CHARGING AHEAD TO GAIN MORE MARKET SHARE; EV PLUGS BECOME MORE PLENTIFUL IF NOT COMPATIBLE.Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer In the battle for the allegiance of electric vehicle owners, Ford Motor Co. and American Honda unveiled four new local charging stations on Friday. The duo are playing catch-up to General Motors, which for the past year has been on an installation spree of its own, constructing more than 200 Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, stations that operate on a different, incompatible charging system. Like Ford and Honda, GM hopes the prevalence of its stations will encourage would-be buyers to choose its car. The automaker has spent millions promoting the EV1, while Ford and Honda have put lesser amounts into marketing their vehicles, the Ranger EV truck and the EV Plus, respectively. In greater Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , there are approximately 300 EV1s on the road and 75 Honda EV Pluses The Honda EV Plus was the first production battery electric vehicle from a major automaker with non lead acid batteries. Only 300 or so EV Plus models were produced and released. . ``It's a VHS (Video Home System) A half-inch, analog videocassette recorder (VCR) format introduced by JVC in 1976 to compete with Sony's Betamax, introduced a year earlier. versus Beta type of issue,'' said Dave Zatero, editor of a newsletter on vehicle technology published by Burbank-based CalStart, a consortium of transportation engineering firms. ``GM has been really aggressive about putting in inductive inductive 1. eliciting a reaction within an organism. 2. inductive heating a form of radiofrequency hyperthermia that selectively heats muscle, blood and proteinaceous tissue, sparing fat and air-containing tissues. chargers throughout the state and Ford and Honda are now getting ramped up themselves.'' The Ford-Honda camp have committed $100,000 each to install about 50 conductive stations in California this year. The latest four are located at the Burbank Airport, in the Century City Shopping Center shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that the shops are usually amalgamated into , in Pasadena and at the Universal CityWalk Universal CityWalk is a part of Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Japan originating from Universal's first park, Universal Studios Hollywood. . ``This is an important first step in improving electric vehicle charging access,'' said Tom Elliott
Tom Elliott MLA (born 11 December 1963) is a Northern Ireland Ulster Unionist MLA. , American Honda executive vice president. ``These charging stations provide an added sense of confidence and security'' to EV owners. Beyond owners, who will be able to charge their cars more conveniently, the big winner in the competition so far is Los Angeles-based Edison EV, which installs charging stations for both groups. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Edison spokeswoman Gloria Quinn, the stations cost between $5,000 and $10,000 each to install. Quinn would not say what Edison's profit margin is on the jobs. While they welcome the business, Quinn said, for the industry to really take off manufacturers must agree on a universal charging method. ``We do install both systems, but having conflicting charging systems isn't good for growing the market,'' she said. ``A lot of consumers say, `I don't want to have to choose. Come back to me when it's all worked out.' '' At issue in the competition are two distinct methods of putting juice into run-down EV batteries. Under GM's inductive method, electricity is transferred magnetically, while conductive systems transfer electricity through metal-to-metal contact. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos PHOTO (1-2--Color) Chris Silvers, left, watches as Duane Jenkins plugs a Honda EV Plus into a charging station at the Universal CityWalk. It is one of four new charging stations announced Friday. At top, a plug is in place for a charge. John McCoy/Daily News |
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