Projects

Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation Grant For the Nissan Electric Drive Vehicle Demonstration and Vehicle Infrastructure Project

Using an Energy Commission grant, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (ETEC), in conjunction with Nissan Motor Company, will establish up to 1,000 residential chargers, 1,450 commercial Level 2 EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment), and 60 Level 3 fast chargers for electric vehicles in San Diego County.

The project’s goal is to support electric vehicles with a widespread network of charging stations. Nissan will deploy 1,000 of its new Leaf electric cars; once the infrastructure and vehicles are in place, ETEC, along with San Diego Gas and Electric Company and other technical partners, will collect data on the effectiveness of the technology and the impact that electric vehicles have on the local grid. The program will develop various methods for payment and create revenue systems for commercial and public charging infrastructure.

Grant Amount

$8,000,000 will come from the Energy Commission’s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program. The US Department of Energy will provide $39,350,127 in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Match Funding

$32,572,007 from the project’s participants.

Project Participants

ETEC, based in Phoenix, Arizona, provides charging systems for electric vehicles. A wholly-owned subsidiary of ECOtality, the company also conducts research, development and testing of advanced transportation and energy systems. It will manage this project, gathering data from vehicles, chargers and Nissan Leaf drivers to develop models for deploying charging infrastructure.

Nissan Motor Company will provide 1,000 Nissan Leaf vehicles and will use this project to develop, implement and study the best ways to deploy electric vehicles across the country.

CB Richard Ellis, a real estate services company based in Los Angeles, will to provide commercial charger locations.

Coulomb Technologies, a Campbell-based Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) manufacturer, will provide ChargePoint Networked charging stations.

San Diego Gas and Electric, the local utility, will evaluate smart charging applications.

Other participants for technical support include Idaho National Laboratory, GridPoint, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Zipcar, UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, the San Diego Association of Governments, and Roush Industries.

Project Benefits

The 1,000 Nissan Leaf vehicles are expected to save more than 1.7 million gallons of gasoline and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 5,000 tons of CO2 per year over the term of the project. The project is expected to spur the deployment of 242,000 Nissan electric cars by 2015, encourage other electric vehicle manufacturers like participant Zipcar, and create an estimated 153 jobs in California.