If there is excess capacity at night and we are going to charge our cars at night, and studies show there is plenty of capacity, why are we so worried about infrastructure?
We’re really not. But there will come a day when there are millions of vehicles and the road and we want to make sure we’ve anticipated correctly what that will mean. It’s not those low numbers in the thousands were worried about.

Although at night there is capacity, there will be people charging during the day. There is a lot of excess grid capacity even during the day too, for many months of the year.

It comes down to about a dozen days a year, mostly during hot summer day afternoons from four to six PMs and for a few places very cold mornings when they get close to their peak power-generating capacity. And so even if low numbers of vehicles are charging at that time, we care about what that might mean for the grid.

So we want to make sure everything is thought through, that we have the right smarts on the vehicle and the right smarts on the grid and the utilities to be able to communicate with the vehicles to simply delay charging if it happens to be at a peak time. Consumers might agree to let utilities delay their charging in exchange for lower rates.

For people to benefit from this won’t they need a special variable rate meter?
Yes, time of use metering.

If someone doesn’t have one of these meters they can’t benefit from delaying charging, so how will you educate people?
That’s exactly the dialog we’re working on. Utilities are growing right now and evolving. I have a list of things I want them to consider doing in their states to help make the transition to electric cars smoother.

Historically people buy cars on how they look, behave and cost, and now you’re throwing in a fourth variable, and it seems having to educate people more deeply might make it harder to make a sale?
And for that reason I don’t want to overcomplicate it. I think we’ve learned a lesson in the last 12 months. When people ask me about public charging I say its a ‘nice to have’ but not a ‘must have’. The vehicle has been designed to plug into standard outlets. So it’s as simple as finding a plug. We want to go the extra mile and consider the needs of apartment-dwellers or people who want to extend their range and charge at work. We are going to look at some ways of enticing corporations to allow employee charging at work.

Also keep in mind the average cost of electricity is 10 cents per kwh so for most people without off peak considerations it will cost 80 cents per day to drive 40 miles. We’d like to get that to 40 cents, but never lose site of how easy the basics are.

I had the chance to speak with eTec’s CEO Don Karner about the coming electric car charging infrastructure revolution.

Tell us about your recent DOE grant and what it means?
The grant is to evaluate charge infrastructure and to try and develop a model for the effects of deployment of charge infrastructure in support of grid-connected vehicles.

It’s not a vehicle demonstration, and its not an infrastructure demonstration per se. The idea is to develop a mature charge infrastructure in five different geographic areas, diverse areas that have different demographics, different geography, different customs and value systems, different employers and to look at deploying infrastructure both at people’s residences after they buy a vehicle and in commercial locations which could be employers, parking structures or retail locations. Also deploying them in true street side public applications, city-owned parking that’s open to the public.

Then to look at utilization of that charging infrastructure such as which chargers are being used, and which ones are not. Why is one charger used more than another or one location more effective than another? How are people willing to extend the mission capability of the vehicle by using charging away from home?

Obviously if all you have is home charging then basically you have a limited radius within which you can operate the vehicle. The infrastructure outside the home both commercial and public is to allow you to extend the range of the vehicle and its usefulness. And with the idea of range extension we’ll also be deploying some level 3 fast charge infrastructure in commercial locations.

Doing that on a grid is the concept initially going in so you’re never more than a certain distance from a fast charger. Now that will be modified somewhat by use. There may be some areas that have a heavier use so you’ll have denser locations or multiple chargers at that single location.
The infrastructure will be initially deployed using a roadmap developed by involving stakeholders in the areas; employers and city government to help us determine locations.

We have partners on board that have the ability to come up with specific locations. For example, a company called CB Richard Ellis which is a major commercial real estate manager so they have millions and millions of square feet being managed for clients and millions of square feet that they own and lease out. So in every one of these cities they have a number of buildings with parking garages and they have retail outlets with parking lots that if the stakeholders say we ought to have to chargers in this area, they might be a source for us to locate the chargers.

We have BP that operates the AM-PM chain of gas stations, one of the things we wanted to try was does it make sense to put some fast charging in traditional fueling stations?

