green wheels
The Wall Street Journal sees Houston as the future "electric car capital"
Nissan Leaf
Nissan Leaf (look Ma, no tailpipe!)
ChargePoint's wall-mounted charging station
In 2020, will Houston's lionized Art Car Parade be a largely electric affair?
Six new electric car charging stations have been installed downtown — a big boost against Houston's rep as the the bête noire of environmentalists worldwide. The new ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations are located in six Central Parking Systems garages.
To charge a car at the stations, users need a ChargePass smart card, obtainable online or at the Central Parking Systems main office at 300 Clay Street. As an incentive, Central Parking Systems will provide free access to electric vehicle virgins, along with a ChargePass user guide.
The new pumps are the product of Campbell, Calif.-based Coulomb Technologies, Inc. They were sold and installed by Coulomb's regional distributors, Verdek-EV and Positive Energy Resources of Houston. Combined with last year's first slew of installations, Houston now boasts a total 23 ChargePoint locations.
The city, which often embodies America's love affair with the car, has been singled out by Nissan as the launching pad of its all-electric vehicle, Leaf, due later this year. Nissan estimates that within a decade, at least 10 percent of all cars on the road will be solely fueled by electricity.
Despite Houston's reputation as an oil-obsessed metropolis, no less an authority than The Wall Street Journal wonders if the Bayou City will become the future "electric-car capital." Due to its well-equipped electricity grid and proximity to wind farms and natural-gas fired plants, the city is poised to reinvent itself as the champion of clean, electricity-guzzling vehicles.
