BMW, Volkswagen Team With ChargePoint For Bi-Coastal Network

by Cameron Aubernon

Published: January 23rd, 2015

bmw volkswagen team with chargepoint for bi coastal network

More charging stations are on the way for EV owners, thanks to a new partnership between BMW, Volkswagen and ChargePoint.

The first phase of the partnership will be 100 DC fast chargers running north to south between Portland and San Diego on the West Coast, Boston and the District of Columbia on the East Coast. Each station will have up to two 50 kW DC Fast or 24 kW DC Combo Fast chargers for most EVs like the BMW i3 and Volkswagen e-Golf, as well as Level 2 chargers for all EVs. Access to each location is granted by a ChargePoint or ChargeNow membership card.

The new stations will be in metro and intercity locations — such as restaurants, malls and rest stops — spaced up to 50 miles apart for long-distance travel, joining a network of over 20,000 ChargePoint stations throughout the United States. The first location is online now in San Diego County, Calif., with the other 99 expected by the end of 2015.

#BMW #ChargePoint #ChargingNetworks #DCFastCharging #EastCoast #EVs #Volkswagen #WestCoast

Cameron Aubernon

Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.

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5 comments

Vulpine on Jan 23, 2015

At best these would be emergency back-up chargers for a Tesla--they'll take more than twice as long to charge a Model S than Tesla's own Superchargers simply due to the slow charging rate.

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- Th009 on Jan 23, 2015
  
  On the upside, they are not proprietary to a single brand.
  
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- Vulpine on Jan 23, 2015
  
  @th009 I hardly consider that an upside when they are so slow. Tesla hasn't made their Superchargers proprietary by any means; anybody may build to use the Supercharger as desired simply by licensing their technology (for free, even).
  
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- Mcs on Jan 24, 2015
  
  @th009 >> On the upside, they are not proprietary to a single brand. Actually, they are for level 3 charging. Teslas (with an adapter) and Leafs can use the CHAdeMO standard for L3 chargers. Lower EV volume manufacturers like BMW and VW use a different standard, CCS. Hopefully there will be adapters like Tesla has for CHAdeMO.
  
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Joeaverage on Apr 01, 2015

So do the car manufacturers believe that cheap gasoline won't last more than a few years? I would have to guess they have far more data to predict with than us consumers.

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