Electric vehicle charging stations are popping up throughout our area, and the nation.
Here’s a cool feature I found: A map of electric vehicle charging stations.
It focuses on California, Arizona and Georgia, including a color-coded Google map, by city, address or zip code. The map can be handy for planning an out-of-town trip (so you don’t run out of juice)!
It also includes comments from users that can be updated in real time, including some local color.
One recent posting for an EV charging station in Auburn read:
“williamwauters reports: 2/17 Ranger charged on Avcom fine. Original Pete’s is now where Tom talked of Hanford’s. Pizza, Italian, brew like downtown Sac.”
The charging stations I know about in Nevada City, such as at Miners Foundry, aren’t listed, so somebody should include them. It’s a collaborative effort.
This is the type of information that could go on a newspaper Web site if they’re serious about differentiating their content from what appears in the print edition.
You could jazz up this map, regionalize it, provide a link “E-vehicles” and host it yourself. And, most important of all, you could find a sponsor, such as a regional dealer who sells EV cars. This is the way to “monetize” your Web traffic, but it’s not happening nearly fast enough.
As I’ve written before, the Bee has done a good job with their Web databases, at least content-wise. For a community newspaper, the Marin IJ has some interesting ones. Go to the newspaper’s “data center” toward the bottom left corner of the site.
Jeff Pelline's Sierra Foothills Report 
Hi Jeff – Electric Vehicle Alliance of Nevada County has a google map of the six local NEV (Neigborhood Electric Vehicle) FREE charging stations. We should try to connect it with the larger databases like the one you point out.
Take a look at their yahoo groups page which references the map:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/EVAllianceNevadaCounty
or go there directly:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=110773225347372658392.00045ef3fc71ea32c79b5
Yubanet ran an article on it:
http://yubanet.com/regional/Electric-Vehicle-Charging-Network-Blossoms.php
The Union probably did too.
-Tom
Tom,
Thanks for writing. Yup, I’d hook up to a larger database, since the range of the vehicles typically is about 150 miles and most EV users here know of the six local ones and might want to venture further. I notice there’s ones in Auburn, Truckee and Lake Tahoe, for example. Shouldn’t be hard, and judging from the comments about the other charging stations, some of the people are from here anyway. Plus, it would draw people here too, perhaps a boon for tourism dollars. I think it’s a cool little cottage industry.
Good luck.
-Jeff
Just spoke with the folks at EVA, they agree. So now we begin the process of interfacing to larger sites. Great way to expand advertisement! It will be interesting to see how many sites are out there that have charging maps and how up to date they are, and if they have facility to easily add new stations. Thanks for the nudge.
-Tom
Heard back from evchargernews.com:
(note there’s a broader service through DoE at
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/stations/find_station.php
but they only have one category for ‘electric’ – hardly sufficient here;
and another
http://www.evauthority.com/ev-charging-stations/
– so it looks like it’s another case of too many independent thinkers with great intentions, but not enough collaboration when they’re focused on 100% the same topic)
————-
Tom,
Thanks for contacting me.
At the present time, yes, we are concentrating on >120VAC sites. We list 120V sites only if they also have 208-240V charging at the same location. Our focus is on freeway-capable vehicles that are likely to travel outside of their local area. For vehicles that travel only in a local area, a local Website probably serves them best. I’m thinking that your target audience would consist of drivers who do not normally take their vehicles outside the local area. Is that a correct assessment?
We may expand our scope in the future. Right now, our plate is full trying to keep the 208-240V sites up to date, complete, and accurate.
Please check back in a few months.
Tom Dowling
Interesting post,, Will definitely come back soon!!