First SAE Fast-Charging Station available to San Diego public

A lot has changed in the automotive industry since the first Model-T rolled off the assembly line. Innovation, technological advances, and changing demands have all dictated the evolution of the automotive market. Looking only at the availability of ways to listen to music has drastically changed. From AM radio only, to 8-Track players, to cassette decks, and CD players – none of those can quite compare to today’s advanced and interconnected way music is listened to in vehicles. MP3’s can be streamed via Bluetooth connectivity, and iPods can be played through USB ports. While all of those advances as great, Chevrolet is pinoeering the way we fuel up our cars in Cincinnati, and all over the United States.

San Diego is the first city to get an official public SAE Fast-Charging station for electric vehicles (EVs). This news is pretty big, as the Fashion Valley Mall will be the very first location of a public installation in the entire United States that is an industry-standard for charging plug-in vehicles in the fastest manner possible. Chevrolet’s Spark EV is the first EV in the U.S. to make the SAE International fast-charge connector available as a vehicle option starting this December – we wonder how many of those Santa Claus will be delivering in California and Oregon where the Spark is currently being sold.

Pamela Fletcher is the executive chief engineer of electrified vehicles at General Motors, and is confident in the potential of the new installation, “The launch of these new charge stations will help improve the convenience and adoption of electric vehicles because they dramatically reduce the charge time.” We look forward to December to see just how effective the station is and what Spark driver’s think of the convenience.