We’ll deploy the infrastructure then we’ll look at how it’s being utilized and also look at how we can provide better information to the vehicle operators are about where chargers are, what their availability is, and in order to develop a balance between information and actual hardware. Obviously if you’re completely ignorant about where chargers are you want to have a lot of them out there so that if you’re driving down the road you see them. But if you have electronic information that told you where chargers were and what their availability is and aids to help you do trip planning, are those going to make it easier for you to extend the range of the vehicle and therefore get you to use the vehicle more or is it just that you still need lots of chargers out there.

So these are all different aspects of the study and evaluation that we’d like to do over a 24 month period while all the data is being collected.

So we deploy charge infrastructure, deploy vehicles, get the system operating and we need a significant enough density of vehicles and infrastructure that’s really representative of what a fully developed electric vehicle economy might look like. So even though it’s a thousand vehicles in each city we still have to mindful of keeping it fairly tight because there are big cities. Then we collect data, store it in a database at the Idaho national lab and then we have various partners like Ohio State University and University of California Davis, the Idaho lab personnel plus all the other scientists in the nation’s science laboratory system to help us look at that data evaluate it look at successes and failures because many times you learn more from something that didn’t work than something that did. At the end, come out with guidance for the next 50 or the next 500 cities as to how they should most effectively deploy infrastructure.

Are you only using the Nissan LEAF vehicles in this study?
The vehicle side will be LEAF vehicles. The chargers that are being deployed are compliant with the SAE J1772 standards so they’re available to any vehicle.

But you will only be studying the behavior of those people driving LEAFs?
That’s initially where we are at right now. That may change over time and its certainly one of the things that the DOE made some stimulus awards to other car companies. None of them were in the cities that we’re operating in, but there may be some interest on DOE’s part to gather data in the cities where those vehicles are being deployed or to make vehicle available for purchase in the cities where the infrastructure is. You’ve got a built in infrastructure it makes sense to use that as a market for all electric vehicle whether it’s a Volt or a Ford transit.

Is your company a hardware producing company or are you coordinating the hardware of others? I’m wondering how your company fits into this.
We build both the level 2 and level 3 hardware. And we were very involved in the late 90s and early 2000s in deployment of EVs in response to the zero emission mandate in California. So we installed all of Chrysler’s infrastructure nationwide for the Epic minivan. We installed a lot of infrastructure for Ford, but not so much for GM. They typically worked through utilities to make that happen. We were buying others EVSEs in those days. We did make the 90 kw fast charger for the Chrysler minivan. Then when the auto EVs went away we had already been working with airport ground support equipment and material handling lift trucks on fast charging and we continued to do that over those 8 or 9 years. So we are in a number of airports through North America supporting both the airports and the airlines with material handling chargers across the country. We’ve got like 5000 chargers deployed throughout North America in industrial applications. We also have a line of chargers for neighborhood vehicles and things like that.

Now with the auto EVS coming back into play were rolling back into fast chargers to support the auto road applications and the level 2 EVSE to support both home and commercial and public charging.

So level 2 is the 240V?
240 V, 40 amp breaker supplying nominal 32 amps to the vehicle. That’s just the AC pass-though stuff. AC charging is typically level 2 and we believe that’s what’s necessary even with PHEVs a lot of folks are advocating just plugging them into convenience outlets, but we think there’s a lot of advantage to having level two charging for those as well. That’s the infrastructure that’s going to roll out. It’s going to be out there so you might as well make the vehicles compatible with it.

Aren’t there several companies out there making level 2 chargers?
Clipper Creek has been in it for some time. They were there in the late 90s as well, in fact we sold a lot of Clipper Creek equipment back then, it was called EVI. The same principles that were part of EVI have now formed Clipper Creek and the box is very similar to what is was in the 90s. Its basically just a smart contactor that checks to make sure everything is safe and then turns on AC to the vehicles.

Now there’s Coulomb and they have a public charging solution for street side parking. In fact they are part of our program for cities that want to do street side parking and collect revenue. Coulomb has a very neat revenue system.

