A big roll-out of charging stations could come in about six months said Kristen Helsel, director of electric vehicles at AeroVironment, according to Reuters.

"What's really important is we go in before the cars, but not a whole lot before the cars," she said.

President Obama aims to put a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 as part of the new U.S. effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. They will need a lot of power and a complex system to make sure the grid is not overwhelmed.

Views about who could own the stations are all over the map. Equipment makers could deploy stations themselves, parking garage and restaurant owners could buy them for their properties, and larger networks might be set up by independent operators or companies who see charging as part of a bigger business of providing services to electric car owners.

Skeptics say charging stations won't be a viable business because drivers will top off batteries at home, except on long trips, and won't want to pay a premium for electricity.
Proponents counter that charge stations will proliferate once there are a million or more electric cars on the roads. Most charging will be done at home, but some cars don't even have a garage.

In addition, technology being developed by the industry will cut the time it takes to charge a car battery from hours to between 10 and 45 minutes.

"That's kind of a game changer because then you can do fast charging and it's competitive with gasoline," said Jeff Kim, president of privately held Shorepower Technologies, which already has charging stations at truck stops to run air conditioners on big rigs while drivers sleep.