Plug-In Road Rage: It begins

Bingo; unfortunately, for many people, it's all about self-entitlement.

 

This is all I do if I don't want to be unplugged or the cord stolen.

 

Respects, but "that lock" would not stop a child.

 

Not even TSA...

 

That doesn't do any good if charging station's J1772 handles have no loop for a lock. I've not seen any that do.

As for prevent the L1 EVSE from being stolen, copper thieves will just cut the cable. There have been many instances of copper thieves doing just that at public charging stations.

And for you, if using your L1 EVSE, they can still unplug you on the other end.

 

Not sure if I should jump into this discussion, all these irritated electric eels thrashing around in the pool, but what the hey...

If we want to have some kind of cultural standard or custom for how people allocate too few outlets among too many cars it needs to be simple, flexible, extendable, robust. It also needs to work with persons such as myself who aren't familiar with every electric vehicle in the world.

This business where the most electric vehicle gets priority is sensible, but most people will have no idea who is how electric. Even if I memorized every vehicle on the road, it will change every time a new model comes out. I don't plan to keep up. I don't expect other people will look at my car and somehow magically know that I'm 25% electric, 75% gas, and can do fine with out a charge just now. Even if they do know that, what if I'm out of gas, or the ICE isn't working today, maybe I stopped to plug in on my way to the repair shop, they don't know.

I don't think plugging according to how electric you are will work, because you won't know how electric every car in the lot is.

There is plugging and unplugging according to how full your battery is. The plug signals on my own car are cryptic and not well thought out. The car turns on a yellow light for charge-in-progress, but yellow is normally a caution indicator, not a normal function indicator. If I walked up to a car with this system, and didn't already know the code, I would guess that the car had had faulted out and thrown a warning light, so I might as well use the outlet. The PiP also gives no signal at all for not charging, not charging yet, or all charged up. How is a stranger to tell?

The manufacturers could agree on a common system. You would have a green light come on during charging. If you looked close the green light would say "Charging/Carga/Charge (English/Spanish/French). When it was done it would switch over to white and say Charged/Cargado/chargé. This would make it clear to every literate person in North America what the car was doing. Until something like this comes out I don't expect a stranger will be able to tell what my car is doing. The first time I plugged it in *I* couldn't tell what it was doing, I had to go look in the manual, even though I own the car.

Rearranging the plugs of strangers based on how charged they are won't work for me, because I can stand right there and stare at them, and I'll have no idea how charged they are.

So for me, anything that requires intimate knowledge of other peoples cars will predictably fail.

Then there is the "Don't Touch" problem. I was raised that you don't touch strangers cars. If you do, you might have to deal with an irate owner. An example:

I come back to my $75K S Class beauty which I have parked perfectly centered and squared up to the space by the public charger. As I come closer I see that some kind of overgrown electric skateboard has been squeezed onto the sidewalk in front of me and he is now using *my* damn charge. I come closer and see that it is basically a platform, a battery box, and some ape hanger handle bars. It has black & white stripes and a plastic zebra hood ornament. A little placard on the back proclaims it to be a Zapped! Zebra!, but I have my doubts. Looking closer I see that the battery box is covered with stickers for bands I have never heard of. The zebra is standing on its hind legs, waving, grinning a big Eddy Murphy grin. Someone has super glued a glass pipe in between the wave and the grin, so it looks like the zebra is smoking a bowl with a giant grin. There is something that looks like an LED in the pipe so it looks like it lights up when he drives. The #$@! little bastard, I don't even have a light up hood ornament. The (home made) license plate reads 420-NOW. Damn kids.

I go back and look carefully at my charger port. Maybe there is a tiny nick in the cover, or a scratch in my two tone paint job with the sparkle coat and six layers of clear finish. Maybe there is a hand print where some one leaned on the car while they unplugged it. I'm might get upset. I might go ballistic on the little pimply faced so-and-so. I might not realize that I put that scratch there myself two weeks ago when I was plugging in in the dark.

There are potential problems involved if you expect people to touch the cars of strangers.

