The GE Wattstation electric car charger – redefining the electric car industry

“Good design is when a new technology enters our lives and makes it more simple, beautiful and healthy”, were the words of the great industrial designer Yves Behar, founder of Fuseproject, a branding and design company based in San Francisco. Pertaining these words of wisdom to the electric car industry, which currently boasts only relative popularity, and is notably absent from roads in the United States, Behar has announced the global unveiling of the GE Wattstation, part of GE’s ‘ecomagination’ initiative.

Electric cars, whilst undoubtedly a ‘healthier’ option of vehicle to the planet, are still relatively ‘avant-garde’, and some might say even ‘unrealistic’ in the minds of many car owners. This is where Yves Behar and Fuseproject’s brilliance steps in, as by using smart grid technology, the GE Wattstation is an easy-to-use electric vehicle charger, which dramatically decreases the time required for charging electric cars in a consumer-friendly fashion, which will, GE ecomagination insist, entice consumers into a currently slightly ‘apprehensive’ market.

By slashing charging times on a 24 kWh battery from 12 to 18 hours to 4 to 8 hours, and by using smart grid technology, which will enable companies to manage the impact of electric vehicles on local and regional grids, it is hard to believe that Steve Fludder’s – Vice President of GE ecomagination – comments that implementing charging stations that are “quick, easy and readily available”, is the key to getting the skeptics to “accept the idea of and possibly pursue electric vehicles”, will not materialize.

A prototype of the GE Wattstation is expected to be available in the last quarter of 2010 in the US and Europe, whilst becoming commercially available some time in 2011.

Greener technologies like electric cars really must capture the imagination and more importantly the ‘convenience’ of car owners if we are to rescue our planet from its otherwise imminent demise. If the GE Wattstation helps accomplish a widespread willingness of car drivers worldwide to convert to electric vehicles – a feat which is required if we are to cut the ambitious amount of emissions the leaders of our world arduously drone on about but rarely do anything about – then Yves Behar, really can be considered as a great industrial designer, by helping cleanse a polluted urban landscape, tainted by excess and greed.