Plug-In Road Rage: It begins

Absolutely not. The volt driver did not have it coming. He probably deserved a note, about not unplugging other cars, Not keying. There is no excuese for the behaviour of the prius driver. Someone hiting your girlfriend, may mean yoou deserve to have your car keyed. Unplugging a cord, no, not at all.

I don't think we need to go through all that. Most people are not hooligan vandals like that prius driver.

 

I don't condone damaging cars in any way, keying or otherwise. However people in general are stupid and you never know when someone will react in a crazy manner such as that. In my opinion the Volt driver is an idiot and the Prius driver in this case is a douche. I understand him trying to move around the cables so he could also charge, but once he realizes that is not possible he should have put it back the way it was.

I disagree. For one, with EV charging becoming more and more popular I would not be surprised to see high school kids think it's funny to go around unplugging cars at malls in the future for instance. A locking mechanism would simply solve the issue of people unplugging cars that don't have a full charge for themselves.

 

I agree with Bisco's point......

 

Last year, I pulled into the new Fremont Target and marveled at the 10 or so empty charging spots as I plugged in my PiP for free. A few months later I pulled in and took the last available spot and noticed my free Chargepoint card no longer worked because the station had turned to a free for 2 hours and then $2 thereafter.

Last month, I pulled in and found it odd that a Tesla S wasn't charging and a few Leafs and Volts not in EV parking. I read the message on the charging station screen. It said it was turned off by owner's request. I checked and all of them had the same message.

In my head, I pictured the Target store owner getting the umpteenth complaint from two plug in customers arguing over a spot and then deciding to just shut it all down. That's exactly what I do when my daughters can't share the iPad.


iPhone ?

 

I would happily pay for one of those for my Prius Plug-in

 

It still takes much longer to charge than it does to refuel. A few minutes at the station and I'm set for 500 miles.

Maybe we need to look into liquid batteries - Liquid battery electric vehicle could charge in three minutes | Grist

Imagine re-fueling a bus...

 

$15,000 used Nissan Leaf is in my sights..... or it was until I saw I would be blocked by Prius & Volt owners from charging. I can make it to work but cannot make it back without a charge.

P&V owners would happily leave me stranded..... which is why people like me (Zero emission electric-only car) would have priority over those that have smog-emitting tailpipes & operate on gasoline as a backup. i.e. the person who NEEDS electricity takes priority over the person who does not.

 

yep, you can't depend on those chargers. You need either a phev or a longer range bev that can get you to work and back. ucs did a survey and found these things appropriate for 41% of the population, but you are in the other 59% Average round trip commute for leaf owners is 29 miles.

 

Or you could learn to let the EV have the charger (since a charge is the only way for an electric car to get home) instead of hugging the spot with your smog-creating pollute-mobile Prouus or Volt

 

I would think that any reasonable person could discuss the charging situation with people at your work place and come to a reasonable charging schedule that allows everyone a chance to use a charger. If the people you are in conflict with are complete strangers then there will always be some people who ruin it for everyone.

Mike

 

And what if another Leaf owner came up and also needed the charge to make it back? If you both NEED it, who wins?
What if another BEV owner that didn't need the charge to make it home were using it? What about PHEVs that would need the charge to avoid gas then?
What if the station were out of order, and you NEED a charge?

I'd argue that NEEDing a charge to make it home is more on the lines of bad planning. You can be prevented from getting a charge for various reasons, some of which may be due to you being not the only plugin car driver.

Nothing wrong with a driver being courteous/considerate of others, if someone wants to yield the plug, they aren't the only ones to use it after all - but the opposite needn't be the case, no reason to feel that everyone else should yield to them.

 

I said both Leafs would have first priority over the gas-powered hybrids. That rule alone would be enough to solve a ton of problems. Honestly:

If I was HR (or accounting) at this bickering Silicon company with too many cars & not enouhh chargers, I would simply ban all hybrids from using the chargers. Not only would it relieve a lot of headaches from squabbling adults acting childish (keying cars??? C'mon!) but save a lot of money by reducing the company's bills by about half. :|

 

Be glad you don't work in HR. That kind of unilateral decision making would not keep you employed for long in Silicon Valley companies seeking to attract talent that don't all drive BEV's



iPhone ?

 

Ironic since the PiP and Volt are only "smog-creating pollute-mobiles" because YOU feel they shouldnt be allowed to use public chargers in the first place.

 

Right, because in Scam Valley, it's all about self-entitlement -- first, last and everywhere in between.

 

Bingo Scam Valley-Think QED

 

I think that the idea of providing chargers to employees is to:
- provide a benefit to employees who have elected to own a plugin car
- replace as many ICE commuting miles with as many EV commuting miles for company PR purposes
(at my company they ask us to log our EV commute miles so they can collectively brag about it)
They don't care if it is EV, PHEV or what. They also ask you to log bicycle miles, carpool miles, etc.

The drivers in the original article are the exception rather than the rule...most EV/PHEV car owners are very supportive of each other, sharing chargers, plugging and unplugging each other in a courteous manner.

Mike

 

I run the risk of sounding rude...which is not my intent... but I repeat: