Skip to Content

GE’s New EV Charging Stations Are Not Ugly

Stylish charging stations are one small step toward getting consumers to accept EVs.
April 30, 2012

GE’s Wattstation electric-vehicle charging station went on sale this week. The most notable thing about it is its appearance. Unlike many other charging stations on the market now, this one isn’t ugly. It looks like the sort of thing you might want to plug a $40,000 electric car into.

Plug and pay: GE’s Wattstation was designed by Yves Behar.

Like the other charging stations that have started to appear outside city halls and in hotel parking lots, GE’s are connected to a network that allows charger owners to manage them from a central location. It also allows drivers to find them using some GPS systems and with smart-phone apps.

But GE went a step further and hired a famous designer, Yves Bahar, to create the stations. The result is a sleek column with a friendly interface. Bahar is famous for the design of the MIT Media Lab’s $100 laptop and Herman Miller chairs, among other things.

Based on the design, GE engineers devised a slick cord-retraction system that keeps the cord hidden and cleans it off. Whereas, the thick, tangled cords on most charging stations make them look like they belong behind a gas station with the air pumps.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.