Woodinville, Washington’s Wooden Cross Lutheran is First Church in the Nation to Provide ChargePoint Public Electric Car Charging Station

WOODINVILLE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Coulomb Technologies today announced the first US church installation, Woodinville’s Wooden Cross Lutheran, of a ChargePoint® Networked Charging Station for electric vehicles (EVs). The installation is part of Coulomb’s $37M ChargePoint America program offering thousands of free EV charging stations for public and home charging to individuals and businesses. Coulomb is working with vehicle program partners Ford and Chevrolet, each of whom has announced plans to introduce EVs in Washington in the coming months. Installation of the charging station was done by Coulomb’s distributor Charge Northwest. Wooden Cross Lutheran Church will host an event open to the public at their facilities at 17401 198^th Av NE, Woodinville WA. The celebration takes place on Saturday, October 23^rd and will start at 11:00am.

“We’re excited to be part of this. Driving electric cars is a great way to better care for our planet, and that is very important to us at Wooden Cross Lutheran.”

US and state congressmen and senators as well as representatives from Woodinville City Council will be in attendance and make brief comments to start the festivities. Auto manufacturers will have electric vehicles on display and hands-on charging station demonstrations will be performed. Information booths from local “clean and green” organizations will be staged as part of the “Plug-in Woodinville” event including Puget Sound Solar who provided the installation of the ChargePoint CT2100 (dual Level I and II) charging station.

The Lutheran Church will provide free food, beverages and desserts for all attendees of the celebration. Wooden Cross Pastor Woody Carlson said, “We’re excited to be part of this. Driving electric cars is a great way to better care for our planet, and that is very important to us at Wooden Cross Lutheran.”

US Congressman Jay Inslee said, “It has been a long time coming, but we can now see the beginning of a future transportation system that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil, create American jobs and help the planet. I am very proud that the people in the district I have the honor of representing are taking the lead in this effort.”

Dan Davids, President of Plug-in-America, said, “Just a couple of weeks ago, the Chevrolet Volt was here at Wooden Cross kicking off its US tour and making history by using this ChargePoint public charging facility as the first time the Volt has used a public Level II charging station to charge its battery. It’s very gratifying to see these major automobile companies bring plug-in electric cars to the mass market and to have organizations like Wooden Cross Lutheran Church provide publically accessible charging infrastructure.”

Coulomb’s ChargePoint America program will provide 4,600 charging stations in nine regions in the United States: Austin, Texas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Fla., Sacramento, Calif., the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, Bellevue/Redmond, Wash., and Washington DC and is a strategic partnership between Coulomb and three leading automobile brands: Ford, Chevrolet and smart USA. Coulomb currently has the largest established base of networked charging stations worldwide with more than 850 units shipped to more than 200 customers. Installation of the ChargePoint charging stations is underway now in all nine regions.

The ChargePoint Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and all manufacturers of plug-in vehicle charging stations. ChargePoint Network’s unique features include:

The ability for a station owner to set fees for use of their stations (including free charging)
The ability for drivers to access stations without a subscription via contactless credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, and Discover)
24/7/365 telephone driver support via a toll free number on all charging stations
Smart Grid ready with built in Utility Grade Metering, Time of Use (TOU) pricing and Demand Response (DR) control
Multiple Smart Phone applications (iPhone and BlackBerry) to find unoccupied stations and navigate to them
The lowest operating cost possible due to real-time operational monitoring, alerts, diagnosis, and control of millions of stations

ChargePoint America will deploy public and home charging stations to individuals and businesses. Organizations in and around Washington interested in receiving free public charging stations should visit the ChargePoint America web site www.chargepointamerica.com and sign up by completing the application form. Individuals interested in purchasing an EV should sign up to receive more information about qualifying for a free home charging station. Additionally, the ChargePoint America web site provides a way for drivers to suggest public locations for charging stations.

About ChargePoint America

The $37 million ChargePoint America program is made possible by a $15M grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the Transportation Electrification Initiative administered by the Department of Energy. ChargePoint America will provide 4,600 public and home ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations by October 2011, adding to the existing ChargePoint Network. Coulomb will work together with its distribution and industry partners to evaluate the demand from the respective geographic regions and allocate charging stations based on this and other factors. The ChargePoint America project will collect data characterizing vehicle use and charging patterns, and Purdue University and Idaho National Labs will analyze the data. For more program information visit www.chargepointamerica.com.

About Coulomb Technologies, Inc.

Coulomb Technologies is the leader in electric vehicle charging systems and application services, with the ChargePoint Network now operating in 14 countries, and Network Operations Centers in the U.S., London, and Hong Kong. Coulomb provides a vehicle-charging solution with an open system driver network: the ChargePoint Network provides multiple web-based portals for Hosts, Fleet managers, Drivers, and Utilities, and ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations ranging in capability from 120 Volt to 240 Volt AC charging and up to 500 Volt DC charging. For more information, follow Coulomb on Twitter at twitter.com/coulombevi. To request a charging station in your area, visit www.mychargepoint.net/request-station.php. To download the ChargePoint iPhone App, click here.

About Plug In America. Plug In America is leading the nation’s plug-in vehicle movement. The nonprofit organization works to accelerate the shift to plug-in vehicles powered by clean, affordable, domestic electricity to reduce our nation's dependence on petroleum and improve the global environment. For more information: www.pluginamerica.org

About Wooden Cross Lutheran Church. Wooden Cross, part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, started its Creation Care Committee (“Green Team”) in 2008. The Green Team’s vision is to make Wooden Cross more eco-friendly and to promote communication of conservation ideas and actions amongst our congregation. For more information: www.woodencrosslutheran.org