Electric Cars on the Move
Tonic, the "
good news" site
Saturday, December 19, 2009 2:05 PM ET
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Electric vehicles, so much promise unrealized. The problem is that cities aren't set up for them. After all, we have filling stations, not giant outlets on the side of the road. It's a chicken-and-egg thing: if we don't have very many electric cars, there's no motivation to establish electric charging stations, and if there are no charging stations, it's hard to justify the purchase of an electric vehicle.
Well that might be about to change. At the Climate Summit for Mayors held during the Copenhagen climate summit, 14 of the world's largest cities vowed to take concrete steps during the next year to transform their cities into electric-vehicle-friendly zones.
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This "C40 Electric Vehicle Network" will have the collaboration of four leading car manufacturers and the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), according to a press release from the
William J. Clinton Foundation.
The cities that have signed on for the project are Bogota, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Copenhagen, Delhi, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Seoul and Sydney. The steps they will take fall into four critical areas.
1. Facilitating the development of charging infrastructure and related electricity supply systems. 2. Streamlining the permitting processes for charging equipment. 3. Offering monetary and nonmonetary incentives for purchase of electric cars. 4. Developing plans to mobilize demand for electric vehicles in city and private fleets.
I don't know about you, but I can totally see myself pulling up to a charging station to plug in. Though we'll all have to be careful; that's one socket you definitely don't want your finger in.
Photo courtesy of Urban Jacksonville, via Flickr