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Element Lexington Gets an Electric Car-Charging Station

We'll give a thumbs up to this initiative — even though it's just another notch in Element's green bedpost (teehee): Starwood's new eco-friendly, low-priced chain announced today that they'll be installing an electric car charging station at its Lexington property.

Almost as cool as the Charles Hotel's Juice Bar, Carbon Day Automotive has established a partnership with Starwood to split the cost of installing one of their ChargePoint Charging Stations in Lexington, slated to be up and running tomorrow. These stations offer universal plug-ins for electric cars, buses, Segway scooters and bikes, and "subscriptions" are sold in units of "sessions," which the Chargepoint site describes as a "transaction that covers the entire charging sequence from plug-in to plug-out."

As long as you're subscribed, all you need to do is swipe a keyfob to charge your electric vehicle at the station (you don't have to be an Element guest to use it) — and the sweet thing about this particular brand of charger is that you can actually locate a nearby station and check to see whether or not it's occupied — right from your smartphone (as long as it's got Google Maps functionality).

This is another component of Element's green transportation program; recall that these hotels promote green go-go-go-ing by giving better parking spots to people cruising around in hybrid or electric cars, and they'll loan bikes to guests for free.