Anyone being proactive about public charging stations?

[voltage692]

Any Volt or other plug-in car owners on here doing anything to provoke more public charging stations in their city?

So far in Houston, the charging stations are either in some $30/day parking garages in 9-5 business-only areas, or in some facility that no one would ever visit unless they worked there.

I am wondering if there is anything I/we can do to get them to move faster on installing charging stations where can they realistically be used daily -- like malls, town centers, movie theaters, and parks.

Not everyone works in range of those parking garages, but everyone goes to those consumer areas.

I have heard of some charging stations coming to supermarkets or drug stores, but how useful is that? I never spend more than 10 minutes in a drug store, and maybe 30 in a supermarket. But everyone spends hours in parks, malls, movies theaters, and town center/dining areas.

I emailed ChargePoint just now to see if they have any plans, but there must be more we can do as a collective group to build awareness within cities and with consumer-oriented businesses. We need to have our voice heard. How about a Walk Against Dead Batteries? (that's a joke for all you pocket protectors out there, in case you didn't realized).

[shellzj]

I completely here you on getting our voices heard. One of my primary passions is a web startup centered around this very topic, www.natsent.com. But I digress--

As a fellow Houstonian, I think that our best bet is going to be the EVGOnetwork. Have you heard of it? I believe it's funded by Reliant Energy. It looks like there are a lot of planned chargers in Houston and Dallas and open invitations to business owners to request chargers for their parking lots. I'd request one for mine but I'm quite certain the landlord wouldn't go for it given how tight parking here is.
https://www.evgonetwork.com/The_Netw...nned_Stations/

[voltage692]

Don't get me started on eVgo. Yes, I have studied eVgo's offerings, and I wish they would just disappear or change their model to the ChargePoint model.

eVgo has absolutely ridiculous pricing plans that just ruin the whole idea of charging in consumer-oriented areas. Their plans only make sense if you want to pay them a bunch of money to lease you a home charger, and you can AND need to charge at work. And even then, it probably doesn't make sense.

The ChargePoint model is a pay as you charge model with no monthly commitment -- more like the model that toll ways use with their toll tags.

Here's how insane the eVgo would be for me (and probably you):

1) I plan to keep my Volt for 5 years.

2) I expect to pay at most $1500 in electricity to charge during those 5 years by my calculations of my driving habits.

3) I expect that I can buy a charger and have it installed (without SPX's overhead thank you) for around $1000 with permits and electrician, but minus the tax rebates. I could then sell the charger for probably $200 at the end of the 5 years ($800 total cost). But if Ecotality and SPX ever get their act together and deliver on their promises, my charger would be completely free.

4) eVgo has a 3 year minimum commitment that would cost me $5,340 before taxes over that 5 year period to lease me a charger, to cover my home electric use for my car, and to let me charge at their public facilities, assuming they have ones where I went.

5) In the end, I would spend at least $3040 extra for the possibility of a short charge every now and then in public areas (again assuming they had a charger where I was going and I needed a charge at the time, and someone else wasn't already using the charger).

That's crazy. eVgo needs to get their head on straight or close up shop because they will do more harm than good for electric cars with their approach. People are already struggling with the economics of electric cars, and eVgo is working against us with their parasitic attempt to draw high profits off the movement.


Now let's get back to the original topic: How do we help cities and business want to jump on the electric car bandwagon?

I completely here you on getting our voices heard. One of my primary passions is a web startup centered around this very topic, www.natsent.com. But I digress--

As a fellow Houstonian, I think that our best bet is going to be the EVGOnetwork. Have you heard of it? I believe it's funded by Reliant Energy. It looks like there are a lot of planned chargers in Houston and Dallas and open invitations to business owners to request chargers for their parking lots. I'd request one for mine but I'm quite certain the landlord wouldn't go for it given how tight parking here is.
https://www.evgonetwork.com/The_Netw...nned_Stations/

[Stilgar99]

Actually, I don't get the need for recharging stations. The only place I need recharging is someplace that I'm going to park for at least 6+ hours. Hence hotels and where i park at work make sense. But places like my grocery store, etc don't make any sense.

