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Automotive

Solar-powered EV ARC provides electric vehicle charging, wherever you want it

August 26, 2013
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Envision Solar's EV ARC station is portable and sets up in minutes
Envision Solar's EV ARC station is portable and sets up in minutes
The back of Envision Solar's EV ARC station
Envision Solar's other products are intended for creating graceful parking lot charging stations
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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

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AutomotiveSolar PoweredElectric VehiclesEV Charging
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7 comments
notarichman
I can see where this would be useful for a corporation parking lot or some rich person that needs to charge an EV without having to worry about waiting (availability) in line to charge. I notice that the amount of energy per average day in say, California, is not listed. i.e. how many cars one charger can handle. the solar panels don't look very large. a plus? might be that the panels would act as a roof over the car and people getting in/out of the cars. unless rain fell on them! someone else could figure out the cost of the charging system versus how many years of use it would take to pay for the system...i don't care to.
Rann Xeroxx
I think electric cars are the future. But just like ethanol is a bust, drives up the cost of food, does zero to help the environment, etc. when the government tries to pick winners and losers, we all lose (our tax dollars). Its the same with the government subsiding all this electric car stuff. Let capitalism shake this all out.
I think we should not give money or breaks to fossil fuel as well and we should pass the military cost of protecting fossil fuel sources to the American consumer. Make the cost of your energy consumption as transparent as possible.
ZekeG
Typical they ruin it by overcharging. Trying to make up for development costs and instant large profits all at once. Try the Walmart mentality and make it cheaper so more people can buy it! Add weight when you get there don't transport the weight-anchors and concrete and sand bags? No solar panel is worth that much and subsidies won't cover all that. Apple could use this idea under their new solar farms-make them high enough for the workers to park underneath-have shade and charging.
frogola
one car per day what. I'll use half that 40 thousand to buy a car. then see how many fill ups i can get with the rest.
Fritz Menzel
@ Rann Xeroxx: Your latter point is well taken. Some act as if the vast majority of our tax dollars aren't exhausted defending oil companies' outposts, stakeouts and stolen repositories. All those 'fossilized' solar energy-deniers sound more ignorant by the hour. Or worse yet, driven by nothing but the greedy preferences of their 401(k)s.
As to your first point - Q: Where would Tesla be had we (taxpayers) not invested? A: Same place the electric car had been for 100 years.
Larry Butler
2.3 KW at full sunlight, which I think is a pipedream for anything you can carry as a whole roof full of panels can't generate 2.3 KW where I live, times the 4 hours from 10AM to 2PM a sunny day provides the "solar power day" EQUALS 9.2 KWh on a perfect day. Let's round it to 10 KwH and be nice. The tiny electric cars have 30-40 KwH battery packs, so it will ONLY take FOUR PERFECT DAYS to recharge IF it will generate 2.3 KW, which I think is dreaming.
Funny thing about PHYSICS and ARITHMETIC, they always get in the way of fantasy and dreams....
omersile
Who would pay 40K for a charger unable to fully charge a mid sized EV?? 3x6 meters is a reasonable area to park an EV. A roof top of 18 sq meters of solar panels can generate 18 sqm x 140 W(p)/sqm x 5 hours x 0.85 system efficiency = 10,7 Kw/h per day which is enough to recharge the daily energy consumption of an EV which is not driven more than 30-40 miles per day. Such a charger with TESLA 10 Kw Powerwall storage battery included wouldn't exceed $ 8-9.000.
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