ChargePoint Network Expands to Santa Cruz, Calif. as Electric Vehicle Charging Services Extend Throughout Monterey Bay

Santa Cruz, Calif. April 14, 2011 – Coulomb Technologies today announced that Santa Cruz County is the latest area in California to provide ChargePoint® Network electric vehicle (EV) charging services. The first eight ChargePoint® networked charging stations for EVs are located in five locations: Scotts Valley, Capitola, Aptos, and two in Santa Cruz, as a part of Coulomb’s $37 million ChargePoint America program.

The ChargePoint charging stations were unveiled today at a press event at the headquarters of Ecology Action at 877 Cedar St., Santa Cruz with program representatives: Mayor Ryan Coonerty, City of Santa Cruz; Mayor Dennis Norton, City of Capitola; Richard Lowenthal, founder and CTO, Coulomb Technologies; Jay Friedland, Legislative Director, Plug In America; and Sharon Sarris, Monterey Bay Electric Vehicle Alliance Co-chair. A charging demonstration of six EVs at three dual-outlet stations included a Chevrolet Volt, Nissan LEAF, Tesla, Zero Motorcycle, Green Vehicles’ Triac, and Zenn EV.

“Santa Cruz is known for our commitment to the environment and sustainability,” said Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty. “In the near future electric vehicles will be commonplace throughout the region. I am pleased the City and County of Santa Cruz, as well as the entire Monterey Bay area, are building a state-of-the-art EV charging infrastructure to encourage the adoption of these vehicles to help reduce emissions in our region. Santa Cruz is one of the most popular travel destination areas in California. Our visitors will now be able to charge their EVs while enjoying all our area has to offer.”

In addition to the downtown Santa Cruz location, other nearby ChargePoint locations are:

Coulomb’s ChargePoint America program offers thousands of free EV charging stations for public and home charging to individuals and businesses. Installation of the charging stations was provided by Coulomb regional distributor Clean Fuel Connection, which used local contractors for installation with the support of IBEW Local 234.

“Plug In America is excited to see the deployment of the next generation of plug-in infrastructure in Santa Cruz County.  The outstanding efforts of MBEVA, Coulomb Technologies and all of the partners will accelerate the market acceptance of electric vehicles in Santa Cruz, the Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay areas.” said Jay Friedland, Legislative Director of Plug In America.  “As the organization representing the millions of potential future consumers of plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles, Plug In America believes widespread EV charging will truly benefit consumers who want the next generation of clean plug-in cars.”

The ChargePoint Network expansion into Santa Cruz County brings EV drivers the easy-to-use unique services including real-time status and location of unoccupied charging stations, tracking and reporting greenhouse gas and gasoline savings, and charging status notification, all by SMS, email or smart phone (iPhone and Blackberry) applications. Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and all manufacturers of electric vehicle charging stations.

Coulomb’s ChargePoint America program will provide nearly 5,000 charging stations to program participants in ten regions in the United States: Austin, Texas, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando/Tampa, Sacramento, Calif., San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, Redmond/Bellevue, Wash., Washington DC/Baltimore, Southern Michigan (including Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit).  The program is a strategic partnership between Coulomb and three leading automobile brands: Ford, Chevrolet and smart USA.  Coulomb currently has the largest established base of networked charging stations worldwide with more than 3800 systems shipped to more than 500 customers. Installation of the ChargePoint charging stations is currently underway in all regions. Businesses interested in free public ChargePoint stations can visit http://www.chargepointamerica.com to apply.

More on Electric Vehicles From The Green Living Guy

Return of The Electric Car

Why the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid is More EV Than Hybrid?

More from The Green Living Guy:

 1. Build Your Own Electric Vehicle by Seth Leitman and Bob Brandt

2. Build Your Own Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle by Seth Leitman

3. Build Your Own Electric Motorcycle by Carl Vogel

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