Thursday, November 25, 2010

Texas = Electric Cars?

Hey guys, got some eco-friendly news for you today.  If you live in Texas, this is affect you, unless you don't drive.
When power plant heavyweight NRG Energy announced yesterday that it would invest $10 million in the rollout of the nation’s first privately-finance electric vehicle charging network it also revealed that the city it would debut in would be … Houston, Texas.
Um, what?
Houston (pictured) is known as the nation’s oil capital, and as a resident, I can’t say I disagree with that assessment. It’s also in a state where oil is still cheap compared to other parts of the country, and the same is true for electricity costs. At nearly 15,000 square miles, it’s purported to be bigger than Maryland, and is known for bad traffic and long commutes. And despite its traffic and air pollution issues, Houston has been reluctant to adopt mass transit.
But NRG president and CEO David Crane tells me the company actually believes Texas is a better market for electric vehicles than it gets credit for, which I was skeptical about after test-driving the Ford Focus Electric in Dallas. In fact, Crane says they’ve been actively talking to Nissan about allocating more of its limited-supply, all-electric Leafs to Texas, which the automaker passed over when choosing its first-launch markets. (As part of the rollout, Nissan dealerships in Texas will sell NRG’s monthly charging packages to Leaf buyers).
Keep in mind that NRG is parent to Texas-based electricity retailers, Green Mountain Energy and Reliant Energy, so it has close Texas ties. Crane says he’s interested in pursuing and developing a similar network in California — after all, NRG is in the business of selling electricity, and more electric vehicles on the road means more electricity sales for power providers. All that aside, here’s Crane’s reasoning for why Texas makes sense for an electric car network:
This is could be the next step to saving the Earth, we will save a lot of oil.

9 comments:

  1. I support green thinking. It may cost a bit more money, but save lot of irrecoverable nature resources.

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  2. Hah...wouldn't think in a million years texas would be involved with somethin earth friendly.

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  3. i havent been so much online lately,,but now I will visit you every day..:)

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  4. green energy is definitely the way forward

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  5. i kinda not saw an electric charger for cars nearby here in germany, but i hope it will realy happen that you just drive with electrisity
    cool blog , following

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  6. The faster we start using these things the better.

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  7. definitely the most unlikely place!

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  8. Its strange that Texas are doing this, I would have though of it as a state apposed to anything that goes against oil.

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