New EV Stations Now Ready for Charging Up in Southern Santa Barbara County
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – The way electric vehicle owners are charging their cars is getting more convenient and packed with energy.
This month, 20 more stations came on line in Santa Barbara. The Electrify America company opened a new large-format electric vehicle (EV) charging station at the corner of Carrillo St. and Chapala St. It expands access to fast, seamless and convenient EV charging in the city’s downtown core.
It is at the site of the former Greyhound Bus depot at 36 West Carrillo Street. The station offers 20 Hyper-Fast chargers. Each charger is capable of speeds up to 350 kilowatts (kW), which can add up to 20 miles of driving range per minute for EVs that accept high-power charging.
One driver from Los Angeles said his quick fill up was just what he needed.
Donald Dorson said, “just like 35 minutes and I’m at 85 percent so it’s twice what I need to get home now. For the most part I don’t like to take super long road trips so it’s not a huge deal and when I do it works great.”
For a driver from the San Fernando Valley, it is a site she will visit often on her three trips to Santa Barbara per week. Marlene McCoy said “once people find out about these chargers they fill up pretty fast. It’s great they have 20 here so there is always something available. “
She is using the on line app and “it’s faster and because I am a member it is cheaper, the pricing is very good for me since I am charging all the time.”
Emma Roldan and Thomas Urdinola were in a rental that needed a charge. The site was perfect for their coastal drive. “We are at like 60 percent already and we are going to grab lunch and then get back on the road,” she said.
Urdinola found the site with a phone search. “It’s funny, she used Apple maps and I used an alternative, Google maps and (we got) nearly the same results.”
Roldan said, “I use Apple maps so i was just looking because it tells to the wattages and this one also had a lot available. The other ones there were only about two and that was it had 12 or 10 which was good.”
The company says, the new station also has a 1.9 megawatt (MW) battery energy storage system (BESS), which is Electrify America’s largest public BESS deployment to date. The BESS stores energy from the electrical grid during low usage periods and when abundant solar energy is available. It then discharges this energy during high demand periods.
Santa Barbara County also says it will be adding new charging stations with four on Santa Claus Lane and three at Rincon Park for a cost of $467,000.
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