COSTCO has officially removed ALL existing EVSEs

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Its Official, its happening, old EVSE are being yanked, trashed, with no replacements in mind.

I spend time in many places in the EV and pih communities. I did not get wind of this bad-Costco-decision until a Leaf EV driver placed a 'checked in' @ Costco Fremont (CA)
on the recargo.com EV finder site&app
http://www.recargo.com/sites/661
(see bottom of page)

me4tux in a Nissan Leaf on Wednesday Aug 03, 2011
(Didn't Charge - Site Looked Bad)
NOTE: COSTCO has officially removed all their EVSEs. It's all gone! Paddles, AVCONs the whole deal. The word came down from COSTCO corporate office.

I asked an EV driver more local than I (Tom driving a 1970's Citicar) to swing by and verify this. Yup. At both Fremont, CA (SF South Bay) and San Leandro, CA (SF East Bay) Costco's,
http://www.recargo.com/sites/745
the old EVSE has been removed (Tom uploaded images of EVSE being now gone).

So many Leaf EV drivers new to the EV community, might think what is the Big Deal? So what, there are or will be plenty of other EVSE installed at other areas to shop. While this might be true, the EV community and Costco go back a long ways.

Costco History ...
It was a Costco Corporate Manager that I witnessed speaking in front of the documenting lights and camera of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) workshop meetings (#1 in Sacramento and #2 in Rosemead - LA area) back in 2000. He said it was a win-win for both Costco and EV drivers: easy access off highways, and plenty of ways to spend money at their stores.

Though Costco made the same dumb mistake as many new installations at the time and put their EVSE in prime-parking-real-estate which meant those spots were always ice'd with gas-cars, and near the on-site Costco tire store which annoyed the tire jockeys to no end, this relationship between Costco and the EV community has been a good one for years.

An EV driver could also come in anytime (24 by 7, 365) and access power. Usually, EV drivers would use them during business hours and spend money in the store to help pay back for their foresight in being first to install EVSE in a huge way across California and some in Arizona.

Now, a different clueless unqualified Costco manager has made the decision to rip out and trash perfectly working old EVSE and not replace them with new EVSE anywhere on-site. All of Costco's long time good-Corporate-social-responsibility is now out the window, gone, finito. All because of a lame Corporate manager's decision.


OK, so for those that are not willing to spend a few moments to send Costco's management a comment on what you feel about this short sightedness, stop now and go to the next thread.


EV History ...
A long time ago, GM thought they were cute that they would be selective about who could be on a three year waiting list just to 'lease' their EV1. But that backfired on them because the people GM chose were highly educated and motivated people, who were already successful in their careers (there were no slouches there). They formed a political force that made some serious changes to what Automakers thought they could get away with (anyone seen Who Killed the Electric Car movie? That only touched on the many things the EV1-Club members had done).

Once GM had ripped their EV1s from the leasee's gripped hands and crushed/chewed-up perfectly good high end EV1s into tiny bits, these former EV1 drivers got RAV4 or Ford Ranger EVs, and remained a strong EV political force.


Now, it is the Leaf EVs driver's turn to form a political force for positive actions when needed. Minorities have always had to fight for their right to exist and be respected. There are many forces that are paid to constantly knock/diss EVs. We will always have to fight to drive Electric.

So, here is your chance. It isn't hard or painful. Just send in your views in on this matter. I suggest you use the Corporate feedback form
https://costco.egain.net/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1001&PARTITION_ID=1&CMD=STARTPAGE&USERTYPE=1&LANGUAGE=en&COUNTRY=us

There is an Assoc. VP (Craig) that has been responding to comments, but his mind is closed, his ignorance and prejudice plain. He is not interested in sales and service, nor Corporate image. He lives in his own small world re-counting over and over his tiny amount of beans. He is not about to bring any of this to his upper management unless he knows the noise on this was already heard by them.

Now, if you by-pass the feedback form for an email that only goes to Craig, it will end up deleted or not responded to.

If we all continue to use the feedback form, more Costco hands see it, touch it, count it before it gets to where it is going ( = more noise made that will eventually get to management above Craig ).

The fever over all the noise we make about this will make plain: they made a bad-decision, and will dislike paying the price for it.

Whoever made this decision, will have the stain of ticking off a lot of people, and forever tainting Costco's responses, management names, and Costco Corporate reputation.

In the strange world of unqualified managers who should not be in charge, justifying their existence is their most important goal, not customers. I saw 25 years of this in the corporate world. They did not last long in their position, but the stink of what they had done, did.

Once Costco's pants are undone, and the hiney pimples that made this bad-decision (like Craig) are repeatedly on view for the world to see on the Internet, Costco's good-Corporate-citizen reputation will be besmirched for a long time ...

