A San Diego company is working on a way to make recharging electric cars fast, easy, and convenient.
Envision Solar CEO Robert Noble says, by integrating solar into our lives, we can power everything we need. His company, which formed officially in 2006, has a number of solar projects around the city. But he sees this as just the beginning. He imagines a day in the not too distant future when cars will be able to plug into the "solar trees" that already adorn the top of the UCSD parking garage on Gillman Drive.
The technological concept is simple. "The sun hits the solar panel, the photovoltaic panel, and then electricity is produced, then it trickles into the grid," Noble said. The more a company, or a house for that matter, depends on its own solar energy, the less it draws off of the electric utility.
It would take several hours to fully charge an electric car now, but Noble says fast charge systems are on the way. He estimates two to three years before we see plenty of opportunities to recharge electric vehicles all around us.