How about level 3 chargers, there are claims about 10 or 30 minute fast charges, and EEStor says they can recharge 52 kwh in 5 minutes. Is all of this stuff realistically possible on today’s grid. Is your equipment able to do that and what are the special demands that such equipment would have?
Well, we’re capable of doing almost anything with respect to fast charging. But you put your finger on it, what’s practical? What’s practical is probably in the 40 to 50 kw range as a power level. And 200 amps as a current level, because you have to get the current onto the vehicle, and once you go above 200 amps, the cord and the connector get very large and some people talk about water cooling and it gets to be a very complicated device. So that translates to if you take the LEAF and you say it has a 30 kwh pack, if you’re charging at 40 kw if you came in at let’s say 40% state of charge and you want to go to 80% state of charge, you have to put in 12 kwh. I’ve got a 40 kw charger so its going to be about a third of an hour or twenty minutes. That’s a very reasonable power range. Can you charge harder? Absolutely, but then you start looking at whether you have the power available at a retail location where somebody wants to come and charge. Let’s say it’s a Starbucks and you want to come in and get a latte, do you really need to turn the vehicle around in 5 minutes? And if so, is Starbucks willing to double the electrical service that they have to supply that power? That hasn’t been our experience in the past. If that’s where everybody goes and it turns out absolute speed is of the utmost importance, then the market will adapt. What we’re looking at with the LEAF is in that 40 kw range and that fits very nicely in strip centers and other commercial locations. You can fit 40 kw into their existing electrical service and you don’t have to spend a lot of money expanding the electrical service.

Does the 40 kw charger run on 200 amps?
It would output a maximum of 200 amps. So if you had a battery pack that was let’s say 400V, to get to 40kw you only need 100 amps. So your cord and connector that connect to the vehicle would be limited to 200 amps. Let’s say you pull up to the vehicle that only has a 150 volt battery. I’m only going to be able to charge that at 200 amps so Im going to be limited to 30 kw. I may have more power capability in my charger but I’m limited by my cord and connector.

Most of the EVs, in fact all of them, all are in the range of 300 to 400 volts. To get the 40 kw you only need the battery to be above 200 Volts to stay below the 200 amps and virtually everyone is doing that.

I don’t think that 200 maps is very restrictive based on what coming to market.

Don’t most residential homes have 200 amp service?
It just depends on where you are in the country. We’re in Phoenix and yes 200 amps is pretty much the standard. A lot of homes out here actually go to 400 amps because there’s a lot of air conditioning load in Phoenix. So typically we don’t have any problem out here, plus all of the houses are relatively new.

If you go to a beach community in California, you may find only a 60 amp service on a little bungalow that doesn’t have air conditioning, for example. If you go to the northeast, an old brownstone there may only have a 50 or 60 amp service.

One of the challenges is to retrofit America with EVSE. In new construction many localities are going to the point where you have to put a 240V 40 amp service in the garage. Once you’ve done that actually installing the EVSE is a fifty dollar job. It’s no big deal. If you do it when the house is new, it’s easy. It’s the retrofit that’s expensive. We’ve got a lot of houses that will have to be retrofitted in America.

How about commercial places like parking garages, strip malls, and gas stations, do these places have a lot of current available?
Usually they’ve got plenty of electric service, the challenge there is typically you want the charger somewhere out in the parking lot and that power is not in the parking lot so you end up doing a lot of concrete and asphalt cutting and trenching with conduit but the electric service is there. If you do it as you build new facilities its very cheap because you’re trenching to put in light poles anyway.

When does your 2 year study actually start?
Nissan will be launching their vehicle in the fourth quarter of next year so well spend the next year basically working with stakeholders locating chargers and getting chargers installed in the commercial space. Then as the vehicles roll out we’ll be installing the chargers in residential places or if it is a fleet vehicle, the overnight location for that fleet vehicle.

Then we anticipate about 6 months of time to populate the vehicles and then we’ll operate in a data collection mode after that.

What are the 5 cities?
Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Phoenix and Tucson and also the interstate corridor between those two cities. In Tennessee there are three cities that form a triangle; Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville.

No plans for NY?
Not as part of this project. Nissan will be looking at rolling the LEAF into NY but we won’t be studying infrastructure there.

Your company is national?
Yes. We cover all of North America.

