VIDEO REPORT: Growing the Grid – Evernote Installs Workplace Charging to Support EV Car Perk for Employees

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Imagine you can cut your commute time to work in half, increase your productivity at home and in your job, all with a car that is almost free to lease. This now is reality for employees at Evernote in Redwood City, Calif.

Evernote is a company focused on building apps that help people remember things; it is also a company that is intent on retaining the best and brightest employees.

People in California who drive electric vehicles, like the Nissan LEAF, qualify to drive in the HOV lane even when only one person is in the car. That can translate into a significantly faster commute. That is why Evernote CEO Phil Libin says he offered each of his employees a monthly $250 allowance to lease or buy any vehicle that qualifies them to get a California carpool lane sticker. If they get the Nissan LEAF their allowance completely covers the cost of the lease. Evernote negotiated a special deal with Nissan.

"The math really works out. We have a lot of very talented and very valuable people and they waste a lot of time in traffic. So if we can save them a half hour a day, and that is very easy to do, a lot of people save much more than that, very quickly that winds up adding up to a whole lot more than what we pay for the car so it just makes economic sense," said Libin.

Evernote installed 10 Level 2 charging stations and one DC fast charger to accommodate their employees who want to plug-in at work. Today, more than 30 major companies in the U.S. have committed to installing EV charging stations in at least one of their locations. The deal is part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Workplace Charging Challenge. High-tech companies like Google, FedEx, Dell and Facebook have signed on.

This is the second in a series of video reports under the heading of "Growing the Grid." It examines what is happening today with the U.S. plug-in charging infrastructure that will lead to mass market acceptance of EV technology.

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