Aug 5 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Ed Taylor The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.


Electric vehicle operations in Arizona will get a big charge from a new program that includes a federal government grant to a Phoenix-based company.

Under the pilot program, Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. (eTec), a subsidiary of Scottsdale-based ECOtality, will set up 2,550 charging stations at homes, businesses and high traffic areas in the Valley and Tucson to support the operation of up to 1,000 new Nissan electric vehicles.

The entire $200 million program will cover five states and will deploy up to 5,000 electric vehicles and nearly 13,000 charging stations. About half of the funds, $99.8 million, will be provided by a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, and the remainder will come from private partners including Nissan USA.

It will be the largest electric-vehicle infrastructure project in U.S. history, according to eTec.

The purpose of the pilot program is to study ways to maximize the effectiveness of charging infrastructure to support widespread electric-vehicle use, said eTec President Don Karner.

"By studying lessons learned from electric vehicle operations and the infrastructure supporting these first 5,000 vehicles, the . . . project will enable the streamlined deployment of the next 5 million electric vehicles," he said in a written statement released Wednesday.

The project is expected to create more than 750 new jobs by 2012, with more than 250 eventually in Arizona, the company said.

The project will make the Phoenix and Tucson areas launch markets not just for the new Nissan electric vehicle, called the Leaf, but for all future plug-in vehicles, said Jonathan Read, president of ECOtality.

ECOtality and Nissan previously announced plans to deploy fast-charge systems along Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson to create the nation's first electric vehicle corridor and allow EV users to commute conveniently between the two cities.

Other states that will receive the vehicles and charging infrastructure are California, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. The states were chosen based on favorable regulatory environments, demographics, climates, topographies and transportation patterns.

Deployment of Nissan's EVs is scheduled for the fall of 2010, and charging infrastructure installations are expected to begin in summer 2010.

The Nissan EV will be available through local Nissan dealerships.

If a resident decides to purchase a Leaf, they will be provided installed charging equipment at the consumer's home or business at no cost. Other fast-charge systems will be installed at strategic locations to allow EV operators to charge on the go and extend daily driving range.

Deployment of the entire fleet of 5,000 Nissan EVs across the five states is expected to save 2.1 million gallons of gasoline, or 51,900 barrels of oil, per year.

(c) 2009, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services