Installation of the Month (April 2021): Hilton Hotel & Plaza San Gabriel

Hilton is one of the most recognizable and respected organizations in the world. They own 18 different brands and more than 6,400 properties in 119 countries. Since 1925, they’ve been a model of the hospitality industry – synonymous with customer relations, integrity and innovation, which extends into areas like sustainability and the environment. Their website’s “Corporate Responsibility” page cites a commitment to fighting climate change, stating: “We seek to operate and grow sustainably, reducing our consumption of natural resources… We are proud to have set carbon reduction targets aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement.” And they continue to back up this commitment, including recently asking us to install EV charging banks at one of their key Los Angeles locations.

As such, our featured site for April is the Hilton Hotel & Plaza located at 225 and 227 West Valley Boulevard in the city of San Gabriel, about 10 miles northeast of downtown LA. See it here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hilton+Los+Angeles%2FSan+Gabriel/@34.0798006,-118.1020363,15z/data=!4m8!3m7!1s0x0:0xcc63da5b0a5522ce!5m2!4m1!1i2!8m2!3d34.0798006!4d-118.1020363

The 4-star property features luxuriously appointed guest rooms and suites with signature Hilton Serenity beds, blackout curtains, mini fridges, Italian marble bathrooms and bath amenities by Peter Thomas Roth. Downstairs, hotel guests can make use of a fully functional business center, conference rooms, fitness center, indoor lap pool and modern restaurant serving Asian fusion dishes. A rooftop terrace with fountain and spacious ballroom each offer stylish event accommodations. Next door, the Plaza boasts dozens of shops, eateries, even a day spa. Moreover, the property is less than a mile from the San Gabriel Square Mall and just a short drive from key points of interest like the Staples Center, Little Tokyo and downtown Arts District. See more on the Hilton website here:

https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/laxsghf-hilton-los-angeles-san-gabriel/

Much of our focus has been on installing chargers at social and leisure destinations – areas outside of commuters’ workplaces and homes – to facilitate electric mobility as a viable lifestyle alternative to internal combustion. Retail outlets and hotel chains are a critical part of that strategy, especially now that COVID has led many more people to opt for road trips over flying, making this a prime time to exploit EV technology. For the San Gabriel property, our installation included four DCFCs on the hotel side of their underground parking garage and another four on the plaza side along with four Blink Level 2 chargers. The DCFCs are 50 kW Slim Lines with integrated cord retractors, 15-inch color displays, up to 480 VAC, and a better than 90% efficiency rating. The Blinks boast an ergonomic pedestal design, ground monitoring circuits, and an output voltage of 208 to 240 VAC.

The convenience of being able to charge your EV overnight during a hotel stay, while shopping or while attending an event at the property cannot be overstated. According to a recent Autolist.com poll of 1,600 car shoppers, two of the top three reasons given on why EVs would not be a consideration were driving range and lack of charging infrastructure. Overcoming biases against EVs will, therefore, require increasing publicly available charging sites that eliminate concerns about range, accessibility and convenience. Brands like Hilton are in an especially enviable position to motivate a change in attitudes, not only because they have innumerable locations, but also because they can offer complimentary charging for guests, further reducing the cost of transit, which addresses the third most cited reason for avoiding EVs.

All this said, we want to thank our client Hilton for trusting us with this installation and for giving their patrons not only the choice but an added incentive to go electric – yet another reason why they continue to be leaders in the world of hospitality!

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Installation of the Month (February 2021): Hollywood & Highland

In the movie Spider-man, Uncle Ben tells Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The phrase, which came to be known as the “Peter Parker Principle,” is just as true today as it was 20 years ago when the movie first premiered. And just as Peter took seriously his newfound powers, we take seriously our responsibility to facilitate broader access to vehicle electrification options – quite literally the “great power” here is the electricity that keeps EVs moving. We also understand the power of movies and television to convey the importance of electric mobility, be it through information, entertainment or influence marketing. As such, Hollywood has become a tremendous partner in advancing the EVCS mission.

Installation of the Month (January 2021): Barlow Respiratory Hospital

While 2021 brings hope and promise for greater widespread adoption of electric mobility, a quick glance at our portfolio reminds us of all the headway we’ve already made toward that end. Last year, we seized on positive customer sentiment and abundant fiscal opportunities in the green energy space, allowing us to become one of the top installers of EV charging infrastructure in the State of California (with 500+ installations completed and counting). As such, we thought it might be worthwhile to share some of these installations with you – a new success story each month – so that you can see firsthand the favorable strides we’re making toward a carbon-neutral future.

2020: A Year in Review

Two thousand twenty has been a year of undeniable adversity, but also one of remarkable achievement. A year of firsts and hopefully a few lasts. A time of toil and tribulation, but also of triumph. For genuine success is partly defined by our ability to hurdle those implacable obstacles that make the result so noteworthy in the first place. Now, as the EVCS team looks back on this unusual year, we take stock of our unique achievements that made 2020 one for the books.

Electrification Progress in the Age of COVID

It’s pretty clear that vaccine or no, COVID will be here for a while, and with it the new normal of face masks, social distancing, telecommuting and (consequently) less road travel. While some might view this with trepidation, we see it as an opportunity. Since the earliest weeks of the pandemic, major metro areas like Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago – those with large reductions in automobile traffic – immediately began seeing improvements in air quality, according to articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. More recent, an NPR story noted ozone pollution has decreased as much as 15% in many of these places. It seems an unintended consequence of the lockdown has been to accelerate the transition to responsible mobility by demonstrating its positive effects on the environment.

Commentary on Geotab’s 2020 EV Fleet Trends Article – Part II

Two weeks ago, we published part one of our commentary on Geotab’s in-depth article, “Electric Vehicle Trends 2020: Top 6 Factors Impacting Fleet Electrification” (https://www.geotab.com/white-paper/electric-vehicle-trends/). Again, the idea was to assess whether each of the trends were evolving as Geotab predicted and, if so, how EVCS was responding to them in the marketplace. Below are the final three trends referenced and our thoughts on each.