Stilgar

[voltage692]

Well, if it's a level 2 charger that will fill you up in 3.5 hours, then a couple of hours on the charger while you shop/eat/play is worth it (althought I agree that short term visits like supermarkets and drug stores don't makes sense -- more like malls, town centers, etc).

I am doing 125mpg with just a level 1 charger at home and never charging outside the home. Once I get a level 2 charger at home, I will go up to around 170mpg because I make a lot of trips from the house.

If the infrastructure was available to top me off in public places, I would easily be hitting 300+ mpg.

Also, if there were a lot of chargers around town, it would make the debated, 20 mile-per-charge, less expensive Volt more viable. And don't forget about the BEV's like the Tesla, Leaf, and the all the others being developed, that need to charge.

So that's my logic to why they should add them.

Actually, I don't get the need for recharging stations. The only place I need recharging is someplace that I'm going to park for at least 6+ hours. Hence hotels and where i park at work make sense. But places like my grocery store, etc don't make any sense.

Stilgar

[George Parrott]

I have been lobbying the offices at the University of California, Davis and CSU, Sacramento to get charge points installed ASAP. I am making progress with UC, Davis, since they are really already enthusiastic about this technology and they have faculty who were "in on the ground floor" with the design of the Volt and other EVs. My wife is a researcher in the medical school at UC, Davis, so we are eager to have a charge station near Tupper Hall on campus there. I am a Professor at CSU, Sacramento, and there are funds somewhere for development of charging stations on campus, but our planning staff seems to not have this as a very high priority.
Volt VIN #679
Leaf VIN #320

[Mybatcar]

I wouldn't mind a charge station at short stops like grocery stores, Starbucks, restaurants, etc. With a level 2 charger you can get 2 miles or so of charge for every 15 minutes. Many times I sit at Starbucks for more than an hour. Every mile added through the day extends my driving distance and/or reduces my charge time and cost of electricity at home. Charging stations should be promoted everywhere !
BTW, my ChargePoint ChargePass card came in the mail yesterday. I may check out a local charge spot in a public garage later today.

Steve in Boca Raton #313

[Sheffield]

Here in the Sacramento region there are all kinds of chargers that were installed in about 2001. They need the cord and plug changed to the new J1772 instead of the old square version. So they are useless to us until that happens. Supposedly there are contracts to make the upgrade but it has not happened yet. One of the biggest offenders is Costco. They have many stores with chargers but they have not upgraded them. I wrote their magazine editor, suggesting that the upgrade would make a good story, but when she got back to me it seemed that she did not know that Costco had chargers at all. Maybe if everybody would write to them?

[john@evols]

I have contacted Costco in Mountain View, CA since they have the old paddle and triangle types of chargers. They said that the folks at corporate were working on a company-wide upgrade to the new standard. We'll see.

My wife also contacted Stanford where she works and they said that they'd convert their old charging stations to the new standard. Here is their reply: "Thanks for your email and your Commute Club membership! We are actually just in the initial stages of a project to replace the existing electric vehicle charging stations on campus with new models that will be compatible with the Volt. There will be two of the new units at each of the existing EV charging locations on campus -- the Visitor Center (the former Track House) and Parking Structure 5 -- as well as two at Tresidder Union, where the existing chargers are currently not functional. We hope to have the stations operational within the next few months. Please let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks for your dedication to alternative transportation!"


I plan to contact other places too. Our city has the old chargers in the city hall garage - I'll contact them. Any suggestions on who are good candidates?

John@evols
#58

[tangentlin]

So far all the charge point stations in Washington DC area are free, and I have used the two in Virginia every so often. However, there aren't enough of such infrastructures in the area to make EV ideal. DC area is rather hilly, no matter how carefully I drive, in certain stretch of highways I would go a mile with 1.5 miles of energy. I would not imagine driving pure EV's such as Leaf or Smart in this region.

Hopefully there would be more pay-as-you-go charge stations in the area to make EV more practical.