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My i3 charging from the HSC-40p. You can see my older ClipperCreek CS-40 all the way on the left. When it comes to electric vehicle charging equipment, there’s certainly no shortage of choices. Even though it’s a relatively new market, there are dozens of manufacturers selling products that allow owners to safely and conveniently charge their electric cars. Although this equipment is commonly referred to as a "charger" or "wallbox", the proper term is actually EVSE, which stands for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment.  These devices don't actually charge the car; they provide the electricity to do so. That's because the actual charging equipment is built into the car. The EVSE's purpose is to safely deliver the correct amount of electricity to the onboard charging equipment.  Now that electric cars are beginning to gain momentum in the marketplace, there are a lot of companies jockeying to get a market share of the EVSE business. The vast majority of thes...

BMW continues to make news with regards to electric vehicle infrastructure and customer charging programs. Coming off yesterday’s Nissan partnership news, today BMW has announced the expansion of their ChargeNow by EVgo program. The ChargeNow by EVgo program was initiated by BMW in November of 2015, and was active in 25 ChargeNow DC Fast EVgo metro markets. The expansion now includes the entire national network of DC Fast charging station in 33 states covering more than 50 metro areas. BMW claims that the now-expanded network will be accessible for over 92% of new i3 owners. There are a number of different options and aspects of the ChargeNow EVgo program, including two years of unlimited, free DC Fast charge access to BMW i3 owners that purchased or leased a new i3 from November 1st, 2015 onward.   From the press release: ChargeNow by EVgo no-cost and specially priced public charging programs - exclusively for BMW i and iPerformance drivers - now available in more than 50 metro ...

Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and drive a BMW i3, i8, X540e, 330e or 740e? If so, would you like to get paid to participate in BMW i's award winning ChargeForward initiative, while helping to shape the future of electric vehicle charging? BMW is seeking 250 individuals to participate in the second phase of the ChargeForward initiative, which will last approximately 24 months. The first phase of the program is now complete, and volunteers are needed for the second phase, which begins in January, 2017. This phase includes vehicle to grid managed charging, and stationary energy storage systems which utilize repurposed MINI-E battery packs. Back in 2015, this program won the ESNA Innovation Award for EV Battery 2nd Life Energy Storage System. From the ChargeForward website: The second phase of ChargeForward, from January 2017 through December 2018, is expected to demonstrate expanded benefits of charging optimization through management of both current and projected future c...

Two years ago a wrote I post suggesting that Tesla and BMW would eventually face off .  That's clearly going to happen with the launch of Tesla's Model 3. We’ve all seen upcoming products being described with buzzwords like “revolutionary” and “disruptive” that later translate into something much less successful after the public actually gets a chance to experience them. I can remember the hype leading up to the launch of Dean Kamen’s Segway back in 2001 when Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos boldly predicted, “Cities would be built around (it).”  While the Segway has enjoyed some success, it never really penetrated the market much beyond specialized uses, like transportation for police departments, guided tours, and theme parks. On the other side of the coin we can look at what the evolution of the cellular phone has done for communication, and what the digital camera has done for photography and the film industry. Both products revolutionized their respective industries ...

Like all of GM's plug in vehicles, the charge port on the upcoming Chevy Bolt is located on the front left side of the vehicle. Did GM get this right? Over the past six years I've interviewed and had discussions with electric vehicle product managers from just about every company selling EVs today, and a few that will be selling EVs in the near future. One of the more interesting topics I've found has been the subject of where they've decided to locate the charge port, and how they came to that decision. For example, last month at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, I sat down with Daimler's manager of electric motors and power electronics, Franz Neitfeld to discuss Daimler's current plug in Hybrid offerings, and where they are going in the future. When I brought up the topic of the unusual charge port location that Mercedes is using on all of their PHEVs, he told me they gave this much consideration, and after doing so they decided the right ...