TA reveals electric cars charging station concept

Austrian communications provider Telekom Austria (TA) is to launch a prototype phone booth with an integrated charging station for electric cars, company bosses announced today (Tues).Charging stations will offer the possibility to pay via mobile phone using text messages, the “Paybox” system or a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) card with a RFID chip.TA currently operates around 13,500 telephone booths across Austria, of which 700 are multimedia stations.TA CEO Hannes Ametsreiter said the plan was to introduce a total of 30 charging stations by the end of this year. Ametsreiter stressed TA will use renewable energy to operate the stations.Austria is doing rather badly in international comparison as far as the number of registered electronic and hybrid cars is regarded.Recent figures showed that just 223 electric cars and 1,105 cars equipped with natural gas engines were registered in 2009, while an overall of 4.36 million cars were registered to the end of last year, 1.8 per cent more than in the previous year.