Corbin

October 20, 2008

Sparse Plug-ins for Electric Vehicles Spark Creativity Among Their Owners

Owning an electric vehicle requires more than global-cooling ambitions. It takes guile, planning, sharp vision, a silver tongue -- and a 50-foot extension cord.

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Steve Bernheim beside his Corbin Sparrow. Photo by Susan Bauer.
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Steve Bernheim knows accessible outlets like a firefighter knows hydrants. He has to -- his Corbin Sparrow runs only 25 miles on a charge.

"You do guerrilla charging where you locate these plugs," Bernheim, an attorney who lives in the Seattle suburb of Edmonds, said according to an Associated Press article published in today's Detroit News. "I'm an expert at finding them."

While California has more than 500 public charging stations at parks, malls and grocery stores to serve electric vehicles that rolled out in the last decade, the network is still thin across the rest of the country, forcing drivers like Bernheim to get creative.

That may change as charging stations crop up in San Jose, Seattle and Portland to serve early adopters and pave the way for a new breed of mass market plug-in cars.