 

Banning all plug-in hybrids would be telling those living within EV range, too bad. And what about those who live just a little beyond it and barely use any gas? You'd also be catering to EV owners who have capacity that greatly exceeds their commute distance to recharge, even if they don't need it.

When someone chooses to purchase a vehicle with a plug, they should have the opportunity to plug it in.

Ride share programs have been available for decades. Why not start a plug share program? You get a number of plug opportunities per month. Owners find ways of making it work. After all, how many hours to you actually need to be plugged in? Count & Duration can easily be limited by the chargers.

Think about it. If you are given 4 hours to recharge and don't unplug & repark before that session expires, another session is deducted from your account. If you repeatedly violate the opportunity, you aren't given more sessions later. It's not complicated and there's no need to ban.

 

The simple combination lock works in the UK. Simple, cheap and no key.

Every plug I have have ever seen has the lock hole, My home charger actually has two, one large and one small.
Never heard of a cable being stolen and actually both ends lock or are tethered.
Of course a vandal could just tear out the plug, damaging the socket on the way, it is not cost effective to defend against everything. You just need to deter against the stupid and immature.

It is though a pity that the plug is not locked in whilst the car is locked. It can't be too difficult to add, perhaps even as an after market accessory? an opportunity for you clever people that have all the answers.

 

I disagree; we should remember that "gasoline-anxiety" is purely psychological, while EV range anxiety is real, and has real-world, potentially devastating consequences.
As a compromise, though, I will bring up my earlier proposal: don't ban PHEVs from EVSE chargers, only ban them from LEVEL 2 EVSEs......they should be free to plug into Level 1 EVSEs all day long, and expanding these should be as high a priority for workplace charging as Level 2.
It's pretty simple, actually: If your car is parked 8 or so hours while you work (like most people), Level 1 charging is sufficient for 10 kwh/day......which remember, its re-filling only HALF of the commute, the return home. That means Level 1 would be a good enough workplace charging solution for PHEVs all the way up to 10kwh of usable capacity.....has there ever even been a PHEV with 10 kwh of usable capacity? Besides the i3, NO, and there will be very few coming; with workplace L1 charging, 10 kwh is enough to provide 40 miles of all-electric range to a vehicle the size of a Suburban!!
Another point:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but most current and future EVs have onboard chargers of 6.6kw or greater. Most current PHEVs have 3.3kw, and there is no need for that # to get much higher in the future, since the battery is so small. Well, obviously hooking a 3.3kw car to a L2 30amp/240v charger is wasting half its potential. I agree that EVs less than 200 km (125 miles) should have priority over PHEVs and even Tesla-class EVs.

Again, I am just a bit surprised at some of the comments.....I think it goes to show we can't rely on individual initiative, but I agree with those who said that some sort of regulation is necessary.
I am going to state the obvious, in big, bold capital letters:
THE RIGHT OF A PHEV TO NOT USE GAS IS NOWHERE NEAR THE RIGHT OF AN EV TO NOT GET HOME!

Having said that though, I'd like to say that no individual should buy an EV that only has enough range to make the trip home by requiring workplace charging, unless they either:
(1) have exclusive access to the charger at work throughout the day
(2) the number of coworkers is small and agreeable enough that there is a reasonable expectation of getting charged at least a few hours, or enough to cover the return commute

 

That suggestion is DOA, since most charger installations now are only Level-2. Chargepoint offers several double stations, where 2 Level-2 chargers are available from a single 240-volt line.

Get vehicles in and out as quickly as possible. Why block the parking spot by a single vehicle when it could serve several?

How many EV owners are actually trapping themselves like that? Forcing an employer to provide electricity isn't a right either. Seriously, I haven't encountered any example of someone having a commute distance beyond the battery-capacity of their vehicle.

 

"no individual should buy an EV which can only make it home by having some sort of workplace charging"
"THE RIGHT OF A PHEV TO NOT USE GAS IS NOWHERE NEAR THE RIGHT OF AN EV TO NOT GET HOME!"

Until my stated comments regarding Laws and Rules as it applies, and available technology is standardized and in place to meet demand, this is the common sense an EV buyer/owner should have. These problems must be worked out before said vehicles can or will be viable nation wide, not just in the few leading CARB States which have not set the example through regulation themselves...including who thinks they have an entitled right to whatever.

