CEC Helps Bring Electric Vehicle Charging Stations to Santa Barbara
Great news for electric vehicle (EV) owners and prospective owners on the South Coast - Coulomb Technologies, a leading provider of electric vehicle charging stations, is providing 25 (or more) charging stations to Santa Barbara County. As the first universal charging stations in our region, they will make it easier to drive an EV. Since Santa Barbara is a large early-adopter market, many of our residents are already driving the Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, or will soon be driving some of the 12 EVs due on the market next year.
The new stations will be open to the public and strategically placed throughout the region, clustered in the areas of highest potential use, like downtown public parking lots. They are offered as Coulomb expands its ChargePoint America program, a public-private $37 million partnership to install 4,600 charging stations in key cities across America by the end of 2011.
Electric vehicles are a major component of CEC’s Fossil Free by ‘33 vision because they get around 100mpg equivalent and run on electricity instead of oil.
California is an exceptional place to leverage the benefits of EVs because our SoCal Edison grid already contains almost 20% renewable energy.
This will increase to 33% by 2020, so EVs actually get cleaner as they age. Due to California's cleaner grid, an EV here emits around 75% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. An added bonus - residents with solar panels on their roof can take it a step further by charging their electric vehicle at home. This means they're driving on sunshine!
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