Best Practices for Public Charging

I was at shopping mall in Irvine CA just yesterday. It had 4 stalls, all filled with PHEV's that were fully charged. And THAT's exactly why I never count on public EVSE's. Conversely, folks who are not in need of charging COULD - if they really wanted to, make up a placard giving permission to unplug you, either after a certain time, or when you are charged. If anyone wants, I can post a picture of the one I use ... there are a few on line too - that folks could use as templates .
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I am so lucky that my employer has a charging station.

I never let my car charge for more than 2 hours there and always would yield to a leaf or any other all electric car. After all gasoline is the same price as electricity now, so the reason to go electric is to help the environment and if someone else in an EV needs the juice they probably are doing more good than me.

Trying to charge at a public place is useless. It is either already used or too expensive.

 

I think that is what will help us work out the kinks in this new system.

For folks who don't truly need to charge and for those who own cars like the PIP or Accord Plug In, the cost of charging will deter them from using the public chargers. Thus freeing up the space for those who truly do need the charge. Apartment dwellers and those who are low on range will have a better chance of finding an open charger when they need it.

With free charging, everyone and their brother will take up a spot to top off and or have better parking. It's not going to work well in the long term if the Chargers are free. It will also encourage people to buy the right sized battery for their needs based on charging at home only as that is the only reliable charger one has.

 

I just got back from a road trip today and was quite pleased with how the PIP performed. I filled up with gas about a mile from the freeway and had just .6 miles or EV range showing on the guess-o-meter. The trip totaled over 250 miles with two chargers and I finished up with an average of 61 mpg and that's keeping up with SoCal traffic.

Had an interesting experience with the charging. first charge was Perchanga casino. They have 6 Aeorvironment chargers there (free) when I arrived there were 2 PIPs a Leaf and a C-Max Energi chargingt there and I took another spot leaving one free.

The next day we drove down to Harrah's Rincon. They had one of the few free Blink stations in SoCal but it appears they have gone to KWh pricing now at 49 cents per KWh which is way expensive. From there we went on to Pala Casino. They also have Blink chargers at 49cents. Both sets of chargers were unused. As we went to leave I saw a white Volt driving toward the exit. I noticed that the cone in front of one of the chargers had been moved but I know that there had been nobody there five minutes ago so he must have gone there then found out how much it cost and moved on.

When we got to Pechanga that evening there was a Tesla, a PIP and what appeared to be the same white Volt that I had seen at Pala. It seems like the free charging does bring people into businesses.

I've been to Pechanga several times since I bought the PIP and this is the first time I have not had the chargers to myself. The nice thing is that nobody seemed to be parked and not charging but the PIPs all appeared to be fully charged when I got there and were still in the charging stations when I left.

Personally in places like hotels and Casinos I would like to see more 110V charging as people stay long enough to get a decent charge at 110V so its a cheap way to provide charging for a larger number of EVs.

 

When you go into the Chargepoint app, it should come up with a map of where you are presently. You can also do a list instead of a map, which you hit at the bottom right. You have to find where the chargers are. If the indicator is lit up green, the charger is available. If it's blue, it's not available.

 

My lot is starting to fill up. Eek!

 

Wow. Sounds like charging in the USA sucks as much as in London, but for different reasons.

Here in London the main problem is that there are hardly any chargers, 50%-65% of those that are around are broken and the remainder are in crazy places with stupid high parking charges to use them. I don't want to park miles away from home or work and pay a fortune to park just to charge. The charge point I was planning on using frequently near my home in a supermarket turns out to have been broken for over a year and they are just removing it.
Usually ICE cars hog the few charge spots because "Nobody ever uses them so it's ok" or, "I didn't know" or more frequently "F*** you I don't care".
Generally it's not an issue as the point is broken anyway.