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Engineers at the Northwest National Laboratory in Washington have a new smart charging device for electric cars they’re showing off. The unit communicates wirelessly with the electric utility to get current rates and grid load. It uses this information to slow down the charge or stop it altogether until a better situation is available. This saves consumers money and the utility some extra load on their grid.

Read More: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Shows Off New Smart Charger

Until you sit down and really think about it, charging an electric car from a public charging station seems like a pretty simple concept. Then you start to realize that things like vandalism, theft, billpoints, and other stuff starts to come into play. So saying a public electric vehicle charging station is as easy as plug it in, give it your credit card, and walk away is like saying an ATM is just a machine that you say “gimme money” to and it spits it out.

Read More: ChargePoint Public Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles

That’s the plan behind the PosiCharge system, built by the same people who designed the infamous EV1 for GM in the 1980s. This system basically charges a battery three to six times as fast as normal DC conversion chargers (which most 110/220v applications use). Charge speed will depend entirely on the battery type and size of the battery pack, of course.

Read More: Charge Your Electric Vehicle, On The Road, In 10 Minutes