By Angie Fisher, Crain News Service
DETROIT (March 11, 2013) — Public electric-vehicle charging may have just become a whole lot easier.
Two of the biggest EV charging-station providers, ChargePoint and ECOtality, are forming a consortium that will go by the name Collaboratev.
The companies aren't calling it a merger, but rather an "interoperability company"—which basically means they're joining together to streamline their services while maintaining individual companies. They are soliciting more companies to join, too.
The idea is to improve access to participating charging stations by offering customers common authentication credentials and only one bill, no matter what station they use.
"Collaboratev will give EV drivers access to all stations, locations, availability and mapping features in the public domain," ChargePoint president Pat Romano said.
The duo is hoping that streamlining their services will attract more EV buyers.
This report appeared in Autoweek magazine, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.