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Capitol Hill shopping center adds car charging hoping for shopper boost

The fast charging station is located on the rooftop lot (Image: CHS)

Capitol Hill’s Harvard Market has taken a step into the future with the addition of three new electric car charging stations. 

“We’re trying to make Harvard Market the transportation station for Capitol Hill,” Morris H. Groberman of MorGro Investments said, who oversees the shopping center. “With the street car coming in and the light rail,  we wanted to be on the leading edge.” 

The stations come from Blink out of San Francisco, and cost $60-70 thousand each to buy and install. Harvard Market features two different models—a fast charger on the rooftop level, and two wall charge units on the lower parking garage. The fast charging unit can charge an electric car fully in 30 minutes, and costs $1-2 per hour based on membership status. 

“We’re really trying to make this a place where people can stop and take care of everything they need at once,” Groberman said, “shopping, charging, hopping on the street car or the light rail. We’re really excited about the charger and how much things are changing.”


The station will be one of the few on the national grid, which Groberman hopes will bring in people from around the neighborhood and nearby apartments. 

A couple of months ago, CHS reported on data on electric vehicle infrastructure in the city, noting the lack in the neighborhood. Capitol Hill’s lack of parking garages made infrastructure difficult, but with Harvard Market now on the grid, things are looking up for electric car owners in the neighborhood. 

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Gas Sucks
11 years ago

What we need is battery switching stations not charging stations.
http://www.betterplace.com/the-solution-switch-stations

Right now electric cars have a range of 40 to 265 miles before they need to be charged depending on the car. You do not have to plug them in everywhere you go.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1078401_gm-ceo-electric-

http://www.eperformance.com/car/electric_cars_range.html

http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/range?intcmp=rang

Dave
11 years ago

“What we need is battery switching stations not charging stations”

Unless you get a lifetime membership with a battery switching organization with stations everywhere, how would you account for the condition of the batteries that are swapped back and forth? You would no longer “own” the battery in your car, you would essentially rent a battery for the term of a charge cycle.

Whatever the case, charging stations seem to be a positive addition to current EV infrastructure.

Ollie
11 years ago

You mean not everybody on Capitol Hill rides a bike or takes transit? You’re getting BOTH a light rail and a trolley line, right?

Oh, that’s right. We’re not getting rid of our cars. We’re just getting greener ones. Love me some green density. If I could only find a place to park that didn’t cost $4 an hour or involve a shopping mall.

disappointed neighbor
11 years ago

Don’t be ridiculous. Where else would I sleep with my sword?

Switch your battery don't charge it.

It is good not to own the battery it adds at least 10K to the price of the car and and will eventually no longer hold a charge. Right now you buy gas. Rented batteries are monitored and maintained and switched out as needed. This charging infrastructure is better than gas but I think the switching paradigm has more advantages both in the short and long runs. We need to build a switching infrastructure.

lotsofrain
11 years ago

First of all, I find this Harvard market station very useful.

It’s fun to fantasize about flying cars, hydrogen economies, and fusion, but today..right now…we need DC Fast Charging for the thousands of electric cars already on the road. So why not built a few stations? It’s like saying we should start tearing out gas stations because we already have a small run of electric cars. Changing our automotive habits needs to be done in baby steps.

Although the majority of automotive use cases rarely go over 30 miles a day, I would say maybe once a week you might want to drive a little further. These cars need something to plug into. For example, last weekend on a leisure trip, I drove my Nissan LEAF from Redmond to Ocean Shores, and stopped in Olympia for a half hour for a “fast charge”. After sitting in rush hour for 3 hours on the first leg, I sure as heck needed to stop anyway. I was hungry.

For the idiots who like to drive 27 hours straight non-stop and fall asleep at the wheel, electric cars probably aren’t the best application for the “mission”, and perhaps battery swap technology might be a help there. There is an outfit in Europe that is doing just that, and it seems to be working well for them. But we don’t have that right now.

Its hard enough to get people to realize electric cars are not all about “paying for itself” and utility, but just as well about quiet drives, serious amounts of torque from a stop, and no annoying transmission shifting.

Matt
11 years ago

The problem with this super-charged DC station is that few cars can use it. It does not work with the Volt, and the Leaf requires a $700 adapter that you pay for when you buy the car. Love the idea, but I doubt you’ll see many cars use it anytime soon.