Public Charging Stations

You could run a charging station out of your garage!

 

Just watched a Yukon get towed from an EV parking spot at a Costco down here in SD. Woman was yelling at the police officer and tow truck guy and the cop basically told her if she tries to get into the car while he was winching it on the flatbed he would arrest her for obstruction of justice. Keep in mind the car also had license tags expired in 2009...why someone would blatently break the law while breaking another is beyond me.(BTW, I was laughing my nice person off the entire time and was kind of amazed the police were enforcing it.)

The Costco by my house where this happened has 2 EV spots that have been there since I was young so I'd say 1998ish? Probably for the EV1 I would assume.

The Fresh and Easy has 2 Hybrid parking only spots which are almost always full of trucks which doesnt matter to me since they're also farther away from the entrance.

 

Don't we all wish. . . . but no, it aint that way at all. Take the Seal Beach parking lot for instance, looking at your sig. Not only do you pay $6 just to park in the lot for any extended time ... you pay an absolutely absurd $3.70ish per HOUR to use either of the 2 EVSE's. Sorry, but welcome to reality.

(as they say on the RonCo commercials,) But wait, there's more! ... You only get to charge for two hours!
ound:
What that means is that if you're in an EV, you better not count on getting anything more than 18 miles of EV range. so if you're 20 miles out or farther ... and want to shop around the pier - you're hosed. It reminds me of when the city counsel all got fired a couple decades ago, because they tried to implement the absurd idea of prohibiting 3 story houses at the beach. The community told their elected officials, "bye bye". Seems like it's about time to do that again.

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But the Mall Of America is far away from where I live. I would be forced to burn a lot of gas to get there...

 

In a few weeks, I'm going to drive the PHV up north carrying bikes on the back. Just think what that's going to do to my lifetime average.
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I really don't understand why a store who probably has an average customer stay of less than 10 minutes would think it would be good for its business to have a charger. I'll bet people will just park there and walk around to other stores in the vicinity.


iPad ?

 

Somewhere out there, I have heard that the longer a person stays in a store, the more likely they are to make a purchase . . .

 

Costco will put chargers in just as soon as there are so many EV's on the road that the spaces will always be full. But, in their defense, the old chargers were probably never used in most locations.

 

Oh! John don't give me all those You know better! I have been to your web site many times in the last 8 years.

Have a great time up North, I grew up in Alexandria, Mn. so I know how nice it is. Enjoy!!!

P.S. I'll enjoy your photo's when you get back.

 

The best way we can influence them, is to flood them with requests. If any PC folks can get Leaf and Volt owners on board with this, our numbers will be stronger.

I sent my email through their website yesterday and received the standard response that my request was forwarded to the appropriate person. I'll make another post here when I hear anything more.

 

Just read in The Ventura County Star that the City of Ventura has installed 10 EV charging station downtown, for which they will charge fifty cents per hour. I guess they are trying to recover the costs of the equipment and installation, along with the rate for the electricity.

 

No. I was saying there is no harm in taking an opportunity charge and then unplugging before the charging is done. I said that in response to your direct question asking if it was harmful to do so. If you're going to be parked by a charger for 15 minutes, give yourself 15 minutes worth of charge. The car will be perfectly happy.

As iRun pointed out, the car's computer protects the battery.

The situation is different with a pure EV. Both the Leaf and the Tesla give the driver the option of charging to very near 100% in order to get the added range (which is far less important for a PHV). The trade-off, as both auto makers clearly state in their respective manuals, is a shorter battery life. Nissan also warns against excessive use of L3 fast charging. The Tesla, with its much more robust PEM and active cooling system, can handle faster charging. There will be a 21.6 kW charger available for the Model S. I use a 9.6 kW charger for my Roadster. But since I don't need 245 miles of range, I only use Standard charging, which stops at a shade below 90% SoC. My other options are Range (near 100%, for maximum range), Performance (also near 100% but at higher finishing temperature, for maximum power delivery), and Storage, which holds the pack between 20% and 50% SoC.

