Leaf-ready homes are on the horizon
Nissan and City Ventures, a CA green builder, have announced an interesting partnership this month. City ventures will pre-wire 190 of it’s under construction town homes with parking spaces that are ready for level 2 charging stations. What does this mean exactly? As more and more electric vehicles enter the market, owners struggle with how to keep them charged.
While you can charge an electric vehicle with a standard 110 volt outlet at home, this can take an average 12-20 hours to accomplish. In addition, the Chicago Tribune noted earlier this year that while Chicago has seen a surge EV purchases, owners of urban condos who don’t have the option of using a garage outlet are finding EV ownership prohibitive.
Level 2 stations require only a breadbox size docking device and need on average 4-8 hours to fully charge the vehicle. The docking stations are priced at roughly 2k and with the pre-wiring completed in the construction phase, EV owners will see a substantial decrease in installation costs.
I have heard of developers roughing in wiring for PV Solar systems in the hopes that when/if pricing comes down on these systems, homeowners will simply have to pay for the panels and save majorly on installation. However, this is the first I have heard of incorporating EV charging stations in to the project blueprint and I expect this may become a customary green building standard in the next few years.
In addition, I am curious to see when EV charging stations will be customary in MLS searchable criteria. More importantly, as incentives to own these types of cars rise along with the cost of oil, one has to wonder if this along with energy efficient features will bring a premium in pricing.
Chris
August 15, 2011 at 4:36 pm
This is awesome news for everyone interested in reducing our carbon footprint. The easier it is to own an electric vehicle, the more people will buy one. The more people who purchase an electric vehicle, the less we depend on oil for fuel.