“Our ChargePoint America program has seen tremendous success with new charging locations added to the ChargePoint Network every day,” said Pat Romano, president and CEO at Coulomb. “This expansion is intended to better serve the growing driver population in important EV transportation corridors, further reducing our dependence on foreign oil. This program is putting people to work with ChargePoint stations that are designed, built and installed here in the US. We would like to thank the Department of Energy and the Obama administration for their support in making the path to cleaner transportation a reality.”
Through the ChargePoint Network expansion, new EV drivers can access unique, easy-to-use services, including: real-time status and location of unoccupied charging stations, tracking and reporting greenhouse gas and gasoline savings, and charging status notification, all by SMS, email or smart phone (iPhone and Blackberry) applications. Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network is the largest network of charging stations in the world and is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and all manufacturers of electric vehicle charging stations.
The ChargePoint Network enables businesses to provide a distinctive new service, attract new customers and generate new revenues from EV charging. Charging station owners can set their own prices for charging as a function of time of day, and calendar date – much like a parking meter. Stations can also be configured to provide "free" access to EV drivers. Station owners can also:
Promote their stations on the largest network, comprising thousands of EV drivers
Recover energy costs with PCI compliant driver billing
Track and report energy usage and savings for greenhouse gas and fuel
Set multiple service plans for EV driver usage
Create flexible billing options for their customers without a subscription via contactless credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, and Discover)
Access 24 X 7 station monitoring and driver support services
Post custom advertising and greetings on the charging station display
The $37 million ChargePoint America program is made possible by a $15M grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Transportation Electrification Initiative administered by the Department of Energy. ChargePoint America will provide 4,600 public and home ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations by October 2011, adding to the existing ChargePoint Network. Coulomb will work together with its distribution and industry partners to evaluate the demand from the respective geographic regions and allocate charging stations based on this and other factors. The ChargePoint America project will collect data characterizing vehicle use and charging patterns, Idaho National Labs will analyze the data.
