By: Fern Sidman
Revel, the company that operates fleets of shared mopeds in several U.S. cities, announced Wednesday that it is building a charging hub for electric vehicles in Brooklyn this spring, according to an NBC New York report.
Founded in Brooklyn in 2018, Revel now operates 5,000 electric mopeds across New York City, Miami, Washington and the San Francisco Bay area, as indicated in published reports.
The company’s expansion into charging stations comes amid renewed efforts in the United States to move away from gasoline-powered cars, as was reported By WABC News in New York.
In such cities as Amsterdam in the Netherlands and other places throughout Europe, electric charging stations for vehicles are a common place sight as is the use of bicycles and mopeds for commutation purposes. Officials at General Motors announced last week that they have set a goal of making the vast majority of the company’s vehicles electric by 2035, according to the NBC New York report.
In a news release, Revel CEO and co-founder Frank Reig said that “the charging facility will be the first in a network of car-charging hubs planned for New York City in an effort to promote the use of electric vehicles.”
The initial charging hub will be at the site of the former Pfizer building in the Williamsburg neighborhood and will have 30 stations capable of delivering 100 miles of charge to vehicles in about 20 minutes, the company said in a statement.
The charging stations will be available 24 hours a day to drivers of any type of electric vehicle, Revel officials added, according to the NBC New York report.
Currently, New York State is offering up to a $2,000 rebate for the purchase or lease of a new electric car.
Conventional hybrids, also referred to as hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), supplement the internal combustion engine with electrical power produced by an on-board electric motor. The electrical system acts as a generator when a driver applies the brakes, converting kinetic energy into electrical energy that is stored in a small battery pack. The primary fuel is gasoline or diesel.
A plug-in hybrid, also called a Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle (PHEV) or an Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV), has a larger battery than a conventional hybrid car, and is charged by plugging into an electric outlet. Plug-in hybrids also keep a gasoline or diesel engine as a backup. After the battery energy is exhausted, the engine starts and the vehicle acts like a conventional hybrid until it is plugged in to recharge.
A battery-powered car, or Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV), does not have a gasoline or diesel engine and instead has an electric motor, power electronics, and a battery pack. Battery cars have a longer all-electric range than a plug-in hybrid, but they do not have a fuel backup. Just like a plug-in hybrid, battery-powered cars plug into an electric outlet to refuel.
