We have great news for green-eyed New Yorkers who have been coveting San Francisco’s sophisticated electric vehicle charging systems. Beautiful Earth Group, a New York-based sustainable energy company, just unveiled its solar-powered electric vehicle (EV) charging station in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The new station is the first ever in our city and another momentous stepping stone of a greener future for NYC.
Located on an industrial lot near the Beautiful Earth’s headquarters overlooking downtown Manhattan, the off-grid, modular station is constructed of recycled steel shipping containers and powered solely by 235 watt photovoltaic panels. The car that is currently being charged at the station is a 100% electric BMW MINI E, and is now one of the few cars in the world to run exclusively on solar power. The vehicle has a range of just over 100 miles and takes about 3 hours to charge.
With so many major car companies planning to launch electric or plug-in hybrid cars next year, it makes sense that one of the biggest cities in the world, NY, will need charging stations. And BE’s station isn’t just for charging automobiles. It can also produce enough energy to power a small home, and has a battery bank that can store electricity 24/7 for on-demand usage.
“It never ceases to amaze me, when I get behind the wheel of this 95 mph sports car, that it doesn’t use a single drop of gasoline, and that all of its power comes from the solar energy we collect right here on the Brooklyn waterfront,” said BE president and CEO Lex Heslin about the groundbreaking development.
I believe that we are moving on to a certain level where we as the people advance in our ways not to use gas…..I strongly believe that having rechargeable cars is a good idea. But, I also believe that it is hard to have rechargeable cars when there aren’t enough rechargeable battery stations to refuel the cars. It looks like a good idea….. but at the same time we can’t be too reliable on electrical cars yet……we are still in a nation where we still rely on fuel. Pretty soon though those gas guzzlers will be exchanged by electric cars.
Combine that with a small hydrogen fuel cell stack and a converter and then you could use piped in natural gas, methane, even gasoline as a bridge to full electric. Of course a liquid fuel/electric hybrid would work well in this same application. One with a switch for FULL electric use (come on GM!!!!)
Vanadium-lithium-phosphate batteries are coming soon and they are instant swap no charge time – like propane tanks.
Check out the solar recharging station by Cellstrom (Swiss) http://bit.ly/7AbZUK It uses a vanadium-lithium-ion battery for storage. Vanadium batteries are also going to be in all the new eCars out of China’s largest eCar maker and China’s richest man: BYD (backed with $230M from Warren Buffett) is building vanadium battery plants in China. Vanadium adds 5 times the power/weight ration to today’s lithium car batteries.
Stay on top of all news related to vanadium batteries by following my tweets @VanadiumJoe . This is a quiet revolution that will hit the major media in 2010. It’s nice to be on the start of the next resource boom.
I have heard great things about Beautiful Earth Group, and I hope to see more developments in the future! They are really trying to make a difference and I think most companies lack that objective.
[...] highway. Thanks to a $1.32 million federal grant, they’ll be able to install 10 Level-3 electric charging stations along the route. Each station is capable of charging at 400 volts and 30 amps or more and at these [...]
Oh thank you for this. I was getting SO depressed reading about the deaths of those beautiful sea turtles. We can do things the right way.