ECOtality, Inc. is teaming up with Best Buy to provide electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at the retail store across the country.

Twelve Best Buy stores in Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle will have charging stations by March 2011, as part of a pilot project.

The stations, which will connect to local area and cell phone networks, will track the behavior of EV drivers and analyze their experiences. Depending on the findings, ECOtality and Best Buy may expand the installation of Blink charging stations to include other store locations.

ECOtality will also unveil its commercial DC Fast Charging station at the upcoming Business of Plugging In 2010 conference.

As part of the EV project funded by the US Department of Energy through a federal stimulus grant of $114.8 million, ECOtality will oversee the installation of 15,000 commercial and residential charging stations in 16 cities and other metropolitan areas in six states. Private matching funds bring the total planned investment for the project to nearly $230 million.

So the question is will retail stores be crucial to making electric vehicles more mainstream? Probably, because given our depleted budgets for public infrastructure, the private sector charging may be key to the adoption of EVs in the long run.

According to Earth2Tech, “a growing need for “intelligent management” of electric vehicle charging will create a $297 million industry in the U.S. as of 2015. That forecast encompasses the market for tech ranging from applications, servers, networking equipment and other hardware, to ongoing services for collecting and monitoring data about vehicle charging.”

Charging infrastructure will also create new opportunities for businesses. For one, it will work to improve their green image, but more importantly it opens up room for target based advertising, it looks into customers energy consumption patterns — and it will attract a fairly wealthy consumer group to the stores, given the income levels of the early adopters of the car.

These “smart” charging stations will also help utility companies by providing them with energy consumption data and they will reduce stress on the power grid by managing electricity use.

In the end, the private sector adoption of EV infrastructure, may be the key to the mainstream use of EVs.

Via Earth2Tech