Where we are

Currently, there is not much in the way of electric vehicle charging stations around the world. There are some cities that have installed some, and some regions are working on large scale projects, but currently, there isn't very much of it. This is fine for right now, because there aren't very many plug-in or electric vehicles yet, but there will be in the next couple years, so we need to start implementing these now.

Most auto manufacturers are producing plug-in or electric vehicles that would work with the first system discussed, where the car could plug into an outlet to recharge. While this doesn't deal with the issue of being able to recharge multiple times on a long trip, the plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) have gasoline motors on board for this purpose. The thought is that when there are more PHEVs on the market, there will be demand for rapid charging stations, which will then allow the cars to drop the gasoline motor and become fully electric.

There are some areas of the world, however, that are working on the second infrastructure idea. There is one company in particular worth mentioning, Project Better Place, which is working in 6 countries, including Japan, Israel, and some areas of the US and Canada. This company has made deals with Nissan and Renault to build electric vehicles with removable battery packs that work with their battery swap infrastructure (which you can see a video of here).

There are slowly more and more places installing recharging points or are teaming up with Project Better Place to setup charging stations. We will be constantly updating the news section of this page with new stories that we find and encourage you to submit news stories we may have missed.