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West Hollywood To Get Better Electric Car Chargers

By Chris Clarke
December 7, 2012
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A Blink Pedestal charger | Photo: Blink

West Hollywood has long been ahead of the curve on environmental issues, so it's no surprise that a crop of eight new electric car chargers soon to be installed throughout the city will replace older chargers that the City had already installed. The new stations, which will grace three popular locations in the Los Angeles area municipality, will allow a wider range of cars to use them, and drivers can locate vacant stations with a smartphone app.

The eight Blink Pedestal Chargers will be installed at the West Hollywood Library parking garage, the Kings Road parking garage, and at Plummer Park on Santa Monica Boulevard. Funded primarily with assistance from the Department of Energy's Electric Vehicle grant program, the Blink chargers will hook up to cars using the increasingly popular SAE J1772 connector, allowing a wide range of electric cars to use the charging stations. The stations are Level 2, 240-volt chargers.

The Blink Network will allow users to find and reserve space at nearby charging stations. Drivers will also be able to get status updates via the network, so that they can, for instance, see when their car is finished charging while at a cafe a block away.

According to a release sent out by West Hollywood's city planners, the stations will also record data that will help determine where subsequent chargers should be installed. With more than 200 Blink chargers already in service in the Los Angeles basin and San Fernando Valley, it looks like it's getting more and more feasible to use electric vehicles for the majority of your automobile needs.

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