Iowa planning a study on electric vehicle charging stations
Some cool news out of Iowa;
The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) and the Iowa Clean Cities Coalition will conduct the study.
The study will look at several factors which include evaluating the current status of charging stations in Iowa, analyzing trends in electric vehicles and charging demands, analyzing the feasibility of charging station business models and delivering education, technical assistance and recommendations.
Before the study, the organizations are hosting two kick-off meetings. They will look at the electric vehicle market, where current charging stations are in Iowa and give people a chance to weigh in on the issue.
I hope it leads to more places to plug in the precious here in Iowa;
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It would be nice if Volts could accept higher rates of charge that enabled a rapid charging but they're not able to do so.
Tesla has their own style of connector and the Volt uses what's called a standard J1772 connector. Other electric vehicles in the US besides the Volt - the Leaf, Fusion Energi, BMW i3, etc all use that same J1772 connector. Tesla includes an adapter with the cars so they can be recharged from a J1772 120v or 240v station.
Here's the Tesla connector;
And a J1772 connector;
Tesla is the only one so far that's really getting in to the rapid charging game, putting up their own network of superchargers along interstates all over the US that can fully charge the cars in under an hour. ChargePoint is starting to get into developing a rapid charging infrastructure but it's just beginning, they're very limited right now.
Some of the other manufacturers are getting in to the rapid charging game. There's a couple different systems in use for that.
There's the SAE Combo port, which has a DC charger mounted right below the J1772 port.
The BMW i3 has a combo port, that can use both a regular J1772 charger and combo chargers. My understanding is that the upcoming Chevy Bolt is going to have a combo port as well for rapid charging.
Then there's the CHAdeMO system, which is popular with Asian manufacturers (Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, etc).
The Leaf uses that system. They have two seperate ports, one for a CHAdeMO plug and a regular J1772 plug;
A mechanic at the local Nissan dealer who owns a Leaf told me he was advised not to use the rapid charger more than once a day otherwise it would overheat the battery. But then there are no rapid chargers around here, the closest one right now is Madison.
