EV Charge With Your Meal?

A recently opened McDonalds restaurant in West Virginia is the first McDonalds in the nation to have an EV charging station.

Cracker Barrel Restaurant & Country Store plans to offer EV charging stations in twenty-four of it's Tennessee stores.

Walgreen's Pharmacy Offering EV Charging Stations

The Walgreens pharmacy chain will offer rapid-charging EV stations at 18 Houston-area stores next year, through a partnership with power utility NRG Energy.

NRG's eVgo Network will initially include over 100 charging stations and cost NRG about $10 million. The eVgo Network will be rolled out in early 2011 throughout Houston and Harris County,Texas.

The eVgo network will include both Level 2 chargers, which generally take four hours to recharge EV batteries to full charge, and DC rapid chargers, which can charge an EV in about 30 minutes.

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Increasing

Electric Vehicles are getting more charging locations across the United States and around the world.

Public electric vehicle charging stations that take credit card went on-line in November at San Francisco's Pier 27 parking garage. Drivers can use a credit card to charge their electric vehicles. The cost to charge a vehicle all day is normally between two to three dollars.

The first public EV charging station opened this month in Kansas. Last month Minnesota launched it's first EV charging station in St. Paul at First National Bank. The power to charge the vehicles comes from wind & solar energy generation. Plans are for 150 of the stations to be in place in the Twin Cities area in four years.

First Nissan Leaf Delivered Today

The first all electric Nissan LEAF is delivered today in Northern California.

The Leaf is, as Nissan states "A car with no oil, no gas tank, no transmission, no tailpipe.
A car that runs on 100% electricity..." Unlike GM's soon-to-arrive Volt, or Toyota's well-established hybrids, the Leaf has no gasoline engine. As part of the ownership, the purchaser gets a personal "Filling Station" at their home to charge the car overnight. See the video.

Public charging stations for electric vehicles are already in some businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. A list of charging stations can be found HERE.

Nissan has taken 20,000 reservations for the Leaf. All the major manufacturers (and some you probaly have never heard of) have electric vehicles in development.

First Chevy Volt Auctioned for Detroit Schools

DETROIT – The first Chevrolet Volt available for retail sale will be offered at public auction with the proceeds benefiting math and sciences education in the Detroit Public Schools.