If you wanted to charge an electric vehicle anywhere, without permits, digging holes, pouring concrete, or wiring up to the grid, Envision Solar's new portable solar-powered electric vehicle charger ticks all the boxes. Envision, known for turning parking lots into reasonably attractive vehicle-charging factories, has introduced a next step of clean electric vehicle charging, intended for businesses or cities who need a quick and easy way to offer this service to clients in the form of a single parking space.
The EV ARC, or Electric Vehicle Autonomous Renewable Charger, is a parking pad equipped with a 2.3 kW solar array and 22 kWh battery storage, independent from grid electricity. It has the capacity to charge one car per day, but, location of the unit notwithstanding, the most common use could well be multiple short top-ups during errands or meetings. It's also equipped with the company's technology EnvisionTrak, which moves the solar panels to track the Sun.
It's portable in the sense that it's delivered by a semi-tractor, set up in five minutes, and in a similar fashion it can be relocated. However, to protect the unit, the pad is ballasted with enough weight to sustain 193-km/h winds, so you won't be towing one of these in your pickup truck to your vacation home.
In an interview with Plugin Cars, the president of Envision Solar downplayed the product's $40,000 price point by pointing out that the price would be subsidized with tax credits and money saved on electricity, in addition to not requiring any cash outlay for installation.
Though the company claims the portable charger is the first of its kind, we have seen something similar before at Gizmag with renewz' isola unit. Renewz is known for carports which is reflected in isola's design, while EV ARC is more reminiscent of its parking lot lineage. Another obvious difference is the solar tracking capability.
You can see the EnvisionTrak solar tracking system in action in the video below.
Source: Envision Solar, via Plugin Cars
