If you browse through the inflight magazines, you will find ads for cell phone and pager chargers that are simply a flat tray you plug into 110vac and then set your portable devices on the tray. The tray charges the phones and nothing needs to be connected to tiny plugs and transformers. It looks like similar technology may soon be available for electric cars. Check this out.
Technology is moving at warp speed. Point out a problem, like the issue of people having to deal with plugging high voltage cables into their vehicles, and some enterprising group will come up with a solution.
The concept is intriguing enough to encourage Duke Energy, Google, Clemson University, Hertz Rent A Car and others to test Evatran’s product this spring in anticipation of 2,000 Evatran units being sold this year.
Sears, the tool and appliance chain, has signed on to be an authorized nationwide installer of the garage-based mechanisms needed to make Evatran’s system work at home. The car-mounted adapters would have to be installed by auto dealers.
Raleigh, NC, officials, meanwhile, are in talks with Evatran to test the outdoor version of the company’s Plugless Power technology at select locations around town.
“Fundamentally, what we’re selling here is convenience,” said Evatran co-founder Rebecca Hough. “The cord gets really dirty. People run over the cord. And nobody wants to be using a cord in a rainstorm.”
As reader Mark says:
Charging stations that are being installed today could be close to obsolete by the end of the year. This technology is growing by leaps and bounds, and the millions of $’s that have been spent thru grants and other Federal programs could prove to be wasted money even before their done spending it.
Yes, once again the Federal Government may be proving that it is not the best at picking winners and losers. Sigh.
JVH
