Wired Wheels: Chicago prepares for electric vehicles

By JoshMogerman in News on Feb 27, 2011 8:00PM

As another national gas price freak out starts to rear its ugly head in reaction to the unrest in the Middle East, eyes are once again being cast towards electric vehicles. In 2008, $4/gallon gas helped to usher a million Toyota Prius-es onto the road. Can the same thing happen for the all-electric vehicles starting to roll off assembly lines this year? Many think that hinges on visibly accessible charging infrastructure helping to convince consumers that the transition from pump to plug will be easy. If a big national survey, as well as dueling articles in the Trib and Sun-Times are any indication, you will be tripping over those car charging stations in downtown Chicago soon...

Yesterday, both dailies covered what could be a turf war between the largest charging station providers in Chicago: Carbon Day, 350Green and Chargepoint which are installing hundreds of plug-in parking spots downtown. The City could play host to nearly 1,000 in-garage charging stations before the end of the year and up to 2600 by the end of next year. And that is pretty essential if cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are going to take off in our town:

“For electric vehicles to catch on, drivers need to feel that the use of any charger is easy, convenient and affordable,” Mariana Gerzanych, CEO of 350Green, told the Sun-Times.

All of that activity played into a major transportation study by the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Smarter Cities team, which included Chicago in its list of the nation’s top-15 transportation systems this week. That evaluation looked broadly at public transportation and movement of freight, but the report highlighted smart investment of stimulus funds to make the city “electric vehicle-ready by 2012.” Still, some advocates point to the need for utilities to do more in preparation for the battery of battery-operated cars that $4 gas could sweep into town.