The article below originally appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal and is being reprinted with permission.
The San Mateo Community College District installed plug-in electronic vehicle chargers late last year.
With developing technology, the San Mateo County Community College District’s automotive department is changing and the district is adding new auto resources to each of its colleges.
One such move was the installation of plug-in electronic vehicle, or EV, charging stations at each of the three district schools and the district office in San Mateo in September 2013. The stations come from a grant initiated by workforce development staff at Cañada and Skyline colleges.
“EV charging stations fit neatly with the goals of the trustees and in the statewide energy initiative we participated in,” said Karen Powell, director of facilities maintenance and operations for the district. “We want to have a limited carbon footprint.”
Skyline, home to the district’s auto department, is also changing with the times, adding courses on hybrid and electric vehicle maintenance. In 2010, a new building was installed on campus for all electric and hybrid vehicle training.
To install the charging stations, the district partnered with Schneider Electric and the California Energy Commission. Schneider Electric provided charging stations at no cost, while the commission funded the project and the district put in small amount of money for the electrical connections. There were 11 units installed.
The district’s participation in the statewide energy initiative also provided the district with a sustainability plan to improve the campuswide system of alternative fuel infrastructure, support the use of electric vehicles, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, establish workforce training programs and offer opportunities for student learning. Part of the grant’s requirement is reporting utilization and the district has found there have been 2,223 charge-ups since the devices were installed. This number equates to 1,748 gallons saved. The peak month, so far, was in January when 400 gallons were saved.
Joe Fullerton, the district’s energy management coordinator, helped get the units installed. For now, it’s free to use the stations, but eventually the district will charge for their use.
“It would be based on usage and with industry rates,” he said. “At this point, we don’t have a specific timeline for starting to add a cost to charging.”
Etiquette is to not hog charges and cars are generally removed after four hours.
On the course level, the district’s automotive department has seen changes over the years because of emerging technologies. Overall, the department offers about 14 auto classes a semester in the evening and about six classes during the day.
Thomas Broxholm, evening coordinator and professor at Skyline College in San Bruno, teaches transmissions, drive lines and differentials and an electrical class. He’s worked at the school for 20 years and has seen the department evolve over the years.
“Classes are changing all the time because the vast amount of technology is changing,” he said. “The engine, transmission, the entire car now has electronics in it. The biggest part [of the changes] are with hybrids and electric vehicles.”
He said the department is starting to explore light-duty diesel and monitoring tire pressure electronically. Probably 80 percent of students want to work in the automotive field, Broxholm said. The last 20 percent are obtaining engineering degrees, while some want to be able to fix their own cars or do it as a hobby, he said.
The automotive technology program also has fairly new curriculum focused on electric vehicles. It was developed by Kalon Behravesh, an adjunct faculty member at Skyline College who teaches in the Automotive Technologies Department. He teaches a dual course in hybrid powertrain vehicles and advanced course on principles of hybrid and electric drives with Tesla Motors’ Rich Young. The first course gives hands-on experience performing scheduled hybrid maintenance services. It helps with the development of entry-level skills needed to work on hybrid vehicles in a professional environment. The second includes lectures on subjects such as battery packs, power electronics and electric motor theory supported by labs covering intermediate and advanced diagnosis of hybrids and/or electric drives.
“We’re very lucky because we work very closely with a hybrid specialist garage in San Francisco,” he said. “They donate components, so students are actually putting in real components. [In the courses], we discuss vehicle charging and levels of vehicle charging. That’s the selling point to most customers; that’s what’s going to make it take off more than anything else.”
The school’s hybrid/electric car collection includes three Toyota Priuses, a Ford Escape and a Nissan Leaf. He said he is most excited about the fact plug-ins installations are starting to get built for charging. He notes the stories that these cars have safety issues or their batteries wear out are simply not true. Additionally, the school is seeing a lot of auto shop workers come in to learn skills with the large number of Priuses in the Bay Area, especially since many are now out of warranty and won’t be brought into dealerships.
“We try to teach them the Prius from bumper to bumper,” Behravesh said. “You can pretty much apply it to any other electric car on the road. It’s a way to make money. We eventually will create an all electric course.”
The district has also continued its sustainability mission through other moves such as installing solar panels this coming summer. There will soon be a request for proposal to replace road and parking’s halide-metal lights with more efficient light-emitting diode, or LED, ones. During the last decade, operating costs have been reduced through swapping out more than 9,000 light fixtures on all three district campuses, replacing boilers and other measures. These changes have reduced energy consumption by $2 million annually, José Nuñez, vice chancellor of facilities planning and operations, previously said.
The EV charging stations are located in Cañada Lots 1 and 2 in Redwood City; College of San Mateo installed them at the Marie Curie Lot, the DaVinci and the district office; and three lots at Skyline College, along with one in Building 11.