What is the relationship with Ecotality?
Ecotality is our parent company and we are a wholly-owned subsidiary. Ecotality is a publicly traded company.

Do they do other things besides EV infrastructure?
Yes they have some other companies that do some fuel cell work and batteries and electronics assembly.

Is eTec a big portion?
We’re the biggest division of them.

Do you anticipate that the infrastructure rollout will take 10 years or more?
We’d like to think that coming out of this we’ll have some models in the commercial space that will show people there’s an economic benefit to them to install chargers whether it be an employer that receives employee benefits or a retailer that generates customer loyalty by having chargers. Or chargers that are installed with a subscription and revenue system like Coulomb’s.

This gives us the opportunity to demonstrate a number of value chains that can associate with the chargers. The hope is that when we come out of the project we’ll have demonstrated various way that people can make these chargers economically viable. And we’ll get some viral expansion with OEMS coming into areas to sell vehicles and retailers will decide to put in chargers to make money, and this thing starts to grow by itself.

So do you expect a strong national infrastructure in under ten years?
Yes. I think if we’re going to have a successful rollout of battery electric vehicles we have to have infrastructure to support it. If we’re going to roll out PHEVs and were going to receive benefit from them, again having a strong infrastructure is going to be important. If you have a 20 mile PHEV and you drive 18 miles to work, you’re going to want to be able to plug in at work so you run home on electric.

This infrastructure allows the vehicles to be used in more expansive missions to allow more of what people need to do on a daily basis, and so it’s going to expand the market for those too.

How much does a Level 3 charger cost?
The biggest part of the cost tends to be the installation, but generally in power electronics like that you can look anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a watt. So you’re looking at 20 to $40,000. It’s on the order of what it costs to install a gasoline pump.

It seems like level 3 chargers are going to be a relatively small contribution to the overall charging infrastructure?
One would think so, that’s what you’d like to have happen. You’d like people to mostly charge at home and at night, that’s the prime objective. The usable available infrastructure is there to help them extend the usability of their vehicles.

The level 3 chargers provide an insurance policy, so if you decide you need to go farther you can stop for 10 minutes, get a hit, get another 20 or 30 miles and then you can do what you need to do and get home.

You could imagine its not like a gas pump, if you have one level 3 charger and everyone is pulling up with EV’s the lines would be miles long if it takes a half an hour to recharge.
Right, and that goes back to information, people need to know availability, because you’ll have several chargers within a relative short radius. If we’re seeing chargers continually busy during peak tines it’s a signal of success, but tells us we probably need to put in more chargers

People often wonder why GM needs to go through all of this effort.  I asked the following questions about it of Tony Posawatz, GM’s Volt vehicle line engineer.

A lot of people ask why is GM focusing on plugin readiness.  They say if its just like a plasma screen TV being plugged into an outlet in your garage, what’s the big deal?

There’s a little bit of history to this. We’ve made a lot of mistakes in our history and we’ve learned.  GM has already failed three times on infrastructure.

We have not succeeded on E85 yet its a really cleaver idea. I’m not referring to corn but the more advanced stuff.

Hydrogen…I don’t know what happened to the hydrogen superhighway, no infrastructure there.

Also I would argue for EV-1, we didn’t set up a good infrastructure there.

So we said fool me once, fool me twice…

The Volt was designed to make the infrastructure challenge easier.

The Volt doesn’t need public charging the Volt needs number one really good charging at home. Just plug it in? Not so fast my friend, the data we look at says.

Let’s say we don’t have a ready city initiative, or the region your going into, the education.  The electric company is a driver of special benefits too.  People would be losing out. Wouldn’t you want someone to set a standard that EV drivers get the best parking or the HOV lane?  This helps mitigate the initial cost because you get the extra value. You may get free charging. This is our effort because we have some leverage. We recognize that one of the issues with Volt is a cost issue.

If you live in a 1947 farmhouse in Connecticut and you want to plug it in, but it its not a dedicated circuit, and every morning when your vehicle is charging and your daughter turns on the hairdryer and the fuse blows.  Who’s going to get blamed?  Who are they going to call?  Its a very real situation. Many houses are not wired to code, they are wired in a very cheap manner.

We’ve learned, and we so much want to make this work we are not missing anything.

