06/24/2010 Bend

Bend's Sunlight Solar is unveiling the city's first ever electric car charging station Thursday Night. It's been years in the making. This station can charge up to four electric cars at a time. All the electricity coming from the solar panels on top of the building. Right now there are only a handful of electric cars in Bend. Right now because this technology is so new, charging your car is free. "Our building is actually powered 115% by solar electricity so we actually have excess power that we're not using in the building for computers so we thought it would be a great way to dump that excess energy into a car.

To have one installed it will cost about four to six thousand dollars and there are federal tax credits. Sunlight Solar actually converted their Toyota Prius into an electric car for about four thousand dollars. Meanwhile the Chevy Volt is not available in Oregon yet, just New York, California and Florida. You'll have to pre-order the Nissan Leaf and there are no guarantees.