State of charge

In a cloud of car exhaust during a Friday rush hour, I'm humming over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge in an all-electric, tailpipe-free Nissan Leaf. I've plotted a course for Vacaville, 88 kilometers (55 miles) north, known for its sprawling outlet mall. However, I seek not a shopping retreat but an eco-electric enclave, for this city is in the vanguard of a government-subsidized drive to build the first network of public electric-vehicle charging stations in the United States. Throughout this year and into 2013, the top organizations in EV charging technology will be wrapping up projects backed by more than US $130 million in federal stimulus money and Department of Energy grants. And with thousands of public chargers coming on line, Vacaville's beta-scale program joins the latest, politically charged controversy over the electric car: Is public charging a necessary spark to ignite mass-scale EV adoption?