 

Simple solution, charge for parking in the spot, not for being plugged in.
ICE cars will be much less likely to ICE the spots, people with PHEVs who don't need the range will be less likely to use the spots, and EV owners that don't need the range, or have completed charging will be more likely to move their car.

 

KenMCE, great point. It made me want to share with my fellow electric eels how our other PHEV, the 2013 Ford Fusion Energi, handles this issue - and likely how Ford Motor Company implemented it across its entire line of PHEVs:

The Fusion Energi has a plastic ring around the charger port. When the car is on, the charger ring lights up with blue LED light and indicates how much charge the traction battery has, in 90 degree segments. in other words, a full charge displays as a full blue solidly-lit ring, a charge of between 1/4 and 1/2 displays only the top right quadrant as lit, a charge of between 3/4 and full displays three quadrants lit and the top left one unlit, etc. It uses a clearly understood visual analogy to the ubiquitous clockface, understood at a glance even across language barriers.

When charging, the car "blinks" the quadrant being charged. So if the car is almost half-charged, the top right quadrant is solid blue while the bottom right quadrant blinks blue. Again, clearly understood at a glance.

Frankly, I think Ford engineers are leading the way here with this State-of-Charge display and I'd recommend it as a standard. It surely ain't costly to implement and it goes around an existing charging port already standardized across practically all PHEVs (except for the Tesla).

Here's a pix of a half-charged Ford:

 

Makes sense to me.

 

This has some merit, although the spot is still at risk of bring ICEd if it is close to the nearest building entrance (and the owner of a luxury ICE car finds the EV parking spot fee an acceptable amount to walk a shorter distance, for example)

We can actually calculate the rate at which it makes sense to use gasoline vs. public charging. I came up with 10x....that is, the price per gallon of gasoline should be no more than 10x the price per kwh. Example:

$3.50 gallon gasoline / 35 mpg in ICE mode = $.10/mile in a Volt-type vehicle
$.35/kwh / (3.5 m/kwh) = $.10/mile in EV mode in a Volt-type vehicle

$3.50 gallon gasoline / 20 mpg in ICE mode = $.175/mile in an Escalade-type PHEV
$.35/kwh / (2 m/kwh) = $.175/mile in EV mode in an Escalade-type PHEV

So, it seems that giving the EVSE stations connectivity so they can dynamically adjust to the going rate of gasoline would have the following benefits:

(1) It would earn the station owner/installer more money, because they can charge right up to the "threshold of pain" for a PHEV
(2) It would deter all PHEVs.......duh, why would a PHEV use $.35/kwh electricity when they can just burn gas? But an EV driver desperately in need of range would. So, the price separates those who truly need the charge from those who don't.
(3) The owner/operator can experiment around and lower the price if there is a lot of idle time, or raise it if a lot of employees complain of congestion (or the grid is stressed). Perhaps a smartphone app can provide real-time $/kwh alerts

The problem with this approach is not technical, but administrative and legal.....apparently several jurisdictions require EVSE stations to charge by the hour regardless of kwh dispensed, since counting kwh's would be 'metering' and only the local utility is allowed to 'meter'.

These antiquated laws need to be updated asap.

 

They usually use the handicapped spots.

 

How would that approach be implemented/enforced?

 

Don't be so sure. There are people who gladly pay extra to use the HOV lane... which coincidently does use dynamic pricing. People pay a premium for espresso drinks too, rather than just getting a coffee.

 

The Volt has over 10 kWh of usable capacity (10.8 kWh in 2013-2014 model years, 10.3 before that).

I expect other PHEVs to compete with 40-60 mile EV range in the next 5 years as energy density goes up and cell prices come down.

There's going to be quite a few years before 250+ mile BEVs are fully competitive in all relevant ways with cars that can sometimes use liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of promoting cheaper 120v power sources for slower-charging PHEVs with smaller battery sizes or even for BEVs for long-term parking at airports etc.

I prefer a market pricing approach that allows individual drivers to decide which charging space works best for them at the time and circumstances when they arrive to park and charge.