Once produced and not used it is lost forever.
find some homeless folks warming themselves with provised electric heating devices.
Provided by the government of course.
That’s like saying the government should give those poor ladies on grampa’s computer some cloths.
Hmmmm - free electricity. I wonder if I can tapnto that to run some of my house.
More "rebates" to push a product that can't make it via Capitalism and Fee Enterprise - the rest of us pay to bring down the price of the vehicles, then we pay to bring down the price of the owners' operating costs, along with insulating them from the realities of the limitations of the current technology.
How long before they are known as Bum Pods? Built it and they will come...
Not Christmas lights. Possibly Kwanza lights or Ramadan lights...but not Christmas lights.
Wow, not only is it federal money, it's federal stimulus money !
I feel a tingle going up my leg, right into my wallet.
Federal money ! Like it's from the land of rainbows and ponies. It's taxpayer's money, squandered on a snake oil scam.
Where’s all this electric power going to come from if the Demonazis won’t let new power plants be built?
Hybrid: a Rube-Goldberg nightmare that admits electric cars are inadequate.
Yes - we’ll be paying for this while being forced to use those mercury light bulbs in order to “save electricity.”
If these toys were of any use, the government would not be building charging stations. It would be private enterprise. Get the government out of our private transportation. CORRECTION: GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR TRANSPORTATION.
I think a better combination is the Natural Gas fuel cell.
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1756
bump for later use as ammunition. Thanks.
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