Electric Cars and Podcars in San Jose

I attended the keynote session at SJSU's Earth Day last week that featured San Jose Mayor, Chuck Reed.

During the question and answer session, an audience member asked, 'What green technology could be deployable in San Jose today and what are the obstacles holding them back?'

One of the examples the mayor mentioned he'd like to see is charging stations for electric and hybrid cars at every streetlight. There are 62,000 streetlights in San Jose.

Currently, power cannot be drawn from the streetlight poles in California for the charging stations due to existing power company rules.

PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) are working on making changes, but it could take some time before the electric car charging stations would be deployed at every streetlight in San Jose.

Here is a July 2009 web article about the electric vehicle charging stations already in San Jose:
http://gas2.org/2009/07/29/san-jose-leading-ev-charge/

Here is a webpage listing available electric car/hybrid charging stations in the bay area...beyond the ones at San Jose City Hall, San Jose International Airport, and Costco:
http://www.evchargernews.com/regions/ch-bay-spi.htm

(Here is a March 2010 article about San Jose converting of some of the streetlights from the amber lights to energy efficient LED bulbs (light emitting diode) with some federal stimulus funds. The new bulbs are zero-emission and will be powered by solar panels. They can be monitored remotely and dimmed at night to allow Lick Observatory view of the night sky.)
http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic/ci_14521828?source=rss

While I was looking for information on the streetlight charging stations, I found a website stating that the San Jose City Hall will be hosting an international conference called "Podcar City: Innovating Sustainable Communities" from October 27th to 29th, 2010, sponsored in part by the City of San Jose and the Mineta Transportation Institute, which is affiliated with San Jose State University's College of Business.

What is a podcar?



Podcars are small, lightweight, driverless, computer–controlled vehicles operated on an elevated track powered entirely, or partly, by renewable energy.

The photographs remind me of the Monorail and the extinct Peoplemover at Disneyland.

Podcar systems are already under construction in England, Abu Dhabi, Korea, and Sweden.

The City of San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority are hoping to build a podcar system at the San Jose Airport that would connect to Caltrain, future BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), and Light Rail stations. If successful, San Jose would expand the system to other areas of the city.

Here is the website about podcars and the conference:
http://www.podcarcity.org/sanjose/

Here is the website for the podcar system at the Heathrow Airport in London:
http://www.ultraprt.com/applications/existing-systems/heathrow/

Sometime last week , I heard some radio disc jockeys discussing the film "Back To the Future", where Michael J. Fox's character traveled through time from 1985 to 1955 and back to 1985. In just 5 years, 2015 will be 30 years forward from 1985. How far have we come since "Back to the Future"?

Green Thoughts of the Week: Would you consider purchasing an electric or hybrid car as your next car, if it was easy for you to recharge it? Would you consider using a podcar to get to the airport?