First public EV charging station opens in NYC

Coulomb Technologies installed its first public electric charging station in New York on Wednesday. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg attended the unveiling of the ChargePoint charging station, which is located in a public parking lot near Port Authority.

It's the first installation of Coulomb Technologies' $37 million project, funded in part by a $15 million grant administered by the Department of Energy, the Associated Press reported. The company will install thousands of public charging stations in nine U.S. regions: Austin, Texas; Detroit; Los Angeles; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Sacramento, Calif.; the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area; Redmond, Wash. and Washington, D.C.

The Campbell, Calif.-based company began testing its pay-per-use charging stations in San Jose two years ago. By September 2011, Coulomb Technologies plans to install 4,600 chargers to recharge the new mass-production EVs that will join the Tesla Roadster on the streets later this year. The Chevrolet Volt, Ford Transit Connect Electric, and Smart ForTwo Electric Drive will be available at the end of 2010. The Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus Electric should debut in 2011.

Charging times will vary for each vehicle depending on the size of the battery, the amount of recharge needed, and the charging level of the station. But completely drained batteries should take approximately 4 hours to reach a full charge using ChargePoint's Level 2 chargers. Instructions for how to use these new charging stations can be found on the company's Web site.

Another perk of this new technology is that this ChargePoint station may also serve as some of the cheapest parking near Midtown: the first month will be free to customers. After that, the owner of the station will determine the rates. Users can sign up to use the station through the ChargePoint Web site.

Src: [Car Tech]