New California Law on use of EV charging stations

This is why I consider that in the absence of a robust charging infrastructure, the ideal configuration for an EV is as the short-distance car within a multi-car family. I have my Prius for longer trips because even if I knew there was a charger some place, I could not know that it would be available for me when I needed it. Unless, for example, I had my own charging spot at work, or if there were L1 outlets at every parking spot and that was enough to get me home, as could be the case with a Leaf parked for 8 hours at work and only needing a few extra miles to make the round trip, or for overnight parking if hotels had chargers that could be reserved along with the room.

I envision that last at some time in the far future: When EVs can drive all day on a charge, and are much more numerous, hotels will have chargers that you can book at the same time as you book your room, so that you will be assured of an overnight charge while you sleep. I do not expect to see this in my lifetime.

 

^ According to Recargo, there's a parking meter there limited to one hour. Fine, if all you need is 5 miles worth of juice. Really, L2 is not that much use unless it's available all day or all night long, or you only need a few miles.

But this is news to me.

The folks at Jaremko Nissan are pretty nice, and I'm guessing that in an emergency they'd let anyone use their outside J1772 charger if nobody else is using it.

 

Exactly; that's what I plan to do as well. On the few occasions when I go to Whole Foods or other locations where there are charging stations, I may use it while I'm in the store, but other than that, home charging will suffice for me.

I work in a home office though, so I have no commute--my 2007 Prius has just over 35K on it now, which illustrates how little I drive.

 

I was in a free parking garage last night. 2 chargers, that were pay in prime locations. One was between 2 handicapped spots, the other between two normal spots. It may be the ADA laws make these things always in prime spots even in texas. This was the first handicapped only charger I've seen, and it didn't make much sense.

If all the charging spots in california are prime, and the state was giving out charging stickers to cng cars, I would bet a number of the spots were iced or used by cars not charging. I don't think we need goverment involvement, but for those of you in california, please try to get rid of the ability to tow plug-ins and allow charge sharing as its been done.

 

The subject of being able to lock the charging cable so that it cant be unplugged came up in this thread so I'll post this here.

Doing some digging on the Toyota Japan Prius PHV website (link) I found some kind of accessory cable lock. It shows as 14,700 Yen, so I assume its an accessory or some kind of add-on. Hopefully it will be available here.

I've attached an image. The translated text says "Charging Cable Lock"

 

I think this lock works on the vehicle side, it will not prevent unplugging on the charger side.

 

Well, at least you probably won't get a ticket for parking in an EV spot and not "charging" since it will still look like you are.. and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, at least your charging cable wont grow legs and walk off

 

Talked to my friend, and he did indeed try to get a ZEV parking sticker for his phev. He checked other on the form, and got told that he could not get the sticker because it was not natural gas. He also said that there is other parking that is free for ZEVs, which is why those issuing stickers may be confused. This was back in august. He didn't expect a sticker becuase its not a pure EV, but was shocked by the reason for rejection. Volt drivers have been ticketed for charging without stickers, which is why this probably came to a head. If people working for the state actually could use good judgement, it wouldn't be a problem.

Hope it all gets worked out. It would be a lot better if a plug-in charge sharing would not be ticketed or towed.