GIREVE project to establish common framework for roaming services for recharging plug-in vehicles
05 October 2012
The Caisse des Dépôts investor group; Électricité Réseau Distribution France (ERDF), the manager of electricity distribution to 95% of the metropolitan area in France; PSA Peugeot-Citroën; and Renault have signed a memorandum of understanding on the creation of a common framework to develop roaming services for recharging plug-in vehicles in France.
With such services, drivers could locate and use the existing charging stations, regardless of owner. Vehicle or smartphone applications would locate available terminals and possibly book a recharge slot. Drivers would be able to recharge their vehicles freely even when using charging stations operated by other operators in France and abroad.
The French government will be associated with the GIREVE (Groupement pour l’Itinérance des Recharges Électriques de Véhicules) project to ensure its progress, under conditions open to all players, allowing the free creation of services that meet the expectations of users of electric vehicles. At the request of government Ministers, the four signatories of the MOU will conduct a wide consultation with stakeholders.
The first activity of the GIREVE project will be to create an accurate national directory of charging equipment. This directory will be made available to operators to expand their services to users (mapping services, charging, mobility, coaching clients ...). This structure will create standards for data exchange based on that directory, also allowing the payment clearing services between operators and representing France vis-à-vis other countries.
There is no shortage of places to charge electric vehicles since every electric light post has power at its base and voltage converters are so cheap that millions are thrown away every year in computers.
Range extender engines and now turbines reduce the need to find a charging station, and there are now even a very few roads that have electrical contact strips built into them to supply more than 600 volts DC for electric buses and trams. Every motorway can have such strips at a small fraction of the total cost of the motorway.
No one is going to make a lot of money with actually charging electric vehicles for the next ten years. Some will make money by promoting such services to governments.
Tiny range extenders and small batteries will save half the fuel used for personal automobile transportation now and at an affordable cost. Hydraulic hybrids might even do it at lower costs. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 12 October 2012 at 01:52 AM