One of the takeaways of being a beta-tester of a plug-in hybrid car a few years ago was that it would become somewhat annoying to plug-in a car every night. The marginal savings due to reduced gas consumption probably wouldn’t have been enough long-term incentive for me to make sure my car was “plugged in” every night. Not charging may be OK with a hybrid, but it just doesn’t work with a pure electric car.
Satyajit Patwardhan, CEO of ConnectMyEV (formerly Green-Dot), developed a solution that uses conductive charging that allows a consumer to simply park over a charger. They have designed it to be safe, while delivering fast charging (1 to 2 hours for a car like a Nissan Leaf).
With a $1,500 expected retail price, Patwardhan suggests it is easy to retrofit existing electric cars and driveways to accommodate their technology. It’s not in stores yet, but fortunately, we had a chance to get a sneak peek of this innovative technology at a ProspectSV event.