Juice Bar wins green building product award

By 2015, automakers are expected to sell more than 3 million electric vehicles worldwide, with almost 5 million charging stations being installed.

Its something that we think about now because LEED has essentially introduced the idea of electric vehicle charging as part of the rating system, one judge said. If you have a parking garage then this is something you would consider.

The Juice Bar, made by Connecticut-based Green Garage Associates, includes Level One and Level Two charging ports to accommodate four electric vehicles at once. The idea is that property owners would buy or lease the charging stations and offer free charging to encourage EV owners to use their lots.

There are a host of electric vehicle chargers on the market, but Sustainable Industries judges liked the Juice Bars design.

Theyre extremely well branded, one judge said Theyre bright and colorful and have engaging educational material on the side bar to tell people about fossil fuel use or electric vehicles.

The parking industry and by extension the builders and designers who create parking areas are in a position to drive electric vehicle adoption by making charging more accessible, according to Green Garage Associates.

What was to me interesting about this particular one is it makes it really easy to have an electric vehicle, one judge said. If you can imagine these being installed in parking garages everywhere then you could suddenly have a game changer form the electric vehicle industry.