The government of the United States will begin the world’s largest-scale demonstration test on electric vehicles (EVs) this summer, which will take place in California, as well as five other U.S. states and one district.
A U.S. venture, Ecotality, will undertake the project with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The demonstration test will use Nissan Motor’s “LEAF” EVs and deploy 310 units of fast chargers. It is known that Ecotality has been developing EV chargers designed to be compliant with CHAdeMO, a fast charging standard being promoted by Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japanese automobile manufacturers. Expectations are high for this project as an opportunity to accelerate the expansion of the standard.
The project promoted by DOE seeks the participation of the owners of 5,700 Nissan LEAF EVs and 2,600 Chevrolet Volt hybrid vehicles manufactured by the U.S.-based General Motors. The government funding combined with private investment brings the total value of the project to approximately 230 million dollars (about 18.8 billion yen).
Charging infrastructure consisting of 310 fast chargers and 14,650 standard 220-V chargers will be installed in the states of California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Tennessee and Texas, as well as Washington, D.C. The U.S. government aims to achieve the targeted number of installed charging units by this summer and start a full-scale demonstration test.
While the deployment of CHAdeMO-compliant equipment is not officially required by the U.S. government in this project, all 310 chargers are expected to be CHAdeMO-compliant because LEAF EVs are compatible with the standard and Ecotality is also developing CHAdeMO-compliant chargers.
