How often would you use the Vacaville, CA Quick Charge?

Northern California Survey: If the Vacaville DC Quick Charge was open to the public, how many would use it and how often? How much would you pay for its usage? Please be specific.

So far this year, I would use it at least four times (May, Oct, Nov & Dec). I'm thinking $10-$15 for the 20-30 minutes, assuming from near empty to an 80% charge. [Roundtrip would make that 8 times.]

Per phone inquiry on 09-13-2011, neither Vacaville Nissan or Fairfield Nissan have any plans to install Quick Charge.

It's a little dependent on what's currently happening in my job. Over the past five years, I've needed to go to Sacramento as frequently as every other month, but more recently it's been more like once a year. It could become more frequent, though.

Not sure what a reasonable cost would be, but a starting point would some fraction of the $/gallon gas equivalent.

Our family might take about 3 trips a year to visit the factory outlet malls at either Vacaville or Gilroy. If we took our Leaf, Vacaville would be more do-able as we can make it to that city directly from home. I wouldn't think twice to pay $5 for a 20ish minute charge as it would be a tad more for the trip home than in a Prius. Honestly, $10... maybe, maybe not and $15?, I don't think so. L2 charging would work for us at the outlet mall as we would spend a few hours there, but doesn't sound like it's available yet?

Vacaville is a common stop point on trips to Tahoe/Reno. But we'd have to plan more segments and I haven't looked into that yet!

Maybe once a month or less for me. As for cost, the prevailing figure on this thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5469" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
seems to be $10. Though that seems a little high for me, I'd like to see more like $5 or $6.

I would take advantage of it for 3 or 4 trips per year. Each trip may be 1 or 2 uses (1 use if going to Davis, 2 uses if going to Sac - 1 up and 1 back).

To charge up for 15-30min (can't imagine I would be totally empty)...
-At $5 it is a no brainer for me to use it. $5 would only give me 30ish miles in gas
-At $10 I would be weighing my choice of taking my ICE car - and ICE would probably win. $10 would give me 60ish miles in gas
-At $15 I would take my ICE car hands-down. $15 would give me 90ish miles in gas.

Maybe once a year. I have relatives in Antioch, east of Sacramento, and Daly City, and I live in Morgan Hill, south of San Jose. It would be nice to be able make a grand tour, and each hop is doable except the 110 mile Sacramento to Daly City one. I can make that long hop by stopping some place (probably Vallejo Nissan) for perhaps two hours of L2 charging, so I wouldn't have to use QC. It could be useful, though, because I will be restricted to L1 charging at my brother's home in Daly City.

Two hours is an awfully long lunch break at the Buttercup in Vallejo, so between that and the L1 in Daly City I'd be willing to pay $20 for a Quick Charge in Vacaville.

Look at it this way: Our alternative would be to take the Prius for the 350 mile grand tour, and even with the (gen 2) Prius we would spend $30-$35 for gas. We can mooch electricity from relatives for free! Besides, we gotta show off the car, right?

Ray

I drive to SF about 10 times a year and the Vacaville L3 was a big part of my LEAF decision process. It's virtual disappearance has significantly impacted my intended LEAF usage. I think that the cost per charge should be somewhere between $5 and $10 for up to 80%. It should not cost more than fueling an ICE for an equal distance,

I'd use the Vacaville Quick Charge once a year.

One of the challenges of Quick Charge is that our comfort zone for cost is around the cost of gasoline for a 2011 Toyota Prius to go the same distance, about 2 gallons for a bit over 80 miles in a Prius or around $8 with gas at $4/gallon.

A high usage Quick Charge station, say 10 charges / day (50% utilization - 1 30 minute every hour during 10 hours of daytime) will cost over $5/charge in peak daytime energy costs. Throw in capital costs and some profit margin and you'd want to charge $15 - $25 per charge as a business. If the utilization is less, the cost per charge will go up roughly proportionally...

It may be like the national highway system - it's a huge benefit for our country, but if we each had to pay a "fair" portion of the costs for each trip we take, we would never pay for it. So it's something we need to do but funding solely by the consumer using it doesn't work too well.

Including externalities, like promoting electric transportation and the avoided costs of gasoline import, production, military protection of oil supplies, environmental damage from production like the Gulf Oil Spill and the environmental damage of the gasoline emissions from the vehicle would make a selectively deployed Quick Charge network a no-brainer economic win in total costs to the US economy. But connecting the externalities and closing the loop is very difficult to achieve. Current subsidies and rebates help, but they make a poor band aid for really connecting the externalities.

