News item: Washington electric car bill would fine drivers who park at charging stations

Will the bill deal with EV cars being unplugged by a third party? Sounds like like a good way for "green-haters" to cause EV owners some misery. And there is the scenario where one leaves a note saying that if charging is complete, another EV owner should feel free to disconnect you and use it themselves. But not if that exposes one to a $250 fine!

 

I'm going to keep my eye on this bill, thanks for posting it, since it says even on private property they can't park other vehicles in EV spaces.

 

There could be an unintended consequence of such a law.

If a retail business only has a dozen parking spots that are usually full they will not consider installing a charging station if that means the space is going to sit empty 4 days of the week. I would rather they consider putting in 4 charging stations and know that I can probably grab a charge, if needed, by waiting for any 1 of 4 vehicles to leave.

Of course one of the things that would help in this situation would be for the charging network to have a real time status of the availability of each parking spot. I really get frustrated when the chargepoint app indicates a charging station is available only to arrive and find a vehicle (sometimes an EV) parked in the way.

 

Yep, it's the only way this will work, with fines and/or parking enforcement. Here in SoCal, we have many Walgreens and some Walmarts with charging stations. Regular cars just pull in and park in them at will.

 

Heck, people park in the handicapped spots and it's not enforced. Will the cops actually hand out tickets for this?

 

Maybe in New Joisey ... but here they do ticket for wrongfully parking in a HC spot.

In fact, but this is toooo much in my opinion, one cop ticketed for NOT having all four wheels inside the parking spot....i.e. one tire on or over the line separating the parking spots. Just saw a pic of what one cop gave a ticket for. Stupid, but some cops are stupid.