Campbell, California – Coulomb Technologies of California has announced a “smart” charging infrastructure for plug-in vehicles that will be showcased with the Saturn Vue Plug-In Hybrid at the Plug-In 2008 Conference and Exposition in San Jose later this month. Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network includes public charging stations, a consumer subscription plan and utility grid management technology that will smooth electric demands on the grid at the utility company level.
“GM is committed to the success of the plug-in vehicles, including Extended Range Electric Vehicles like the future Chevy Volt,” said Jon Lauckner, GM vice-president of global program management,” and together with infrastructure solutions like that of Coulomb Technologies, we are all moving closer to the commercialization of plug-in vehicles. Intelligent infrastructure technology like Coulomb’s is needed for the rapid adoption of plug-in vehicles and to help address the needs and concerns of drivers, utilities, governments and parking space owners.”
The ChargePoint Network integrates three unique components into a seamless, cost-effective solution. These include Smartlet Charging Stations, Smartlet Communications Network and the ChargePoint Network Operating System, which manages the charging stations through the network. Its functions include user authentication, access control, energy flow control, location management, utility company policy administration, user portal, host property portal, utility portal and GPS system interface.
“Major automakers have announced delivery of plug-in vehicles to the U.S. marketplace by 2010,” said Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb Technologies. “But with 54 million garages for the 247 million registered passenger vehicles in the U.S. today, most consumers do not have a way to charge a plug-in vehicle. We have developed a scalable, smart charging infrastructure that provides municipalities and parking lot owners a recurring income stream through public charging stations that are easy to install and maintain. Our complete technology solution also provides electric utility companies a means to control the load that plug-in vehicles put on the grid, and a means to compute and implement taxes on electricity as a transportation fuel.”
