Finding a place for electric vehicle owners to plug in is both a challenge and an opportunity, experts said at Tuesday’s seminar at the AQMD in Diamond Bar.

Electric car sales have been rising, with the all-electric plug-in Nissan Leaf on track to be responsible for about 12,000 vehicles on the road nationwide by the end of this year, and about 30,000 Chevy Volts – an electric plug-in with a gasoline engine – being sold in the U.S., according to industry estimates.

The slow but steadily increasing sales of these electric cars, plus newer ones such as the Honda Fit plug-in, Coda’s plug-in sedan, Mitsubishi’s iMiev and the limited number of BMW’s Active E, mean that there will be more drivers looking to plug in rather than fill-up.

Cities and employers must be ready for the challenge, a gauntlet laid down by Gov. Jerry Brown in March when he signed an executive order asking local governments to accommodate 1.5 million plug-in electric cars in California by 2025.

An electric car industry trade group, called the Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative, hosted Tuesday’s seminar to spread the governor’s message: Be prepared.

Read more in Steve Scauzillo’s story PLUG.