Article: Because of charging stations, PHEV better

Certainly interesting...

One of the big reasons we bought our Prime is the fact that we can take any trip or drive and never worry about finding a charge station somewhere along the trip.

This last summer I was on vacation in a in a Major city that has a large charging infrastructure. I rented a Tesla S & drove it for almost 2 days. I needed to charge it on 2 separate occasions, the first needed charge went smoothly because I didn't need to wait in line for a charging station. The second time I needed to charge it, I had to wait in line just to get to one of 10 super chargers. Once I plugged in to the super charger it took about one hour to bring the Tesla S up to about ~85%; so let's just say that my total time for that charge was ~1 1/2 of sitting in the car. I can fill my Prime with 9 to 10 gallons of gasoline in about ~2 minutes....


Rob43

 

As of right now, I think the only BEV that would work is Tesla--mainly due to its supercharger network. And even then, as mentioned before, many people have issues. In addition, it is still quite expensive; and my opinion only: I question Tesla's reliability (vs. Toyota). I know many have done the "Tesla stretch." However, that is not for me and probably not for most that come to this forum. The RAV-4 Prime will be a huge addition if priced right.

 

This article gets the EV charging spot logic completely backwards. Cities and dense metro areas have MORE charging spots because there are MORE people (therefore more EVs and more demand for charging stations) than rural or less dense suburban areas. This makes sense from the perspective of charging station economics: it makes more sense to put your charging station in a location that could service 100s to 1000s of EVs rather than 10s to 100s.

While there are certainly challenges to putting charging spots in multifamily or large apartment buildings, if there is enough demand from EV owners, it can and will be done. Lack of demand, rather than overcrowding, is what kills technologies. Mass car ownership in the face of decades of gridlock and traffic jams proves that point.

 

I also like it for an entirely different reason.

There are many free charging stations near me and they are often located near the entrances to buildings (no one wants to run 240V to the back of a parking lot). The spots are reserved for vehicles that can use them and are often available.

I'm able to park and get a free charge while others are orbiting the lot looking for spaces. Especially helpful in the holiday season.

 

PHEV is my choice if I have only one car.
EV would be my choice as for the 2nd car if I have another car with either PHEV or ICE only.

 

Have had my 2020 prius since October... bought it in Eugene Or, and it's now in Austin, TX

During the almost two months I drove it in Eugene, I looked for charging stations and never saw one. Even the Toyota dealership where i purchased the card didn't have one. Chargepoint shows a total of only 9 stations and those are all in the university area where parking is highly restriced.

During the 2,200 mile drive back, I never saw a charging station and not one of the restaurants nor motels had a clue where any might be.

Austin, TX claims to have over 800 charging stations, but since getting the car here in November and looking forward to using them, I have tried to use them around ten times... in one case, there were five parking spaces with connections and none of them were operational.

Until last night, none of the units I tried to use were functional. Last night, I finally connected to a functioning station at the Austin airport's cellular parking lot... there were only two connections in that lot, and only one of them was functional.

The quest has effectively removed any possibility of even considering a completely ev and underscored the wisdom of choosing a PHEV.

Beverly Howard

 

That is, if the few that are available aren't being put out on the stealership lots for $5,000 above list price.

 

Here in SoCal I’d guess less than 1% of the parking stalls are for EVs. I’ve searched for free charging stations but have only found 1 open spot over the past year. That turned into a confrontation with a Tesla owner who was stretching the cord to an adjacent non-EV parking spot.

IMO the infrastructure for public EV charging is not even close to acceptable. I’ll consider a BEV when 25% of the parking stalls have chargers. Until then, my 2 Primes + solar are the better solution.

 

From what I've seen, even if you can find one, any for-pay charging station is less economical than running the equivalent number of miles in hybrid mode. When away from home, I only charge when it's free. ("Free" meaning actually free or included in the price of the hotel room or whatever.) If I were driving a BEV it would be different, but the Prime doesn't seem to benefit much from commercial charging.

 

Same. And even with free, the only motivation to bother locating and using one is the miserable performance and related experience of driving Prime in non-EV mode. I find myself hypermiling only because i dread the moment the car switches to HV mode.

 

I don't know of anywhere more urban that downtown Los Angeles and I can tell you that there is not a single place to charge within a mile of my work that is accessible to the public. Lots of commercial parking garages have them, but they're for clients only or for people that pay $30 an hour to park. And, 9 times out of 10, anywhere I go that has charging stations (which is very rarely), they are all completely full.

Data from LA County's MTA suggests about 7% of cars are electric of some sort of another (meaning they can be plugged in), but most place that even bother to have charging stations have less than 0.5% of their parking spaces fitted with a charger.

 

WOW ! $30 an hour to park ?
Anyone who can afford that should be able to afford to buy a long range EV as a 2nd car just for local driving and not need to recharge till they get back home

I just now found this web site listing the number of charging stations per state and California does have the most, but of course it is a very large state -

Charging Stations By State – EVAdoption

Alaska has the fewest which is not too surprising.

 

I find the statistic amusing for Wisconsin
They really should have to provide a list of the where/who/charge speed to back up their data.

for example car dealers are listed as public though they are usually on HOURS/conditions.

L1 + Tesla
makes up the vast majority of “public charging “ in Wisconsin but an outlet in front of the deans parking spot isn’t really fully public either.

It’s ok to be optimistic but you should be frank about what and where you are counting as public. And thousands of L1 outlets albeit nice is not nearly as effective as a handful of generic quick charge stations (not Tesla’s), nor should it be counted the same as L3

 

I understand, that link was from a quick search so I was not sure how precise it's info was but thought it would at least give a basic idea.

I can't remember offhand which app/website it was, but I remember a map program that listed charging stations and when you clicked on the icon on the map for each station it would give more precise details, like if it was public, if it was free, if it was limited to business hours or if it was 24/7, ect.

EDIT TO ADD: it was Google maps, other map programs might have similar features.

here is a random example I found that included hours (some locations don't seem to include hours):

 

Here is what my area looks like if you remove sub 3.6kw “charging”
(there are 3x paid public L1/L2 options in a hundred mile radius)

To the north there is nothing go far enough East or West you get 2 or 3 with more the the south