AAA unveiled North America's first roadside assistance vehicles, capable of providing Level 2 and Level 3 charging. (PRNewsFoto/AAA/Erik Perel)
I became intimately familiar with the services of the AAA roadside service organization when I had an electrically fussy Volkswagen Jetta in California. So, I know how much people love to hate, and love, their service.
Fret not, electric vehicle owners: you don’t need to give up your AAA membership just because you’ve decided to invest in an vehicle that runs on something other than gasoline. AAA is now putting trucks with mobile electric vehicle charging technologies on the road in six metropolitan areas.
The pilot programs will take place starting late in the summer of 2011 in Knoxville, Tenn.; Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; the San Francisco Bay Area; Seattle; and the Tampa Bay area.
Said John Nielsen, the director of AA Auto Repair, Buying Services and Consumer Information:
“While these six areas are part of the initial pilot program, we’ve had tremendous interest from AAA clubs across the country to offer this service to their members, and we anticipate expanding the program to additional areas in the months following initial deployment.”
The mobile charging technology will juice up “depleted” electric vehicles with about 20 minutes of charge time; in theory that would be enough to let them drive three to five miles to a charging station. They will support Level 2 and Level 3 charging: Level 2 is 240 volts of alternating current, which is what you would normally use with your clothes dryer. That would fully charge a Nissan Leaf in six hours. Level 3 refers to direct current (DC) charging at a high voltage, such as 500 volts. That same Leaf would take about 30 minutes to charge with a Level 3 charger.
Even if there aren’t that many electric vehicles in your area, you’ll still probably have to wait for that truck to come: there is just one vehicle being deployed in each pilot area.
