Spies said:
So after reading the short
Fast Company article article it is abundantly clear that GM wants to eliminate the idea of plug sharing and having one EVSE service a number a parking spaces but I still fail to understand why they would want this and what their reasoning is. Any ideas outside of conspiracy theories?
From the article:
GM admits that nixing shared chargers is part of the law, but claims that is a feature, not a bug, and part of planning for an all-electric world. "The idea of plug-sharing works well when there are a small number of EVs on the road and there is a community protocol, but with tens of thousands of EVs coming, we will run into issues of tampering and unplugging," says Balch.
Gosh, all the emails I have from him stating specifically that sharing promotes "malicious unplugging" and must be outlawed oughtta come in handy...because you know that it's only the other EV drivers that would maliciously unplug someone, right? Any other member of he public unplugging someone for reasons benign or malicious? He's assured me that it's just a speculative fear on my part, even though it already happens..just without the consequences to the victim that this law assures.
Well, this whole stance is both recent and a total reversal on GM's position. For two months, and as recently as last Thursday, GM's policy rep said repeatedly that losing sharing would be a bummer, increased site costs would be bad, and potential vandalism issues were a fair concern. He was also straightforward about the fact that GM didn't share the
degree of concern that we had, but still agreed on the concepts, and they'd be fine with going back to the original version of the bill, using the stickers. Where he was less clear was in suggesting to us that they were really pushing to go back to the original version, when in fact they were telling Butler's office the whole time that even if there were concerns from the drivers, GM was fine with this version.
So all of this new stuff from Shad came about over the weekend, as he and I continued to email back and forth behind the scenes while he called me names in public. Had I known it was a waste of time because they'd already decided I was the only one who didn't think the bill was good and therefore a crackpot, I wouldn't have spent so much time on it, but it sure is interesting now how the thread evolved. I first assumed that he must not have known the history of our interaction with the policy rep and was just grasping at straws to defended the situation he was handed, but it turns out he was on contact w the policy rep all along. So either we were lied to all along more than we knew, or they've reversed position on several points. Shad claims neither, that they're just "clarifying their position".
The only thing I can think of (and y'all may still think it's conspiracy) is that this is a misguided attempt to protect the Volts. Based on various forum statements of a few EV folks, GM seems to be under the impression that we're all going to run around and unplug the Volts out of resentment or entitlement. He accused me of it on twitter on Monday. And I've certainly heard people say they don't believe PHEVs should get to use public charging, or that they'd unplug a PHEV first if they needed a charge, but I think GM's taking it a bit far. But in our various conversations, I did point out that even from a PR perspective, forcing this through is dumb, as it will only increase resentment toward GM, and by extension, the Volt drivers. Which is about when sharing became the single source of malicious unplugging, installing chargers between spaces became "irresponsible", and unplugging anyone for any reason (even with permission) should be codified as vandalism and punished as such. Of course, w/r/t our real concern about non-EV drivers unplugging cars for reasons benign or malicious...totally fabricated concern. Oh, and now the stickers are evil and against GM's principles, and it was always the goal to get rid of them.
So I'm guessing that he thinks that if they can get rid of sharing, no one will unplug the Volts. Of course, this law doesn't make it illegal to unplug someone, and they've not sought to make it vandalism in any criminal statute. What their law does do is punish the victim by making his vehicle subject to towing. So how they think this law will prevent any Volt unplugging, I don't know. But if it's not that, I'm out of ideas.
