MIAMI BEACH, FL, Nov. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Car Charging Group, Inc. (OTCQB: CCGI) ("CarCharging"), a nationwide provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging services, announced that servicing of the Blink charging stations is already well underway. Since its purchase of the Blink Network and all Blink-related assets a little more than a month ago, CarCharging's service team has successfully restored service to more than 200 highly-utilized Blink public EV charging stations, including Level II and DC Fast chargers, in California, New Jersey, Tennessee, and the greater metropolitan areas of Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Portland, Oregon. Approximately 1/3 of Blink's public EV charging stations with known service needs when CarCharging acquired the Blink Network have been serviced and are now available for use. Therefore, more than 95% of the Blink EV charging stations are fully functioning, which makes the Blink Network one of the most reliable EV charging networks. CarCharging intends to increase this figure to upwards of 99% before the end of 2013.

Locations of the Blink EV charging stations that were serviced and are now available include:

• California
  • Los Angeles: IKEA (Carson), Ralph's (Marina del Rey), Loyola Marymount University, City of West Hollywood, The Grove.
  • San Francisco: Facebook, Evernote, Intuit, Volkswagen (Belmont), Good Earth Market, and City of Hayward.
• New Jersey: Rutgers University and Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems.
• Tennessee: City of Knoxville, Trillium Cove Shopping Village, The Avenue (Murfreesboro Shopping Center), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, The Chattanoogan Hotel, McDonald's (Hendersonville), and various Cracker Barrel locations.
• Philadelphia, PA: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Liberty Place Garage, Philadelphia Horticultural Society, and Parkway Corporation.
• Phoenix, AZ: AAA (Chandler), American Lung Association, Phoenix Hospital, and Two Renaissance Square.
• Portland, OR: various Kohl's and Fred Meyer locations, IKEA, Hilton (Eugene), City of Gresham, Clackamas Community College, Mercantile Medical Plaza, and Zipcar.

"Since we acquired the Blink assets, it has been our primary goal to rectify the existing maintenance issues and we are delighted to have already begun completing service requests," said Michael D. Farkas, CEO of CarCharging.  "As an EV driver myself, I understand the need for reliable and consistent charging, and we want to assure our hosts and customers that we are committed to completing the service requests in all areas as quickly as possible."

While CarCharging recently acquired more than 12,450 installed Blink Level II EV charging stations and 110 Blink DC Fast charging stations, ECOtality, the former owner of the Blink assets, filed bankruptcy in September 2013 and the service requests were not completed during the bankruptcy proceedings.

CarCharging has engaged a national network of trained electricians to service the Blink EV charging services and is actively expanding service operations across the Blink Network into Seattle, Chicago, Northern California, Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and other regions throughout the country. Blink customers with existing service tickets will be contacted directly in order to schedule service. CarCharging will honor the Blink equipment warranties and in order to provide charging capabilities to as many electric cars as possible, service for the most utilized public stations will receive first priority.

Users can pinpoint EV charging station locations using the maps at www.CarCharging.com and www.BlinkNetwork.com.

About Car Charging Group, Inc.  

Car Charging Group, Inc. (OTCQB: CCGI) is a pioneer in nationwide public electric vehicle (EV) charging services, enabling EV drivers to easily recharge at locations throughout the United States. Headquartered in Miami Beach, FL with offices in San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Phoenix, AZ; and Barcelona, Spain; CarCharging's business model is designed to accelerate the adoption of public EV charging.

CarCharging provides a comprehensive turnkey program to commercial and residential property owners for EV charging services. CarCharging owns and operates the EV charging equipment; manages the installation, maintenance, and related services; and shares some of the EV charging revenue with the property owner. Thereby, eliminating most capital costs for the property owners, and providing a potential additional revenue stream.

CarCharging has strategic partnerships across multiple business sectors including multi-family residential and commercial properties, parking garages, shopping malls, retail parking, and municipalities.  CarCharging's partners include, but are not limited to Walgreens, IKEA, Wal-Mart, Simon Property Group, Equity One, Equity Residential, Forest City, Cinemark USA, Fox Studios, Facebook, PayPal, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, Mayo Clinic, San Diego Padres, University of Pennsylvania, Ace Parking, Central/USA Parking, Icon Parking, Rapid Parking, Parking Concepts, CVS, Related Management, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, City of Phoenix (AZ), City of Philadelphia (PA), and City of Miami Beach (FL).

CarCharging is committed to creating a robust, feature-rich network for EV charging and is hardware agnostic.  CarCharging's owns the Blink network, and owns and operates EV charging equipment manufactured by Blink, Aerovironment, ChargePoint, Efacec, General Electric, Nissan, and SemaConnect. CarCharging's Level II charging stations are compatible with EVs sold in the United States including the Tesla Model S, Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, Mitsubishi i-Miev, Toyota Prius Plug-In, Honda Fit EV, and Toyota Rav4 EV, as well as many others scheduled for release over the next few years.

For more information about CarCharging or Blink, please visit www.CarCharging.com or www.BlinkNetwork.com.

Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement:

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. By their nature, forward-looking statements and forecasts involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the near future.  Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Car Charging Group, Inc., and members of its management as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions.

SOURCE Car Charging Group, Inc.