We are negotiating with some prominent companies to get the home ready… house installations, or if you want the plug moved or a dedicated circuit or a special meter or 220V.

GM won’t have its own wiring subsidiary?
No we will actively be involved in setting the requirements for a partner. There are companies that did the EV-1.

The 240 V cord has to go directly into the wall?
Yes, that’s by code.

In the showroom we want to have a system available in parallel to get the house ready.

This is why were so big on infrastructure. Number one to see if we can bring additional benefits to the customer, and to build this thing for the future so we can engage partners and build new opportunities that I can’t tell you about yet. Once your in someone’s home what kind of things well be able to do and you say to yourself, this is more than just a car.

There will be a portable 120 V unit (R) that can be plugged into any standard receptacle. It will be able to recharge the car fully in 6 hours at 12 amps or 8 hours at 8 amps.

The other device option (L) is a 240 V stationary wall-mounted unit that has to be installed in the owners garage per code. This unit running at 16 amps can recharge the Volt in 3 hours.

Both utilize a newly ratified interface or coupler standard called SAE J1772, that provides durability, communications, and safety functions and well as universal usability among EVs.

The Volt charging units are very robust and designed to withstand even a complete dunk in a bucket of water. As well, there is a flashlight at the tip for finding the receptacle on the car even in the dark.

Furthermore, importantly, the system is designed so the car cannot drive when it is plugged in. The Volt also has a small LED bulb on the top of the dash that flashes when the car is charging so you can tell from a distance.

I actually proposed to GM that they offer a optional charger also capable of 240V 48 amp charging. At that rate, the Volt could be recharged in about 45 minutes. This would be a great feature for those who want it, and would help to encourage infrastructure development as people could recharge their Volts a rest stops in as much time as it takes to have dinner. It would be a great marketing tool as well.

Volt exec Tony Posawatz poured a little water on my enthusiasm.

“Volt battery can/will handle 220V w/48 amps,” he said. “Just not something we are offering from the factory.”

Anyway you too can have a chance to ask questions directly of Gery Kissel, GM’s engineering specialist who developed the Volt’s charging equipment right here below on a live webchat at 2PM EDT:

People ask if they will be able to access that energy to power their home during a blackout, or for camping, by attaching an inverter to the Volt.

“This capability won’t be available on gen 1,” says Volt spokesperson Rob Peterson, “At this point, our priority is getting the vehicle right and delivering on time. This type of functionality would likely be considered for future gen vehicles.”

People also ask whether the Volt could be used to jumpstart another car.

I had the opportunity to pose those questions to Andrew Farah who is the Chevy Volt’s lead engineer.

Will the Volt be able to jump start another car? Does it have a traditional 12v lead battery too or will drivers have access to the high voltage terminals?

These are very interesting questions. About a year ago we worked through them and here is where we are…

1.  Customer access to High Voltage
The customer will have no access to high voltage. In fact, if the customer accidentally takes some action that might get them close to high voltage (e.g. disconnects a HV connection) then the system will cut off that voltage up stream of the potential breach. As with all systems, “nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool”, but we have a number of layers of HV protection for the customer, the service technician, and the vehicle assembler.

2.  “Jump” Start
We had also wrestled with this issue on the EV1. Answer there was no jump start of any kind, but the EV1 had a different electrical architecture that offered other remedies. For Volt the answer is a bit more conventional. Yes, we have a 12v battery. It is not a typical automotive “flooded” lead, but a sealed “acid starved” type…. and it is capable of providing enough power to jump start another vehicle.

Late Tuesday the company revealed the first video of how the swapping process would work.

They have partnered with Renault-Nissan on the endeavor and have pledged to work to an open standard for battery packs so that they could be interchangeable among many vehicles.

The first country in which this is expected is Israel with a charging network to be activated in 2010. Other places networks are expected are Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and Ontario, Canada. The demonstration proof-of-concept took place in Japan.

“Today marks a major milestone for the automotive industry as well as for Better Place,” said Shai Agassi, Founder and CEO, Better Place. “For nearly a century, the automotive industry has been inextricably tied to oil. Today, we’re demonstrating a new path forward where the future of transportation and energy is driven by our desire for a clean planet and a robust economic recovery fueled by investments in clean technology, and one in which the well-being of the automotive industry is intrinsically coupled with the well-being of the environment.”

