Forget rumbling engines...More electric vehicles quietly hummed across the Googleplex than ever before on May 15th, as more than 600 Googlers participated in our annual electric vehicle test drive event. This year, with help from Plug-In America, we were excited to be the first corporate campus to hold an event as part of the Experience Electric campaign, funded by Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Twelve electric automotive and motorcycle manufacturers invited Googlers to test drive the latest and greatest plug-in cars and motorcycles. By giving our employees the opportunity explore and drive some of these electric cars and motorcycles, we hope some are inspired to switch out the gas pump for a charging cord. Among the models we checked out were:

• BMW's i3
• Cadillac's ELR
• Porsche's Panamera Plug-In Hybrid
• Fiat's 500e
• Nissan’s LEAF
• Chevy’s Spark EV
• Ford’s CMAX Energi and Fusion Energi
• All-electric motorcycles from Brammo and Zero Motorcycles
• Electric scooters from Mahindra and Current Motor

Our hope is that by getting Googlers to test out new EV technologies, we help propel overall EV-adoption, a goal we vigorously support with a number of campus programs, like our GFleet, an on-site car share service that features EVs or our free on-campus charging for personal electric vehicles. We’ve grown our charging infrastructure to provide Level 2 charging capabilities at more than 750 parking spaces across our Mountain View headquarters and 11 other Google locations. Find out more on the Google Green site.

Posted by Rolf Schreiber, Technical Program Manager, Electric Transportation