San Diego will be one of the testing locations for a plug-in electric vehicle charging device. San Diego Gas and Electric and the company that has developed the device will unveil a prototype during a conference that starts Monday in Long Beach. It's part of making San Diego plug-in ready.
The mobile charging device will be presented at the Plug-In 2009 conference.
San Diego Gas and Electric is developing technology that will allow customers to charge their vehicle anywhere in SDG&E's service territory and bill the electricity use to their SDG&E account.
Bill Zobel is the utility's manager of clean transportation.
He says SDG&E is also part of a study to evaluate the demand and energy impacts of electric vehicles on the electric grid.
Zobel says charging stations will be installed in San Diego and four other regions to support the roll-out of several thousand Nissan electric vehicles next year.
"The infrastructure planning will start this year and then the cars will be here next year," Zobel said. "And the reason we're starting a year ahead of time is we want to have all of the fixed outlets and the fixed chargers in place before the vehicles arrive."
He said the project will foster the expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure that will eventually be available for use throughout the country.