The swapping stations would cost $500,000 a piece and other than Nissan-Renault no other major automakers are on-board with the idea, including GM who is positioning themselves to be a major battery pack assembler.

I must admit the remarkably fast swap process is impressive.

“The goal was to make the switch of a battery faster than filling your tank,” says Agassi. “We have seen this device work in under 40 seconds in our shop.”

See video below:

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8nTAjVaa7Y]

Source (Better Place)

The Volt will have some capacity to regulate its charging function, but more advanced features are expected to be coming in future generations.

I had the chance to ask Britta Gross who is GM’s direct of infrastructure some questions about this.

Are you involved in what technology will actually be in the Gen-1 Volts to communicate with the grid?
There will be some capability in the first generation volts to key in charging preferences. It won’t have all the smarts and broad capability of future generations. But it will have the smarts for you to be able to go into the vehicle and key in, for example, that you prefer to be charged after 7PM at night because you know the rates will be lower.

I am also working on how to (facilitate) that relationship between the utility companies and the new Volt buyers so they will be knowledgeable about their particular utility company’s best off-peak rates. We’re setting up systems now for utility companies to communicate with their customers about this.

So you may come home at 6 PM and plug-in the car, but your preferences are for charging to begin at midnight, and so your car will delay charging until then.

And, for example, if there is a different situation say for two weeks you need to be charged right away, let’s say your wife is pregnant, then you could override it.

Will the Gen-1 Volt communicate to the utility companies?
We’re looking at a lot of studies with OnStar right now, but there are other ways to do it. Through SAE and EPRI and our relationships with the utilities, we are very actively engaged in how we would communicate with the vehicle.

There are wireless means already, such as Zigbee, we’d have to have a chip on the vehicle that allows wireless communication about the charging and what’s happening. There are many ways out there to do this, we are looking through all of them to figure out what is best for consumers.

Will the Gen-1 Volt have something in it along these lines?
Well Gen 1 is a little different. The Zigbee chips aren’t even available today. These are nice to haves, but not must to haves. Even if the chip were available it would have to go through our very rigorous validation process which takes at least a year.

Yes we are aware the driver will attach an electric cord from the wallbox to the car, but at issue is exactly how that cord will fit into the car.

The specification that is gaining steam is called SAE J1772 and it refers to the coupler shown above.

People will charge their cars either with 110 or 220 V electric lines, and some cars in the future may even accept higher voltages. Current will also vary from 8 amps in the case of the Volt at 110 V to up to as high as 70 amps or greater. There will also be public charging stations to deal with. Since the far end of the cord will thus have many different plugs it is important to keep end that goes into the car the same.

GM notes at next week’s meeting of the Society of Automotive Eng inners, there is actually a Task Force that will convene to continue its work in trying to make SAE J1772 the industry standard.

GM Engineer Greg Kissel writes “You’re already aware we’re working to make the Volt as efficient as possible, but we’re also helping lead the standardization of this plug and how you interact with it as well as the electrical grid.” He notes that once this standard is adopted it will be required in all electric cars regardless of brand or maker.

Source (GM)

The idea of creating a “plug-in ecosystem” was proposed. Tony envisioned this as analogous to the success of the iPod. The iPod alone isn’t what’s successful but how it is integrated with its infrastructure. GM feels such a cultural shift will need to take place to enable the plug-in car revolution too. Collaboration between carmakers, utility companies, municipalities, governments, individuals and corporations will have to occur.

GM is fostering relationships with key stakeholders, and in particular feels a capable green grid and excellent plug-in cars are essential.

GM is already working with many national utility companies through EPRI, and working with local progressive governments such as San Francisco.

Mark Duvall of EPRI and Bob Hayden, clean transportation adviser for the City of San Francisco, also attended the conference and support these measures. Duvall reported that the US utility grid in its present state could support 10 million Chevy Volts which would collectively only use 0.8% of the total electric capacity.  He pointed out that charging the Volt is a similar draw to two plasma screen TVs. Furthermore he noted that most new grid capacity these days comes from wind and natural gas which are considered clean sources. He also reports there will be a 500 million ton per year reduction in CO2 emissions in the US when the automotive fleet is fully electrified.

