So it was with some collective relief when Oregon's green credibility was reaffirmed in 2009 by its selection as one of six states to participate in the EV Project. The $230 million, stimulus-funded study is geared to put thousands of electric cars on the road across 18 cities, along with a network of more than 8,000 public charging stations, then watch how they get used.
But a funny thing may be happening on the way to the charging station. Oregon consumers, local experts say, haven't been beating the bushes to get their hands on a Nissan Leaf, the only mass-produced, all-electric vehicle currently on the market. Moreover, the vehicles have been slower to arrive than some anticipated.
And those public charging stations -- the plug-in infrastructure that will help wary consumers overcome the dreaded "range anxiety"?
Well, good luck finding one.
Ecotality, the San Francisco company awarded $130 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to build the network of public charging stations, was supposed to have 1,100 installed in Oregon by the end of next month. But as of last week it has yet to install a single public station in Oregon.
Not one.
A handful of charging stations funded by private companies and municipalities are scattered around western Oregon. But the EV Project was the first broad, coordinated effort to establish a public charging infrastructure. In addition, the state of Oregon received its own pot of stimulus money for charging stations. The state is on track to install eight public quick-charge stations along the Interstate 5 corridor between Eugene and the California border by September. But that's only one link in the B.C. to Baja Green Highway project -- and likely one of the least traveled.
"We thought we'd see the Ecotality stuff up and running by the time we got this corridor in place," said Art James, project director in the Oregon Department of Transportation's Innovative Partnerships office.
Of course, it's early yet in the electric vehicle industry. But as President Obama highlights his goal of putting 1 million advanced technology vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, the slow rollout of the EV Project illustrates some of the chicken-and-egg problems involved in hatching an entirely new market and weaning the United States from its dependence on petroleum.
A U.S. Department of Energy official said last week that the department is modifying its contract with Ecotality, pushing back the deadline for the six-state public charging infrastructure to the end of the year. The official said the changes were being made to pace the charging station rollout with the arrival of the vehicles and better match the overall deployment with consumer demand across the six states.
Under the modified contract terms, the official said, the deployment targets in Oregon also have been reduced to 750 residential and 850 public charging stations by the end of the year, about 25 percent less than original earlier goals.
Ecotality wouldn't confirm those numbers. Indeed, Ecotality Chief Executive Don Karner says there are no hard targets. The company is in "market follow mode," he said, sequencing the charger rollout to the delivery of the vehicles across the six states and 18 metro areas where the EV project is taking place. As of May 6, the company had installed 164 residential chargers in Oregon -- well ahead of the number of cars delivered here.
While taxpayers are picking up the tab for the public charging station network, Karner says it makes no sense to install them only to gather dust and cobwebs.
"This isn't the field of dreams," he said. "We're not going to build the infrastructure and the vehicles will come."
Actually, that did seem to be one of the original motivations for the stimulus funding -- to seed the market.
"I'm sick of the chicken and egg argument," said George Beard, an EV advocate and instructor at Portland State University. "Ecotality better start delivering, or we run the risk of having the narrative become, 'I love my car, but I can't charge it anywhere.'"
Beard likens consumers' reluctance to test EVs to the process of learning to swim. "You'll take more risks swimming to the deep end if there's a string of those buoys sitting out there."
Ecotality's Karner insists that the plan all along was to match the commercial installations to the vehicle rollout. Business owners, Karner said, are reluctant to dedicate a parking space to a charger when there are so few cars in the market.
Nissan, too, insists that everything is right on track.
"Great Leaf demand continues in Oregon and our rollout is going exactly as planned," said Katherine Zachary, a spokeswoman for the auto manufacturer.
Yet, Portland General Electric's Aug. 5, 2009 press release touting the project said "up to 1,000 Nissan electric vehicles will be made available at Oregon Nissan dealerships in fall 2010, and 2,500 charging stations will be installed at homes and businesses beginning in the summer of 2010."
Zachary said Nissan had some production slowdowns due to the Japanese tsunami, but things are back on track. The company has 375 orders for Nissan Leafs in Oregon, the third highest of the six states in the EV Project. California has 3,000 orders and Washington 750.
All those orders, Zachary said, will be filled this summer. "We have no doubts on the power of the market," she said.
Locals are no less enthusiastic. But they acknowledge the reality on the ground.
"They're behind," Charlie Allcock, director of economic development at Portland General Electric, said of the EV Project. "We all know they're behind."
Allcock was one of the first Oregonians to take delivery of a Nissan Leaf. He has been an enthusiastic advocate of electric vehicles and was recently named one of the 100 most influential people in the electric vehicle industry. He offers a number of possible explanations for the delay.
Car makers took longer than anticipated to agree on universal standards for the plugs and chargers. It took Ecotality longer than anticipated to get its charger approved by Underwriters Lab. The lingering effects of the recession makes it tough for folks to contemplate buying an electric vehicle.
PGE and Pacific Power are local partners in the EV Project and say they'll lay the groundwork for the installations just as soon as Ecotality decides where to put them. There is some lead time, for planning, permitting then pulling conduit to the charging station location. So far, PGE hasn't received any commercial work orders.
The Oregon Department of Transportation has taken delivery of three Nissan Leafs for its fleet. James, the project director there, recently distributed an account of his own experience traveling back and forth in the Leaf from Salem to a meeting in Portland. With the car's dashboard range readout showing 105 miles, he set off thinking there was a comfortable margin of error for the 90-mile trip.
Instead, the car burned 70 percent of its charge on the way to Portland. And though it got two charges, one in Portland and one at the Nissan dealer in Wilsonville, James and his passengers were alarmed to see that they had nine miles of range remaining, with six miles left to drive. A hailstorm left them worrying whether there was enough juice to run the windshield wipers.
"The moral of this story," James wrote, "is that we have to get those charging stations installed!!!"
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