Prenventing blocked charging stations

[jeffand]

Have you ever gone to a charging station just to find that it’s block by none charging car. They don’t see the restricted parking sign or just choose to ignore it. This can be a real problem for EV drivers who depend on these charging stations. It also a problem for EV charging station owners of ether attracting customers or generating a revenue from customer use. To curtail non customer parking requires more aggressive deterrent. Once a vehicle has pulled into the charging station parking spot the license plate is scanned if charging does not commence. After the third time the car plate has been scanned the charging station squirts ink on to the hood of the car in the shape of grinning pig. With the words oink printed below. On the forth offence, the charging station sends out a Text message to local tow truck to have the car towed away to the local impound yard. On the fifth offence the tow truck summoned once again except this time it’s towed to the local scrap yard. The metal scrap yard then cubes the offender’s car. The cubed car is then delivered to the owner front yard. Problem solved.

 

[EVA]

You read my mind. Perfect solution.

I've noticed a wonderful trend also - low emission vehicle parking places - and compact car. What do you normally see parked there? SUV's. Oh I forgot to mention, small SUV's like the smaller Lexus, Mercedes, or BMW. So they are more efficient than Hummers.

When you buy an Escalade, they give you a special permit to park anywhere you want, any time you want, with a pass for eternity.

Entitlement Jeffand - people that are more entitled to it than anybody else.

 

[michael]

I local gym installed EV charging paradise....8 chargepoint chargers, each between two parking spaces. A total of 16 spots with sharing planned in.

And then they put up signs saying: Hybrid and Vanpool parking

 

[Erik]

...then they put up signs saying: Hybrid and Vanpool parking

All my rage.

 

[pjam3]

There are quite a few places where they put up 3 Blink charging stations, but it's in the Handicap only area. And if you park illegally or park in one of the handicap spots, you wind up with a ticket or get towed. And the nearest parking spaces are to far away to charge.

Blink also has an issue of going bankrupt and being owned by somebody who may or may not care now. There are a few places where it's been out of service for months (all 3) or another area where 2 work, 1 doesn't and it's never fixed.


Another issue I have these days is my local WF and plaza is almost useless. It's the nearest charging station to me, well it works well and there are stores/restaurants, a WF, and so on. I can spend a few hours and buy some stuff, eat, and get fully charged. I used to go here every day to charge for an hour and then go. But the past couple of weeks, it's become almost useless. There are only 2 chargers and one is a super charger. So it means there is 1 charger for me. Like I said, the last couple of weeks, it's packed. I'll stop by in the morning and it's in use. I'll come back a day later in the afternoon and it's in use. I'll come back that night and it's in use. It stinks because it's really the only one closest to me that offers things to do while waiting. And EvGo seems to work better than BLink . Chargepoint is pretty much useless unless I'm off to visit the ex or out that way because they just don't exist.

I know some companies where 20 people have EVs or plug-in Hybrids but only like 4 Charging stations. So going forward I see it as a huge issue because it takes so long. It's pointless to charge an FFE for an hour. Especially if it only gets you about 10 miles or less. And some BLink stations are horrible like that.

I do see major issues going forward the more plug-ins and electrics because it becomes useless for me to think I can charge at my local station these days as it's just always packed with somebody charging. Or somebody in a Tesla who is not using the super charger for some reason. No big deal if you get 200+ miles, not a good thing when you get about 65 miles. And the more people buy these cars, the more Charging stations become like starbucks. AKA if you come in a bit late to a starbucks, you won't be able to plug in a phone, tablet, or laptop. Except you can go to another starbucks not far way. With your FFE, you might be screwed.

 

[pjam3]

The other challenge for me lately is because of this charging station, I had to find a couple other stations out of the area, but close enough. They are really in the middle of nowhere parking lots near city halls or one is in a high school and so on, but on certain days or after certain hours, pretty much empty. The high school is useless most days as the charging stations are blocked by non electric or hybrids and the high school doesn't really care to do anything about it. And being I have no affiliation with the school at all they wonder why I'm even on the property just to charge my car. That was not a fun conversation to have, so I pretty much don't go back to that school to charge. It is an affluent kind of place though with people who have their noses in the sky.

