WASHINGTON – A year from now, roughly 1,000 all-electric vehicles will be whispering around the Puget Sound are as part of a federally funded project that eventually might lead to an electric corridor stretching from Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., where you could swipe your card and receive a 15-minute quick charge to speed you on your way.

Washington is one of five states with metro markets selected to participate in the 36-month study funded by a $100 million grant from the Department of Energy under the economic recovery program.

About 1,000 of the nearly 5,000 Nissan zero-emission electric vehicles, dubbed the LEAF, will be deployed to cities around central Puget Sound. More than 2,000 charging stations will be installed mostly in homes, but also in public and commercial areas.

Among the 47 partners in the project are Tacoma Power, Puget Sound Energy, King County, Seattle City Light, the Snohomish Public Utility District and the State of Washington.

“This is the largest deployment of electric cars and charging stations ever,” said Colin Reed, a spokesman for the EV (Electric Vehicle) Project. “No one has ever tried a project like this.”

Tacoma Power will not only help connect and supply electricity to the charge stations, but it also hopes to buy 10 or so of the vehicles for its own fleet.

“It’s the new frontier in sustainable green transportation,” said Frank Castro, utilities fleet manager for Tacoma Public Utilities.

Electric cars aren’t just some green fantasy, Reed said.

An estimated 1 million to 1.5 million plug-in electric cars could be on the road within five years. According to other estimates, by 2030 one-third of all new cars in the Northwest might be plug-in electric cars.

Read more . . .

Related articles by Zemanta

• Better Place Sets Goal Of 100,000 EVs By 2016 (blogs.thecarconnection.com)

Related posts:

1. The Great Electric Car Quandary: How to Build a Charging Infrastructure Before Demand Grows
2. Goal of M.I.T. Electric Car Is 10-Minute Charge Time
3. UK powers up plans for world’s largest electric car trial
4. At $130-A-Barrel Oil, Electric Cars Look Cheap
5. Group Wants Government to Jump-Start the E.V. Revolution

Tags: economic recovery program, electric car, electric cars, electric vehicle project, electric vehicles, new cars, new frontier, puget sound, puget sound energy

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 9:12 am and is filed under Automotive, Project Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.