Forget light poles, British firm to build chargers from cable boxes

Ubitricity electric-car charging cordThe future of electric-car charging may be down in the trenches. At least British broadband provider Liberty Global hopes so. The company, which owns Virgin Media, plans to start a pilot project using Virgin Media's cables and trenches that run to thousands of neighborhoods around Britain. Since they already have power, Liberty Global says they...

US has world’s second highest electric-car population

2014 Tesla Model S in ChinaThe race is on to see which countries can sell the most electric cars in an effort to reduce global warming. As with many things counted in raw numbers, China is far ahead, with 1.28 million electric cars on the road. As with most things Chinese, however, the population numbers—of people or of cars—don't tell the whole story...

Plug-in hybrids to charge again in Beverly Hills

EVgo charging station in Union City, California with resused BMW i3 battery backupBanning plug-in hybrids from public chargers is no good. That's the conclusion of a new California law signed in September, which forbids cities from restricting access to public chargers for any type of electric vehicles in the state. After making a big splash by banning plug-in hybrids from its public chargers last April, the city of Beverly...

Report: Home electric-car chargers vulnerable to hackers

Trinity, professional hacker [from The Matrix]Connected home chargers can bring a higher level of convenience to the electric-car ownership experience, allowing more flexibility with remote access, charge scheduling, power-output adjustment, and even data displays. But according to the cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, they can also bring a higher level of vulnerability to your home...

Blink charging network joins interoperability push

ECOtality Blink DC fast charger plugged inBeginning in early 2019, all 135,000 users of the Blink charging network will soon be able to use other charging networks as part of their membership, while Blink’s chargers will be open to easy access by a wider range of drivers with other charging-network membership cards. The cross-compatibility, which was announced last week, comes via a...

Volvo goes off the grid, invests in mobile-charging experts Freewire

Volvo invests in FreewireVolvo Cars has announced an investment in Freewire Technologies, a company that emphasizes mobile charging solutions. Freewire earlier this year attracted a $5 million investment from the petro-giant BP, which will result in Freewire’s fast-charging systems being installed at some BP stations in the UK and Europe—effectively helping...

Illegal parking in charging spots: The culprit? Electric cars

Electric vehicle parking by Flickr user aaron_anderer, used under Creative Commons licenseA whole Hatfields and McCoys culture has grown up around parking in electric-car charging spaces, with electric-car drivers who need juice facing off against conventional cars—and sometimes other electrics who park there and don't plug in or stay longer than they need to. Now a study conducted this summer of who gets parking tickets in...

ChargePoint invests in commercial charging for buses, delivery vans, taxis

2014 BMW i3 REx fast-charging at Chargepoint site, June 2016  [photo: Tom Moloughney]After opposing the settlement over diesel emissions cheating that led VW to spend $2 billion building out a nationwide network of fast chargers, and suing one of Electrify America's suppliers for patent infringement, ChargePoint, the last of the original charging-network providers for electric cars, is moving to focus on commercial charging...

Northeast states band together to direct charging infrastructure

Electrify America 350 kw chargers at Home Depot in Chicopee, Mass.It sometimes seems as if everyone who buys an electric car lives in California. That's especially true from the perspective of officials in the Northeast, who have signed on to California's emissions regulations and zero-emissions vehicle mandates, yet see few electric cars sold in their states. One problem has been that states in the Northeast...

2018 Nissan Leaf electric car: Is there a fast-charging problem?

2018 Nissan Leaf with EVgo fast charger at NJ Turnpike Molly Pitcher travel plaza, Feb 2018As Tesla has shown, not all fast charging is created equal. Now owners of the new 2018 Nissan Leaf are complaining that that the car's "fast" charging is not always as fast as advertised. Owners have found that the car's electronic management software dials back charging speeds with each successive fast charge on any given trip. Nissan says this...