LA, China team up for plug-in car data sharing

At the beginning of this year, Los Angeles and Shanghai became part of an electric vehicle data sharing agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy and China's Ministry of Science and Technology. The information to be shared is related to electric vehicle (EV) usage such as where drivers take their vehicles and what their charging patterns are. The goal of the partnership is to grow the EV industries in both countries.
The EV Project, run by San Francisco-based ECOtality using grant money from the DOE, will be the source of the data the U.S. will share with China. The EV Project will be monitoring 15,000 chargers scattered throughout 18 cities (including Los Angeles) in both public places and the garages of Leaf and Volt owners who have agreed to the confidential data collection. Colin Read, an ECOtality VP, told Alysha Webb of of Plugin Cars, "If we can share lessons learned and key takeaways, that is the type of information we want to make public so this can take off on a worldwide basis." The DOE will publish on its website a summary of the EV Project's results.

The U.S. has a big head start over China by having two high-volume electrics for sale now, while China is currently seeing dismal EV sales. This could make it difficult (at least initially) to ensure there is a balance in the data sharing and both countries benefit equally in the partnership.

[Source: Plugin Cars]