Who Will Charge America?

When electric cars and plug-in hybrids begin hitting the U.S. market in bigger numbers next year, a significant barrier to entry for consumers who don’t live in places where people have garages with electrical outlets will be where to obtain juice. True, you could run an extension cord out of the apartment window—although if you live in a 40-story high rise, that will need to be a pretty long cord.

Obviously, this means a market for charging stations, which will also help alleviate “range anxiety” issues by supplying plenty of locations to juice up. These stations have an advantage over your basic household outlet in the sense that they can deliver higher voltage and charge an electric car or plug-in hybrid faster. Some manufacturers are saying that owners will be able to get an 80 percent recharge in 15 minutes. This has led to speculation that charging stations should be located in the parking lots of Starbucks (SBUX) and Wal-Marts (WMT) (as well as in parking structures). In denser urban areas, streetside stations are an option. But who will provide the technology?

In England, a company called Elektromotive has begun to define the space, with its Elektrobay product, described as “an exquisite, sophisticated piece of design engineering offering a safe and user friendly means of charging electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. We are sure you will agree.” It’s essentially a pole, hooked into the grid, that users can access wirelessly. Users can be billed by having charges applied to their power bills or through prepaid services. As of now, it doesn’t seem that a credit-card option is available.

But that will have to be added in if the system comes to the USA, where drivers are accustomed to dipping and swiping cards at gas stations. Drivers also have to tote around a charging cable, as the Elektrobays don’t have one that extends from the unit. Elektrobays were debuted in London and have now spread to the rest of the United Kingdom. It would be nice, obviously, if a U.S. company could offer a similar product, but Elektromotive seems to have the best technology, so an export deal with U.S. cities and power utilities looks more likely. So there you have it. In our electric car future, we’ll be dependent on Asian batteries and British charging stations. Oh, the humility.