GE Sees Billion-Dollar Potential in EV Chargers
The infrastructure that will be needed to juice up electric vehicles (EVs) as they begin to roll onto U.S. streets in significant numbers over the next few years presents a huge potential market for electrical products, a market GE estimates at $1.5 billion in North America by 2015, said Chris Bowler, general manager of Industrial Solutions Marketing for GE Energy Industrial Solutions.
GE introduced a new electric vehicle (EV) charging station, the WattStation, a futuristic-looking piece of equipment GE hopes will become ubiquitous worldwide over the next few years as part of a new market estimated at $5 billion globally.
GE estimates that each dollar spent on charging stations will bring an additional 50 cents in sales of upstream distribution equipment such as panelboards, upgraded transformers, circuit breakers, switchgear and other electrical equipment to provide power to the units. These add-on sales represent an opportunity for electrical distributors and contractors to take part in the build-out of EV charging infrastructure, GE said.
Leviton Teams with Coulomb Technologies
Leviton Manufacturing, Melville, N.Y., and Coulomb Technologies, Durham, N.C., announced a product and marketing partnership for the electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) market. Leviton's EVSE product family, which includes home and public Level 1 and Level 2 charging stations, will be network-enabled by Coulomb's ChargePoint network. The ChargePoint network uses an open interface architecture that will provide Leviton customers advanced features similar to all charging stations on the ChargePoint network.
Schneider, Parkeon to Develop Parking Lot EV
Schneider Electric, Paris, announced an agreement with parking-management system provider Parkeon to develop an electric vehicle charging system that integrates energy management and pay-by-space technology. This agreement will allow the partners to create a commercial and technical offer for electric vehicle pilot programs and the related build-out of charging infrastructure in the parking lots of Europe and North America, starting in this year.