 

Maybe they would be more open to a less expensive option than replacing the old EVSEs with new ones? Since power is already wired to the EVSEs, perhaps they could just install outlets so EV/PHEV owners can use their own EVSE to charge there.

 

Fifty cents per hour is less than a lot of cities charge for parking.

 

It makes a big difference whether they have installed some 120-v., 15-a plugs, or whether they are L2 or L3 stations. Just "installed 10 EV charging stations" doesn't tell us much.

Spokane has several "EV charge spots," but (unless there's something new since I last looked) they are just outdoor outlets, 120 v. 15 a. That means that the typical EV could get around six mines of range for an hour of charging. That's great if you only need a few miles to make it home, but unless you've seriously miscalculated your range and are stuck, it's pretty useless.

(The Nissan dealer also has an outdoor L2 EVSE, but it's not really for public use. They might let someone use it, but you'd have to ask, and hope they're not using it themselves, or for one of their customers. Maybe the Chevy dealer has one too, again for their own use.)

 

Yep, but the article didn't say what equipment is being used. Apparently to the writer, and maybe the city, electricity is just electricity, whether it is going to street lights or vehicles.

 

03/06/2012
For Immediate Release
March 6, 2012
Contact: Mary Joyce Ivers, (805) 652-4539
Kelly Flanders, (805) 677-3993
New Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Promote Sustainability and Attract EV Drivers to Downtown Ventura

New electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in the Downtown area are putting Ventura on the map as a destination point for EV drivers, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting clean transportation. Residents and visitors to Ventura can now fuel their EV’s at three convenient locations.
A total of ten electric vehicle charging stations have been installed at three locations: the Beachfront Parking Structure at 550 Harbor Boulevard, the Downtown Parking Structure at 555 Santa Clara Street and at City Hall, 501 Poli Street. Drivers can find and reserve unoccupied stations in Ventura and anywhere in the United States on the Chargepoint America website, www.chargepointamerica.com. Users of the stations will be charged $.50 per hour to recoup the cost of the electricity used to charge the vehicles.
The charging stations were acquired and installed at no cost to the City through the ChargePoint America program that offers stations for public use through a $15 million dollar grant funded by the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act administered by the U.S. Department of Energy Transportation Initiative and the California Energy Commission. Coulomb Technologies Inc. is the manufacturer of the charging stations, and Clean Fuels Inc. completed the installation.
“Ventura County has been identified as a strong geographic region for the electric vehicle program,” stated Fleet and Facilities Manager Mary Joyce Ivers. “The charging stations help to continue our efforts toward environmental stewardship and attract a new demographic of people to businesses in our community.”
The Level 2 charging stations work with any electric vehicle on the market that has the standard J1772 connector. Some of the popular electric vehicle types are the GM Volt, Nissan Leaf and Toyota Prius; these vehicles can be purchased at the Ventura Auto Center.
For more information contact: (805) 652-4539, [email protected]
This release is available at City Of Ventura . ###

 

According to So Calif Edison, the maximum Tier 3 rate (the highest mine ever goes) is 24 cents/kWH for a residential meter. Ventura says they are just trying to break even, charging 50 cents/kWH. The equipment didn't cost them anything.
Hmmm.......

 

Re using public stations for short term charging, I'm concerned about a couple of things. The manual talks about the best time to charge is after the system has cooled down. This is supposed to make the batteries last longer. How long would you need to cool them down after driving with outside temps in the seventies, for instance? I do like the idea of doing as much driving as possible in EV mode, but not at the expense of shortening the battery life. Today we had 13.4miles in range showing after charging early this morning, and it lasted for just about that in surface street driving before the ICE ever kicked in. That's about all I could ask for from the system, other than getting the range up to the 15 miles that was talked about for a while. I think I'll stick with the timer and overnight charging at home.