A particular difficulty at present is determining how to handle daytime charging at workplaces and for apartment dwellers. This may cause potential grid strain in dense urban areas, and could be expensive. It was agreed a solution must be found through the effort of third party vendors like Coulomb technologies, utilities, or municipalities. The importance of local “plug-in champions” such as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome was mentioned.

I know that many reader have a lot of thoughts and opinions on these important matters, and you will all have a chance to bring them up directly to GM’s expert in the field.

We will be trying something new and fun.  Come here later today at 4PM EDT.  Below in the CoveritLive interface we will have a multiblog real-time chat with Britta Gross who is GM’s director of electric vehicle infrastructure commercialization.  She will be fielding our questions as well as those from readers at FastLane, GreenCarCongress.com and EVWorld.com.

See you then.

This involves facilitating the engagement of advocates, utility companies, local government and other stakeholders to increase and prepare for the adoption of plug-in cars like the Chevy Volt. They have collated a menu of strategic actions that city and regional leaders can enact to become plug-in pioneers that are available on an online database.

Project manager Laura Schewel says “With this project, we can help get the nation to President Obama’s goal of 1 million plug-ins by 2015…and maybe even beat it.”

GM’s Director of Infrastructure Britta Gross says “We know that many Volt drivers will never require a public charging infrastructure, instead depending on the Volt’s range-extender to carry them any distance beyond its electric vehicle range. But public infrastructure is very important for those who live in apartments or houses without garages where they can’t simply plug into a household outlet for a full charge.”

RMI has announced they are working on initiatives with Portland, Oregon; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Raleigh, North Carolina and plan to convene at least 20 cities in the near future to develop best practices.

The following are RMIs 15 “Must Have” Actions*
Suggested stretch target: 2% of registered vehicles by the end of 2015.

Barrier: Not enough cars in the pipeline, OEMs need proof of future consumer demand
1. Corporate/city/state fleets commit to buy a certain number of plug-ins (RFPs for major purchases or conversions).
2. Stakeholder group provides a place for interested consumers/fleets to register early, and put cash down to reserve plug-ins (cash used for readiness where possible).

Barrier: How can we manage this as a multi-sector, city-wide project?
3. Create collaborative stakeholder group within the community to help regulatory, commercial, and community interests align. Sign on to a clear regional plan (based on this menu!). Plan should give equal consideration to conversions.
4. Have one “champion” whose job it is to keep this group moving forward, who has authority

Barrier: How can we bring down upfront costs for consumers?
5. Work with banks and dealers to offer low-interest loans for plug-ins, based on projected lower operating costs from gas savings.
6. Bundle all key incentives at vehicle point of purchase (home charger vouchers, rebates, etc.)

Barrier: Consumer hesitation at diving into a new paradigm for mobility
7. Perks: access to HOV lanes, free tolls/downtown parking, reserved airport parking.
8. Create consumer, city government, local business and utility education plans including test drives and “quick lease” options to individual and fleet consumers as well as high profile drivers.
9. Reduced (or free) electricity rates for charging.

Barrier: Red tape around infrastructure installation
10. Fast-track permitting for charging stations.
11. Ensure new and reconstruction/renovation building codes support the operation of plug-ins.

Barrier: What if these cars exacerbate my peak load?
12. Tie provisions of free home and public charge spots, as well as free or cheaper electricity, to either utility override power or “no charge” times.

Barrier: Who will pay for infrastructure?
13. Local employers/retailers provide some charge stations at parking decks.
14. Install public charge spots in high-traffic zones and parking areas, either with public money (via utility or gov’t for the first 2% of vehicles) or private money that uses the stations to market.
15. Provide affordable and available—or free—Level 2 home-charger/driveway circuit installation.

Source (RMI) and (FastLane)

Also should you be so motivated you can Tweet with Britta Gross on Twitter @GMblogs later today at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time.

And as a reminder we have a special Plug-in Readiness Forum right here on GM-Volt.com.