San Francisco Plugs In To the Future with Electric Vehicle Recharging Stations

Editors Note: This is a guest post by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on the city’s important first step toward creating the electric vehicle infrastructure of the future.

Imagine cars with no tailpipes and no direct carbon emissions into our atmosphere — powered by an electrical energy system getting cleaner by the year through Renewable Portfolio Standards in effect in California and across the nation — creating hundreds of thousands of new green jobs.

More than a decade ago, I was one of the original owners of the EV1, an electric vehicle produced by General Motors (GM). When GM discontinued the series and reclaimed all of the EV1s, it was a major setback for the American car industry. Instead of leading the charge to create a new generation of vehicles — America fell behind.

Last year we woke up. Four dollar a gallon gas was the catalyst. The price has gone down since the spike, but I think most Americans understand we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and one of the keys is more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Today, San Francisco took an important first step toward creating the electric vehicle infrastructure of the future. This morning I unveiled the installation of electric vehicle charging stations in front of San Francisco City Hall. These stations — called Smartlets — are on loan to the city from Coulomb Technologies.

Car-sharing companies Zipcar and City CarShare will use two of the charging stations — giving the public the opportunity to drive plug-in vehicles before they are mass produced. The third charging station will be used by a plug-in car in the City of San Francisco municipal fleet.

Our proactive residents are the country’s earliest adopters of green vehicles. We have the highest number of hybrid cars owners in the United States. Many believe that hybrid vehicles are the future — I believe that full battery electric vehicles are the quantum leap we need to make.

Read the rest of this post and see photo gallery on Page 2.

>> Other Publications that Picked up This Post:

• Electric-Vehicle Charging Stations for San Francisco (NYTimes)
• Bay Area Hopes To Be Electric Vehicle Capital Of The United States (Huffington Post)
• Plug-in Infrastructure Begins Here: San Francisco To Install EV Recharging Stations at City Hall (Popular Mechanics)
• It’s Electric! San Francisco Testing Electric Vehicle Recharging Stations (Fast Company)
• San Francisco mayor blogs about city’s new EV chargers (CrunchGear)
  
• San Francisco City Hall gets its own electric vehicle charging stations (Engadget)
  
• San Francisco puts electric car charger in front of City Hall (AutoBlogGreen)
  

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