San Francisco Gets Coulomb Car-Charging Stations

Coulomb Technologies on Wednesday unveiled its first three electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle charging stations in San Francisco, beating rival electric car charging startup Better Place to the punch in a second Bay Area city.

Coulomb’s three charging stations will be used in a two-year pilot project to charge San Francisco city vehicles and vehicles of car share organizations ZipCar and City CarShare, Mayor Gavin Newsom said at a press event in front of City Hall.

Coulomb raised $3.75 million last month to support its plan to install up to 40 charging devices around major California highways in the first quarter of 2009 (see Coulomb Bags $3.75M for Electric-Car Charging). It installed its first three charging stations in San Jose last month.

The Campbell, Calif.-based startup is looking to sell its charging stations to cities and other government agencies, as well as gas stations and businesses with large parking lots like shopping centers. It’s also hoping to get electric and plug-in hybrid owners to subscribe via its ChargePoint Network, and hopes to have hundreds of charging stations installed at gas stations throughout California by the end of this year (see Coulomb to Install 40 Stations, Seeks $5M to $8M).

Coulomb also announced a new “fleet management portal� and network that can monitor and display the charge status of fleet vehicles and send messages with that information to drivers, Coulomb CEO Richard Lowenthal said Wednesday.

Coulomb has a different model than that of rival Better Place, which wants to let vehicle owners swap depleted batteries for charged ones at its stations. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup has announced big plans to install networks around the world, including a $1 billion plan for the San Francisco Bay Area (see Better Place to Charge Up California, Better Place and Ontario Launch Project and Better Place Goes to Hawaii).

Better Place is working with Macquarie Capital to raise private equity for its projects (see Green Light post). Whether charging or swapping batteries emerges as a winner is unclear. While battery swapping could avoid long charge times for batteries, critics contend car makers will balk at the prospect of setting standards for doing so.

And of course, both Coulomb and Better Place will be waiting for plug-in vehicles to come onto the market. Toyota, General Motors and other major automakers plan to start selling plug-in hybrid vehicles next year, and all-electric cars are also being promised by established automakers and startups alike (see Toyota to Build All-Electric Car by 2012).

But Toyota's plug-in Prius hybrid will be available only in small numbers at first, and General Motors is asking the federal government for billions of dollars to stave off bankruptcy (see GM, Chrysler Could Require $21.6B More in Gov't Loans to Survive).