So the other stations have become my backup plan. I make sure i have enough to get to those places, but try the market first, and then leave. I then go to one of two other places and I walk with my kids. And when I say walk, we walk over 2 miles one way and over 2 miles back because it's not really that close to anything. But it is close enough to where 2 miles away there is a little main street kind of area. And there is a park for the boys and so on.

The last few weeks on the weekends, we've made it an all day event. We'd walk and my one son loves cars and talks about them, my other son walks a bit, is in the stroller for another bit, and points at dogs we see. We find a place to eat and then head over to the park & playground and they play with other kids. And then we walk back. Sometimes we stop in one of the stores to take a break from the sun. I can do this because I live in California and it's been 75 degrees all winter.

But the charging part becomes draining. I had a plan about a month ago to drive from San diego up to Los Angeles. I had the charging stations and backup stations mapped out. I made sure the stations were close enough to something for my kids to do and for me to do. We went to one apartment complex charging station once and it was a nightmare. Nothing to do for them and in an apartment complex. So we kind of BSed our way to touring an apartment or two. But having two boys under 5 is challenging when you're talking about waiting around for 2+ hours. So now I try to find anything for them to do and I'm not one of those "throw them a tablet or portable monitor and let their minds go mindless."

So long story short, we never made it to LA because we stopped at a train station with a bunch of chargers. My son saw a train and he wanted to go on that. And being I needed about 2 hours to charge to get to the next stop, the math just didn't add up. It takes about 2.5 to get to LA in good traffic. Add a couple of 2-3+ hour stops for charging and suddenly it's an all day event just to get there. And I've rarely used Freeways because my FFE has sucked on freeway driving and going to LA is pretty much a freeway thing. So at least 2 stops at 3 hours plus another 3 hours to get there, 3 hours to get home and another 6 hours of charging back home and it's over a 12 hour excursion. Not close to worth it. So we took the train and had fun.

For me it's almost like I charge my car and I don't want to do anything else. Most of the time I'll charge for 2-3 hours, but spending 2-3 hours walking/running, or walking around a store, or playing with the kids at a playground, i get back to the car and I'm like, I really don't feel like driving to said place and spending another 3-4 hours charging someplace else. With my truck, I can stop in a gas station, fill it up in a few minutes, and head off. No thinking. With my FFE, it's almost like, I'm not doing what I used to do all the time because my life has become "where's the next charging station."

 

[michael]

The biggest improvement I made in my charging situation was to install a 220 outlet at a friends house on the other side of town. Now I have a private satellite charge location, use it every weekend when I'm usually over in that area. They (my friends) are likely to get an EV soon, so I'll install a full size EVSE for them using the wiring I already installed for the outlet.

Without the outlet at their house, I'd be scrambling for public chargers at the mall, metrolink, etc. or sweating range to get home. This is waaaay easier.

 

[pjam3]

The biggest improvement I made in my charging situation was to install a 220 outlet at a friends house on the other side of town. Now I have a private satellite charge location, use it every weekend when I'm usually over in that area. They (my friends) are likely to get an EV soon, so I'll install a full size EVSE for them using the wiring I already installed for the outlet.

Without the outlet at their house, I'd be scrambling for public chargers at the mall, metrolink, etc. or sweating range to get home. This is waaaay easier.

So what happens when they get an EV and are using it to charge their car?

 

[jmueller065]

So what happens when they get an EV and are using it to charge their car?

Not really an issue: Their car will live there and, most likely, be charged overnight. Thus the few times he is visiting during the day he will be allowed to charge.

It would be a rare occasion that both cars are depleted at the same time.

You haven't really lived with the freedom of having your own Level 2 at home: It changes everything.

 

[Gigi]

I had a plan about a month ago to drive from San diego up to Los Angeles.

pjam3 reminds us that there is a great difference between having a plan and having a REASONABLE plan.

 

[jmueller065]

pjam3 reminds us that there is a great difference between having a plan and having a REASONABLE plan.

