British Columbia to get Canada's first electric car fast-charging network
British Columbia's electric utility says it will install electric car fast chargers to expand the West Coast green highway in Oregon and Washington.
A sign is painted on a parking space for electric cars inside a car park in Hong Kong.
Tyrone Siu/Reuters/File
The West Coast "green highway" will expand from聽听颈苍迟辞 British Columbia, under a plan announced today that will site DC quick-charging stations for electric聽聽along heavy-traveled roads and at popular destinations.
BC Hydro, the province's electric utility, said it will install 13 DC fast chargers, made by both ABB and Eaton, in greater Vancouver, in the Fraser Valley, along the so-called "Sea to Sky Corridor," on Vancouver Island, and in Kamloops.
The fast-charging stations will be leased to local governments in each location.
The complete network will be managed by GreenLots, a San Francisco company whose Sky network provides open access to electric-car charging equipment and networks via smartphone app or credit cards without requiring prior registration, subscriptions, or access fobs.聽
BC Hydro has not yet decided whether it will levy a payment for electric-car recharging.
The provincial government of British Columbia announced last January that it would fund the DC Fast Charger Project, anticipating the need for electric-car drivers to聽聽beyond the ranges of their cars in future years.
Today, BC has roughly 700 electric cars, but according to a聽, BC Hydro's chief technology officer Kip Morrison projects that the number will grow to 50,000 within 10 years.
The DC fast-charger equipment installed in BC will likely launch with the CHAdeMO charging protocol now used by the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV.
But the locations will offer the ability to add fast charging with the new Combined Charging Standard (CCS) standard as cars with that capability enter the market from聽, BMW, and other U.S. and German makers.
In addition to the BC-Washington-Oregon corridor, which mixes DC fast-charging and simpler but slower 240-Volt Level 2 charging stations, Tesla Motors has set up its own West Coast charging network exclusively for owners of its Model S electric luxury聽.
Last Saturday, the company opened the last of its Supercharger charging sites in a West Coast network that allows聽.
Such "electric highway" networks will likely evolve to connect city pairs or clusters in.
The West Coast is clearly one; cities in Texas are now connected via the evGo network, and the Boston-New York-Washington metroplex is a likely future candidate for connection, as is the greater Atlanta area.