The US has, to date, installed over 1800 electric vehicle charging points, announced Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Friday.

President Barak Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has ploughed $400 million into the efforts of electric vehicle infrastructure specialists Coulomb Technologies and ECOtality, carmaker General Motors and others.

The milestone was marked by the installation of Coulomb Technologies’ 500^th ChargePoint electric vehicle charging station last week in Los Angeles.

The installation was the latest in the $37 million ChargePoint America programme, which is being backed with $15 million from the Department of Energy’s Transportation Electrification Initiative and $22 million from other public agencies including the California Energy Commission and private sources.

Ultimately, the programme, which is being backed by Chevrolet, Ford and smart USA and supports electric vehicles from Nissan, Tesla Motors, Coda and Smith, aims to provide 4600 public and home charging points this year.

There is some way to go on that target, although charging points have been installed in all nine of the originally planned regions, including Detroit, New York, Orlando, Washington DC, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin.

The programme has now expanded into six new cities: Baltimore, Tampa, Boston, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Santa Cruz, the last three of which are all in California.

“The expansion of the ChargePoint Network into Los Angeles is significant as this is the largest auto market in the world and yet Los Angeles is the recognized leader in taking action to keep clean air,” says Coulomb Technologies’ Richard Lowenthal.

By 2013, the ambitious Transportation Electrification Initiative promises to have installed over 22,000 residential, commercial and public charging points and support the deployment of over 13,000 electric vehicles.

For further information:
www.energy.gov
www.coulombtech.com
www.chargepointamerica.com

Related stories:
Chevrolet to install Coulomb Technologies’ charging points at dealerships (20-Jan)
US fleshes out plan to put one million advanced vehicles on the road (28-Jan)
Coulomb Technologies unveils first roadside charging point in Washington DC (19-Nov 2010)
California awards Coulomb Technologies $3.4 million to install charge points (9-Jul 2010)
Coulomb Technologies launches $37 million effort to install 5000 US charge points (4-Jun 2010)