Now now, thanks to Sun Country in Canada I can conceivably drive from Detroit all the way to Montreal in my FFE!
http://jamiegeek.myevblog.com/2013/10/11/lets-take-a-road-trip/

 

[Lithium]

http://insideevs.com/boulder-colorado-ice-can-now-ticketed-parking-charging-stations/

Boulder, The home of LiquorMart, awesome spot, is now ticketing ICE cars in EV parking spaces. Progress on all fronts.
H

 

[pjam3]

I had a plan about a month ago to drive from San diego up to Los Angeles.

pjam3 reminds us that there is a great difference between having a plan and having a REASONABLE plan.

Well for me it was reasonable to figure out how to do this considering I used to go up to LA 4+ times a month. Sometimes more when I was working on projects up there. Or if I were taking a flight from LAX. I also spent more time flying out of John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana than San Diego for various reasons. And I used to travel for work 300+ days per year so it was a frequent trip.

The idea was to see if I could figure a way to use the Electric car to do what I normally do. I know Tesla is all over the place with cross country trips and Florida to NY trips now, so it became more about, what can I honestly do with my FFE.

It would have taken forever to do and with two kids, it was just one of those, lets see if I can do it. But getting up to Oceanside to charge and be sure I had enough to get to a station past Irvine to charge wasn't that much of a challenge, it was just time consuming. So we wound up taking the train because my son was more interested in riding a train than waiting at a charging stop. Plus at that point it became, I don't fee like waiting a couple hours and then driving a couple hours and then waiting a couple more hours.

Reasonable should be what you normally do with your car. And while most people aren't driving up to LA and all around, many people do like to go off and "head to the mountains or desert" or head down to SD or over to Malibu and so on. With the FFE and other electrics not named Tesla, they pretty much become toy cars. Or cars that aren't much different than a bike. Except a bike is better for the environment and keeps you more fit.

 

[Gigi]

Reasonable should be what you normally do with your car.

We have a very simple, fundamental disagreement here.

I think that "reasonable" is not the ability to do what you normally did with a previous vehicle, but doing what your car is capable of doing and not trying to force it to perform beyond its limitations.

I have an F-150 that I normally use for home projects. It can easily carry a cubic yard of compost from the garden center to my house. Just because my pickup can do this normally, I don't think that it is reasonable to assume that I should be able to do the same thing with my FFE.

For many years, we had a Honda Odyssey. Normally, we used it for commuting to work and for visiting family out of state. Just because it was normal for us to drive the Odyssey 550 miles with 5 adults and a big load of luggage in 9 hours, that doesn't make it reasonable to try to get the FFE to do the same thing. The next trip like that that we have coming up, I plan to rent a minivan, which I think is more reasonable than trying to fit 5 people and all their luggage in a Fusion Energi or an FFE.

You may disagree with me if you wish, but I think that reasonable use of a car is using the car within its limitations and not trying to force the car to do something that it is not practical for it to do. There's an old adage that I think applies here: "Don't try to fit a square peg into a round hole."

It may be possible to drive from San Diego to LA and back by planning where you are going to stop and change, but you are likely to spend at least 6 hours charging in order to compete a 4 hour trip. It should be no surprise that such a trip is an all day event in an FFE. The tale of such a trip may sound like a heroic journey to some people, but to me, it just sounds like not doing the math and not thinking things all the way through before starting out on the trip, i.e., unreasonable.

 

[dmen]

I'm kind of with Gigi on this one.
The thing that strikes me is why not just plan the train as your go-to solution if this is a trip you expect to regularly take? I realize you are in Southern California, where a driver's license is considered a birthright, but in much of the rest of the country public transportation is a completely reasonable travel option. When I drove a gas car, I used to opt for the train rather than driving when it was a)cheaper, b)faster, or c)easier on the kids. As an EV driver, it is now rarely cheaper to take the train, but it can often be faster, ESPECIALLY when a mid-route charge comes into play, and in those situations it becomes so much easier on the kids.

I had to do that LA to SD drive once a few years ago, and thinking about it still makes me sick. It was a weekend in June. I'll never know why folks who have perfectly lovely beaches in LA and Orange Counties nonetheless choose to drive to San Diego to enjoy the Pacific, but the ridiculous traffic that resulted, pretty much stop and go the entire way, took more than 4 hours. If I had to do it again I'd jump on a train in a heartbeat.