' Yea, Costco put them in years before everyone, but then some lame Mgr. had them taken out and trashed without replacement. All that good work ... gone. What a bunch of idiots! '




{brucedp.150m.com}
 
mxp said:
Why would anyone bother to to charge for 5 hrs at Costco. One must be mad to do so.
Because most Costcos are centrally located near freeways. I could see stopping at one for a couple hours to do a bit of shopping and grab a bite of cheap pizza if I needed some range.
 
smkettner said:
Maybe the era of Costco has peaked and is now headed for the likes of JC Penny and Buffums :(
Yes, very disappointing. I'm contemplating if it's the right time to quit. One of the main incentives for the membership was cheap gas. Amazon, Target and Trader Joe's would be solid alternatives for me and they have no membership fee.
 
It's not about Costco; it's about having enough J1772 stations to support the needs of EV drivers,now and in the future...and, if one can spent time shopping or eating...well! that a bonus. Driving an EV requires planning for the charging process. For example; Any trip to Sacramento requires that I charge the car for two hours. So, I drive to Sacramento then recharge in Roseville on my way back up to the foothills. I would like to charge the car in Sacramento but other than Nissan, there is currently only a car wash that offers a J1772 station that I know about. Nothing more boring than charging up at Nissan and watching Soaps with the cashier.
 
They will reconsider if enough customers go to the manager, show him your receipts for the last few months and remind him that having L2 chargers has motivated your business. I bet it would not take many, just 100 people could turn the tide over.

You cant get out of Costco without spending at least $100 or an hour.. its a powerful motivator.. but dont ask for free electricity please...

if that fails then its time to demonize the manager.. doe snot take much to get one of those fired :)
 
Please!, let's not talk about getting people fired; or has been suggested, about free electrons...neither subject is in good taste and taking away some-one's livelihood...well! that's never a good idea...unless you are talking about a non-responsive politician.
 
I heard form a Costco exec that the resin they are doing this was too many EV folks were bugging them for new stations so they decided to pull them all to make it easier:)
 
I agree that a boycott isn't called for. But just as Wifi availability often drives choice of hotel, J1772 availability will often drive choice of retail store.

Among the EV Project Partners are Best Buy, BP, Fred Meyer, Cracker Barrel, Ikea, Qualcomm, Macy's, Loew's Vanderbilt Hotel, and Balboa Park - all of which have announced plans to build, or have already built, charging stations. Sears is also listed as a partner, and I won't be surprised if they install charging stations.

So where will you shop? Costco? Or Best Buy, Fred Meyer, Ikea, Macy's, and Sears? For me it's an easy choice to have lunch at the mall, walk in through Macy's, on the way spot something I hadn't remembered I wanted and could have bought at Target, and buying it at Macy's instead.
 
walterbays said:
For me it's an easy choice to have lunch at the mall, walk in through Macy's, on the way spot something I hadn't remembered I wanted and could have bought at Target, and buying it at Macy's instead.


I don't spend a lot of time charging away from the house charger, but the past two days, I had to do it for many hours. I find myself spending more money than if I had just taken the ICE :arrow:

Friday, 2.5 hours of charging in Oceanside cost me lunch and over $80 in junk that I could live without.

Saturday, I had the spouse unit with me, so I had run a more conservative ship. Went to Balboa Park, left the car plugged in, and came back 3.5 hours later to find that it didn't charge more than a few minutes. Yes, we spent money in Balboa, but that was planned. So, we drove to the nearest charger for dinner that wasn't planned, so we could make it home.

Sure wish I had the iPhone with me (that would have sent a text message to tell me that charging stopped).
 
EVDRIVER said:
I heard form a Costco exec that the reason they are doing this was too many EV folks were bugging them for new stations so they decided to pull them all to make it easier:)

Hmm... I speculated that might be the case a few pages back in this thread:
TEG said:
...But for all we know Costco is just doing some sort of 'knee jerk' reaction to the sudden amount of questions they started to get about this equipment. In a way when they could silently ignore the little used charge spots back before it was less of a 'hassle' for them. Now they are being asked to 'upgrade', and consider if to upgrade only the Avcon, or the SPI too. Someone somewhere may have just thought "why did we do this again?" A case of the "squeaky wheel gets the axe !"...

Inadvertently the new generation of EVs is further obsoleting the old. First the charger in my NiMH Ranger dies after trying to charge from the Nissan portable EVSE, and now the Costco Avcons (and SPIs) are going away because people asked for J1772 too.
 
The reality is that Costco was offered the upgrade at no cost to them and they refused. In the next day or so stay tuned for updates as there may be some hope.
 
rawhog said:
Well, I for one sent in my feedaback. On a related note. I suggest we all start asking if there is EV charging whenever we make a reservation anywhere. The movies, dinner, hotel, etc. The more they hear the question, the more likely they will respond.


My suggestion is to wait until the end of this week and see what the latest update may be and proceed based on that so you energy is best leveraged.
 
It amazes me that every winery in N Cal is not calling to get a free charging station installed if they can. It's a captive audience that will sit and spend money.
 
Plug In America should be all over the NoCal Wineries.

Local Costco still has not removed their legacy equipment.
 
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