US electronics retailer Best Buy will soon offer charging stations after reaching an agreement with ECOtality, Inc.
Level two, J1722-compliant charging stations will be installed at 12 Best Buy stores in Tucson, Arizona; Phoenix, Arizona; San Diego, California; Los Angeles, California; and Seattle, Washington. They are expected to be in place by March, 2011.
They will be used as part of the Electric Vehicle (EV) project from ECOtality, which will analyse real-world experiences of users to develop best practices for infrastructure in a variety of regions. The data gathered from the Blink EV charging stations will offer a characterisation of consumer charging behaviour as well as identify the potential incentives for electric vehicle host sites.
The results of the micro-climate process in the pilot regions will consider geographic location; distance to major interstates and transportation routes; and distance to other EV Project charging facilities.
In addition, the charging locations will complement the Blink Network charging stations that ECOtality installs as a project manager for the EV Project. The chargers are fully interactive and come with colour touch screens as well as the ability to connect to a web portal that offers users charge status, statistics, history and billing information.
ECOtality now plans to install 15,000 commercial and residential charging stations as part of the EV Project in 16 cities and major metropolitan areas. It will unveil its DC Fast Charging Station at the Business of Plugging In 2010 Conference.
