Check in and charge up.
That’s what the international hotel chain IHG has begun offering drivers of electric cars at eight of its sites in south-eastern Australia.
The group yesterday launched charging sites operated by the network firm Better Place at five hotels in NSW, adding to three already operating in Canberra and Melbourne.
“As electric vehicles become more accepted in the market place and more models and vehicles become available to the end user, we’ll look at more areas to roll these out to,” Victoria Rose, director of sustainability for InterContinental Hotels Group in Australasia, said.
Visitors can charge their electric cars at the rate of about 25 kilometres of range per hour, with Better Place supplying zero emissions power. IHG is the first hotel company to host such a charge network in Australia, the companies say.
For Better Place and other providers of charge points, the challenge is to provide sufficient sites to induce drivers to switch to electric vehicles.
“No one wants to put the charge points in until the cars are here and no one wants to bring in the cars until the infrastructure is available,” said Guy Pross, general manager for Better Place. “We’re breaking that chicken and egg [issue] effectively.”
Better Place has 120 chargers in Australia with the number of electric vehicles still only “in the hundreds”, Mr Pross said.
Government support is bankrolling much of the early deployment of the chargers. The five IHG hotels in NSW offering charge points – Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach, Crowne Plaza Terrigal, Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley, Holiday Inn Sydney Airport and Holiday Inn Old Sydney – are part of the $100 million federal government Smart Grid, Smart City trial.
For hotels like IHG the challenge is to reduce their environmental impact without the guest noticing, particularly when it comes to cost. “Our clients generally want a more sustainable stay,” Ms Rose said, “but the current climate is (such) that they don’t want to pay for that.”
IHG may next extend the Better Place chargers to hotels in Surfers Paradise and Perth.
Ms Rose said such infrastructure will one day be commonplace, particularly once rental car companies start supplying electric vehicles.
“Car hire companies over the next year are envisaged to procure quite a large number of electric vehicles,” she said.
Separately, Better Place confirmed a report that GM Holden may start assembling electric Holdens at its Adelaide plant. The initial production will involve 120 e-Commodores and six e-Caprices.
Better Place is part of the EV Engineering consortium developing electric cars, which also includes GE Capital’s Custom Fleet and parts maker Robert Bosch.
