Whole Foods Market Installs Coulomb Technologies Charging Station
12 April 2010
Whole Foods Market, the largest retailer of natural and organic foods, with more than 270 stores throughout North America and the UK, has installed its first Coulomb ChargePoint Networked Charging Station for Electric Vehicles (EV). The charging station is located at Whole Foods Market flagship store in Austin, Texas.
Whole Foods Market is committed to supporting wise environmental practices, which means making decisions that positively affect the health of our planet, its people, and its resources. It is our hope that by offering electric vehicle charging we can support alternative transportation and help Austin residents decrease their environmental impact.
—Mark Dixon, Whole Foods Market
The Whole Foods Market charging station is a part of the ChargePoint Network, which is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and provides authentication, management, and real-time control for the networked electric vehicle charging stations. ChargePoint Network features include:
- Charging status by SMS text or email notification;
- Location of unoccupied charging stations via smart phones;
- Authenticated access to eliminate energy theft;
- Authorized energizing for safety;
- Smart Grid integration for utility load management with future V2G capabilities; and
- A ChargePoint iPhone App.
The network of electric vehicle charging stations is accessible to all plug-in drivers by making a toll free call to the 24/7 number on each charging station, or signing up for a ChargePoint Network monthly access plan and obtaining a ChargePass™smart card. Other future payment options include using any smart (RFID) credit/debit card to authorize a session or using a standard credit or debit card at a remote payment station (RPS) to pay for charging sessions.
The opportunity for both ChargePoint and Whole Foods is to encourage people to purchase EVs - by giving them a few perqs. One such is the idea you can recharge your EV free if you patronize a certain retailer. Whole Foods should be picking up the minimal tab on EV charging. Considering there will be very few customers who use this service - it will function better as one more incentive to push EV purchase decisions.
When you get down to it, most people don't spend more than a half hour shopping in food stores. So what's the fare going to be? 1kWh @ .20 * .5 hrs = a whopping 10 cents Whole Foods will pay.
We don't know if these charge points are to be quick charge or if first gen EVs can handle same. Practically, quick charge is the only service worth paying for right now.
Posted by: sulleny | 12 April 2010 at 06:57 AM
The bankers solution to electric car charging. Canada has many standard outlets in many of its parking lots to keep the engines warm, and this has saved much gasoline and diesel. The major energy theft is the US government supported speculation on the world wide oil monopoly. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 12 April 2010 at 12:02 PM