Electric Vehicle Charging Station Coming to Encinitas

People driving electric cars will soon be able to charge them at a station in Encinitas.

Wednesday night City Council unanimously agreed to host a charging station as part of a national pilot program called The EV Project, which aims to have about 14,000 charging stations throughout the country to promote the use of electric and electric hybrid cars.

The San Diego area is one of 18 in the nation that is part of The EV Project, a $230 million public/private initiative that is sponsored by the US Department of Energy.

The Encinitas site will most likely be at the southwest corner of Vulcan Avenue and E Street, a plot of land the city leases from the North County Transit District (NCTD), which means that agency will also have to sign off on the project. The charging station should be up and running by January. 

San Fransisco-based Electronic Transportation Engineering Corp (ECOtality) will manage all of the sites using Blink electric vehicle chargers. ECOtality's agreement with the city of Encinitas will run through April 2013. After that, the city can elect to continue its agreement with ECOtality under a new lease, continue using the equimpment without ECOtality service, or have the equipment removed.

Encinitas’ participation in the project will consist of installing charging units at the site. Wednesday night City Council also authorized $10,000 to be transferred from the city’s general fund to help pay for installation costs beyond The EV Project’s financial incentives, which are earmarked at $2,250 per charging unit.

Most electric cars take two to three hours to charge, and the hope is that people who use the Encinitas site will be enticed to spend some time downtown shops and restaurants while their cars charge, thereby bolstering the local economy.

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