Sun-tracking electric vehicle charger

So we know that Portland’s got its own Electric Avenue where you can pull up in your electric vehicle to give it’s batteries a boost while you take a break, but what about an electric vehicle charger that actually needs no kind of connection to the local power grid? For that, you will have to make a trip over to the parking lot that is located between a SunTrust bank and a gas station in Bethesda, Maryland. This is an interesting electric vehicle charging station that has a sun-tracking mechanism – which basically means, the solar panels on this puppy are capable of following the path of the sun in order to maximize the amount of juice it can generate throughout the day.

Capable of juicing up a couple of vehicles simultaneously, this Solar Power Pole system comprises of a 1.41-kilowatt, six-panel PV array that is mounted atop an 18-foot-tall pole. GPS-based tracking technology is utilized to make sure it sticks to the sun like a service dog to its master, giving it efficiency gains of 30% to 45% when compared to a fixed solar array. If no electric vehicles are hooked up to it, all power generated and collected will be fed back onto the electric grid.