Thanks, Piper. That's pretty interesting. I saw a piece about Denmark's progress in this area; they are working hard to get it into optimum shape before the Copenhagen climate meeting. Of course, NY City has had electric vehicles for more than a century: the subway. I'm sure that most people in Manhattan don't own cars. Tony
----- Original Message ----- From: Piper R.W. Hollier To: Anthony Ingraham Sent: 11/6/2009 2:33:23 PM Subject: Network of charging stations for EVs in A'dam Hi Tony, Today Amsterdam officially launched their network of charging stations for electric bikes, scooters, and cars: http://www.nieuwamsterdamsklimaat.nl/@275092/amsterdam_neemt/ Electric company Nuon is a co-sponsor, and all vehicles are charged with green electricity. A free pass card is needed, and the electricity is also free for the moment. All of the new underground bike parks (e.g. Station Zuid, Station RAI, Leidseplein) have facilities for electric bikes and scooters. Some large office buildings (e.g. ABN Amro bank headquarters near Station Zuid) also have charging stations in their parking garages. There's a map here. http://www.nieuwamsterdamsklimaat.nl/themas/vervoer/amsterdam_elektrisch/kaart_oplaadpunten The city and Nuon plan to expand the network to include 200 charging stations within two years. The city's Climate Office wants to see 10,000 electric vehicles in the city by 2015. Electric bikes and scooters are affordable enough that there will probably be a big near-term burst of interest. Hopefully the experience with this generation of smaller EVs will spin off improvements in battery technology that will help to bring down the cost of electric cars. A dense urban network of charging stations also reduces the need for a large and expensive battery pack in electric cars. It would be wonderful if I were wrong, but I expect most larger US cities are nowhere close to this evolutionary milestone. My guess would be that West Coast cities like San Francisco and Seattle will be among the first to get their act together. Houston will still be choking on their own smog a decade from now. BTW, when I was in Naples in 2005, they already had public charging stations for EVs. Probably some tie-in with corruption there somewhere. Piper _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
