With every automaker announcing an electric car, AeroVironment Inc. believes it is time to take its expertise in vehicle refueling on the road.

The Monrovia-based company, best known for manufacturing unmanned aircraft, is in the final stages of designing electric vehicle charging stations for residential and commercial use. It’s already pitching them to companies, government agencies, policymakers and automakers, hoping for a big piece of a market that’s now tiny but has huge growth potential. About $320 billion is expected to be spent on equipment and infrastructure for electric vehicle charging over the next couple of decades.

The company has long had experience with electric vehicles, starting more than 20 years ago when it began working on General Motors Corp. prototypes that led to the EV1 electric car. Now, AeroVironment executives say the timing is finally right to go beyond development and into manufacturing a profitable recharging product.

“People want electric vehicles because they are tired of high gas prices, dependence on foreign oil, and they are worried about climate change and the environment. And the technology is better,” said Kristen Helsel, director of the electric vehicles program at AeroVironment. “We see enough support from consumers to automakers and policymakers that this is worth pursuing.”

But questions abound: Will there be enough electric cars to justify the charging equipment? Will AeroVironment be able to catch up to the competition since other California companies already are installing charging stations? And should they focus on setting up charging stations similar to gas pumps or selling them to electric car buyers for home use?

As for the last question, Helsel said AeroVironment envisions the charging stations which haven’t been named inside home garages, along curbs for street parking, at large corporate parking lots and even next to gasoline pumps.

The company has designed two devices that would charge cars faster than regular wall sockets, which can only offer a charge of 120 volts. One, which can mount on a wall and is intended for residential use, offers a two- to six-hour recharge at 220 volts. The other, which resembles a gas pump, would be installed at filling stations and commercial sites such as shopping malls and company parking lots, and would offer a 10-minute recharge at 600 volts.

The company is waiting for final approval in the next couple of months from the Society of Automotive Engineers, which sets industry standards for most auto equipment. It plans to start selling and installing the stations early next year.

In 1987, GM teamed up with the company to build a solar-powered electric car called Sunraycer for a trek across Australia. Sunraycer beat the competition and made world headlines. Two years later, AeroVironment provided charging technology for GM to increase the range of the automaker’s vehicle battery packs for its first all-electric vehicle, initially known as the Impact, but later built as the EV1.

GM halted EV1 production in the late 1990s, but AeroVironment kept up with the technology. That led to developing fast chargers for industrial electric vehicles using lithium ion batteries that are now in GM’s first mass-market effort that debuted this month, the Volt.

“I think that their experience dealing with the EV1 has helped poise them to enter the market with firsthand knowledge of how electric vehicles can and cannot work,” said Britta Gross, director of GM’s Global Energy Systems and Infrastructure Commercialization in Detroit. “This is a real serious effort on our part this time and I think it’s smart for companies now to look at the opportunities for building this infrastructure.”

‘Chicken vs. egg’

The question of whether there are enough cars to justify an infrastructure for charging is comparable to a “chicken vs. egg” debate. Auto industry insiders and experts wonder if the electric cars will have to come out first to motivate companies to buy and install charging stations or if the infrastructure must be established before the cars come out to give consumers confidence that there are sufficient refueling options.

“It looks like its going to go hand in hand,” said Kevin Smith, editorial director at Edmunds.com, a Web site that covers the auto industry. “There will be a need for some form of charging infrastructure and that will create some great business opportunities for companies like AeroVironment. But it’ll take a few years for that market to sort itself out as these vehicles come out.”

Most electric cars on the market, such as Tesla Motors Inc.’s Roadster, can be charged primarily at home, thus reducing the reliance on a need for a charging infrastructure outside of a residential setting. The GM Volt and Nissan Leaf, for example, are designed to charge off a connection to a standard wall outlet.

“Setting up a vast infrastructure of charging is a little like putting the cart ahead of the horse at this point,” said J.B. Straubel, chief technology officer of Tesla, who estimated 90 percent of their customers charge at home. “But companies that are willing to take that risk help our cause because it’ll mean they’ll have more options in refueling and will boost consumer confidence.”

AeroVironment will be able to sell its home charging device based on efficiency, as it will cut the charging time in half. But it will be some time before electrical charging sites will become comparable to gas stations.

“I don’t know if we’ll be seeing them on every street corner,” Smith said. “But many people want to shift toward alternative-fueled and electric-powered options, so it’s going to change from how it looks now. That could take years.”

Another concern is how the power grid managed by utility companies will sustain the electricity demands of plugging in electric cars.

“There is plenty of power on the grid,” said Edward Kjaer, director of electric transportation for Rosemead-based utility Southern California Edison. “I think that companies developing charging stations need to continue a dialogue with utilities so that their products are compatible with the grid. It’s going to take a few kinks to work out and they need to be prepared for that.”

Facing competition

At the commercial sites, electric car drivers will use a debit card to get juice from the machine into their vehicles. AeroVironment and other charge-site makers have several models for selling the electricity.

For example, the charge-site owners, such as shopping malls, cities or companies, could take the money that’s paid into the machine and then pay their electricity bill with it.

Or the manufacturer could take the money and reimburse the site owner for the cost of the electricity that came out of the machine.

AeroVironment hasn’t disclosed what payment method it will use, and hasn’t set a price for its commercial site charging station.

The home version would cost from $500 to $1,000, with an additional $1,000 to $1,500 for installation.

AeroVironment also has its competition vying for market domination. Two Bay-area companies, Better Place and Coulomb Technologies, are already shipping their charging stations worldwide to cities, businesses and a few car owners.

Richard Lowenthal, founder and chief executive of Coulomb, said that since January his company has sold about 200 stand-alone charging stations for commercial use priced from $2,000 to $4,500. He added that he’s likely to sell about 1,000 this year, and up to 5,000 the next year from what he’s hearing from potential clients.

“This is show time and we’re ready,” Lowenthal said. “There are already electric vehicles out there and more coming so we’re confident we’re going to be doing quite well.”

Helsel said AeroVironment plans to be cautious about saturating the market early. Alternative energy vehicles remain a niche; industry data for 2009 thus far shows hybrids accounted for about 3 percent of total auto sales in the United States. That’s the closest measure available to determine demand for electric vehicles.

But Helsel believes that the momentum is undeniable, citing President Obama’s goal of having 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 and $2.4 billion in stimulus funds recently going toward developing electric vehicle-related technology.

“The goal is to get out there ahead of everyone, but just not too far ahead,” Helsel said.