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Showing posts from December, 2015

BMW EV Infrastructure Discussions from the LA Auto Show: Part 2

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On a recent trip to Vermont I stopped at Prestige BMW in New Jersey on both legs of the journey. They recently installed two 24 kW DC Fast Charge stations that are accessible 24/7 and free to use. A robust DC Fast charge infrastructure is crucial for mass EV adoption. This is the second half of a two part post on BMW's infrastructure plans, current and future. Having spent time with BMW's EV infrastructure team at the LA Auto Show, (Robert Healey, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Manager, Idine Ghoreishian, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Specialist, and Cliff Fietzek, Manager of Connected eMobility) I posted the first half of this report last week. In that post, we discussed the East and West Coast Express Charging Corridors, and the just-announced ChargeNow DC Fast program. ChargeNow DC Fast: I reached out to Jeremy Desel, Director of Communications for EVgo, to discuss the deployment rate of the 500 ChargeNow DC Fast stations . What Desel told me was pretty impressive:  ...

BMW EV Infrastructure Discussions from the LA Auto Show: Part 1

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A few weeks ago at the LA Auto Show, BMW made news by announcing a partnership with NRG's EVgo to install an additional 500 DC Fast Charge stations in 25 major US markets. The project is called the ChergeNow DC Fast and is actually the second phase of a program started in 2014, which brought 100 DC fast charge stations to select California areas. I was there at the show for Press Preview days, and had the opportunity to sit down with basically all of the top EV infrastructure managers at BMW of North America. Seated at the table were Robert Healey, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Manager, Idine Ghoreishian, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Specialist, and Cliff Fietzek, Manager of Connected eMobility. Even though the news of the ChargeNow DC Fast program had just been released, I wanted to first talk about the East and West Coast Express Charging Corridors. If you remember, this program was announced back in January at NAIAS  and the press release stated that approximately 100 stati...

BMW i3 Melts Away in House Fire

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Believe it or not, this was an i3. Unlike the 328i that was also destroyed in the fire, it's difficult to tell that this pile of burnt material was once a car. One of two things usually happens when people see an image of an electric vehicle on fire or the remnants of an electric vehicle that had been on fire. If you're an EV supporter, you probably hold your breath and grimace a bit until you can read the article to learn what caused the fire and if anyone was hurt. But for many people who are unfamiliar with electric vehicles, they likely question the safety of EVs. They don't even have to read the article; they just see "EV and fire" together and the unfortunate and uninformed speculation begins. Luckily, since the recent electric vehicle movement began roughly 6 years ago, there have been very few cases of EV fires, and to my knowledge no one involved has suffered an injury. Other than a couple of incidents involving the defunct Fisker Karma, the causes of EV ...