Things like FeeBates where fees on damaging or undesirable activities provide the funding for desirable activities would be much more sustainable if we can ever get them set up.

When the Vacaville QC comes online I figure I will use it probably at least 6-8 times a year. Having it there as in other locations throughout the state increases the utility of taking the LEAF on longer trips.

If QC is available in Vacaville, it opens up a new page of hiking trips for me. I will definitely use it perhaps 3-5 times a year. I will pay $5 to use it.

I'd use it when I drive from SF to Sacto, which I do 4 or 5 times a year at least. Right now, I drive my RAV4 EV, which can make it without charging midway.

You guys realize that the California Public Utilities Commission recently prohibited utilities from owning public access EVSEs in their 7/25/2011 AFV OIR decision?

Page 52 in the pdf:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/word_pdf/FINAL_DECISION/139969.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Randy said:

You guys realize that the California Public Utilities Commission recently prohibited utilities from owning public access EVSEs in their 7/25/2011 AFV OIR decision?

Page 52 in the pdf:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/word_pdf/FINAL_DECISION/139969.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

If PG&E is prohibit to own QC station, how are they going to use the $172,000 CARB grant under Assembly Bill 1811, Alternative Fuel Incentive Program (AFIP) Testing Program?

I don't know, but it could be converted to fleet or employee use (that is allowed)...

I think the waters are muddy...Let me see what I can find out....

Randy said:

You guys realize that the California Public Utilities Commission recently prohibited utilities from owning public access EVSEs in their 7/25/2011 AFV OIR decision?

Page 52 in the pdf:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/word_pdf/FINAL_DECISION/139969.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

I hope that decision won't negatively affect access to the publicly available EVSEs at some Southern California Edison facilities, such as CTAC in Irwindale. (We charged at CTAC late one night after the Nissan dealers closed, when we were pretty low on charge.)

For what its worth I would charge 4-6 times per year and would be willing to pay up to $20 for the convenience.

abasile said:

Randy said:

You guys realize that the California Public Utilities Commission recently prohibited utilities from owning public access EVSEs in their 7/25/2011 AFV OIR decision?

Page 52 in the pdf:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/word_pdf/FINAL_DECISION/139969.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

I hope that decision won't negatively affect access to the publicly available EVSEs at some Southern California Edison facilities, such as CTAC in Irwindale. (We charged at CTAC late one night after the Nissan dealers closed, when we were pretty low on charge.)

Click to expand...

What's CTAC? Why doesn't PG&E up in northern California have publicly available EVSE as SCE in southern California? Or, is the Vacaville QC (purportedly owned by PG&E) but on Vacaville city land our equivalent? Curious that Level 2 is publicly useable at Vacaville but QC is not.

How is PG&E going to study EV and in particular, QC charging patterns if early adopters cannot re-energize at Vacaville? What is there to report back to PUC in 2013 (other than OEM & ARB vehicles QCharging) if there is no real life usage data being collected? QC data from real users is being lost from April 2011 to date.

If PG&E says it needs UL certified equipment, there is Aker-Wade, ETEC Level 3, Yazaki new UL-CE coupler, and others that are UL certified. Maybe what they really mean is they are unwilling or don't have the funds to substitute out the donated TEPCO QC and install a new one. Anyone knows?

Then, perhaps we need a consortium of EV manufacturers (Nissan, Mitsu, Ford etc.) and the EVSP Coalition (Ecotality & Coulomb, etc.) to install a replacement and provide the assumption of liability from PG&E so that a demonstration cohort of early adopters can use this QC and start providing useable data as intended by the initial ARB grant.

Failing that, there might even be sufficient interest from EV end users to set up a cooperative and get this QC operating. After all, many of us are already PG&E customers & providing solar energy to the grid, so we could be billed directly to our PG&E account with some kind of pre-arrangement. Cost of energy usage during peak loads and the demand charge would need to be worked out (wholesale rates?).

Yes, QC may be coming to dealerships and faster onboard chargers in future EV models (possibly rendering QCs not economically viable). But what can we do with this existing QC?

Phoenix said:

What's CTAC?

Click to expand...

See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2644" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We try to take trips to visit family in the Citrus Heights area quarterly. So I figure we would use it around eight times for four trips a year. $5 a charge seems about right to me. At $10 a charge we would seriously consider taking the Prius.

One trip once every 1-2 months; so 6-12x per year on average. Near destination (rather than way-point), so 6-12 charges per year to return home. May use it as a way-point rarely (meaning 2 charges each trip like spies is planning). Willing to spend $5 per visit, but not much more.