Group pushes to make California the U.S. mecca of electric vehicles

Group pushes to make California the U.S. mecca of electric vehicles

A lobby group consisting of vehicle manufacturers, regulators, clean air advocates, and motorist associations unveiled a plan on Monday to make California the leading state in the country to have electric vehicles on its streets. To make their plan viable, the group wants to install plenty of charging terminals in homes, malls, office buildings, car parks, and other accessible areas in the next ten years.

The group, which calls itself as the California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative, announced the plan to coincide with the first delivery of the Nissan Leaf to a customer in Redwood City, California. Nissan's electric car is targeted at the mass market and is the flagship electric vehicle of the Japanese automaker. GM's Chevrolet Volts are not far behind with their delivery date, with 150 cars scheduled to hit California show rooms in the days ahead. The electric vehicle advocacy group is seeking a goal of one million electric vehicles and hybrid cars in use in the state by 2020.

Private companies are eager to take advantage of the upcoming demand for electric vehicles by building or upgrading charging terminals all over the state. Since the introduction of electric vehicles in the 1990s, California has built about 1,300 charging terminals in homes and public areas. Many of them were not used often as the initial hype about battery-powered vehicles died down. But the electric vehicle market seems to be maturing enough to appeal to the mass market with models like the Volt and the Leaf rolling out. The California Energy Commission recognizes the revitalized market and is now planning to upgrade and repair the charging stations.

Posted by Sophia Andrews on Tuesday December 14 2010, 12:48 AM EDT. Ref: AP. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Travel. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0