UC Irvine charging stations

Updated with info and photos collected in this thread

3 stations in the Mesa Parking Structure
3 stations in the Student Center Parking Structure
2 stations in the Social Science Parking Structure
2 stations in the Research Park

There are two other sites at UCI with legacy stations (Bren Center, and Berkeley Place) that don't seem to have been upgraded.

Got some details from Parking and Transportation Services:

The zotmail announcing the opening of the stations is supposedly coming out tonight, so yes, these stations are working and open. You will need a permit to park at the stations that is appropriate to the time. For example, you couldn’t display an evening permit and charge your vehicle during the day – you would need to charge it during the hours permitted on your permit. But a regular commuter or AR permit works just fine. There is a $2/hour charge for UCI affiliates and a 4-hour limit on charging so that we can serve many EVs throughout the day. Coulomb ChargePass cards are available at the Parking office for $4. Or, if you already have one from Coulomb, I can add the number to the network so that you get UCI pricing when charging on campus.

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UCI EV Charging policy

Map of new locations

PM me for the email of the UCI contact who can add your Chargepass number to the network.

Site Details

Common to all sites:


Placard

Coulomb display reads:

Valid UCI Permit required. 4 hr charging limit.
Pricing $0 min $2.50/hr (need to doublecheck this part)
Tap Card to Start..

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When I tapped my card I got the following error message because my card has no balance and is configured to only charge at free stations:

Card Only Valid at Free Stations

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Mesa Parking Structure
Off Mesa Rd, 1st floor
Lot parking is marked for AR, C, or S permits, or temporary parking.

3 Coulomb Level 1/Level 2 stations, 7 EV PowerPac (Avcon)

Student Center Parking Structure
1st floor

Credit: coolfilmaker

Social Science Parking Structure
3rd floor

Credit: coolfilmaker

Research Park

Credit: coolfilmaker

I charged at the Mesa parking structure last December. My Chargepoint card worked to activate it. Since it was an event day, parking was $10. At that time there was no fee for charging. Is that still true?

91040 said:

I charged at the Mesa parking structure last December. My Chargepoint card worked to activate it. Since it was an event day, parking was $10. At that time there was no fee for charging. Is that still true?

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There's a fee now.

The general public is charged $2.50/hour.

UCI affiliates get charged $2/hour. To qualify, you have to get your ChargePass serial number added to the "UCI pricing group".

Does not seem real public friendly. $2.50 / hr, I will pass.

smkettner said:

Does not seem real public friendly. $2.50 / hr, I will pass.

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I told the parking rep as much:

This policy is somewhat disappointing. The price is a 300-400% markup over the cost of the electricity (assuming the school pays 12 cents per kWh). And the four hour limit means if someone is close to zero remaining charge, they could only charge the battery to 64% before having to move the car, even if no one else is waiting to use the station. It doesn’t seem like this policy would encourage use of the stations.

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But I did add my number to the UCI network, just in case.

richard said:

The general public is charged $2.50/hour.

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Equivalent to $5.68/gallon gasoline based on comparable 30 MPG ICE car, or $9.47 based on 50 MPG hybrid ICE car.

UCI affiliates get charged $2/hour.

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$4.55/gallon based on 30 MPG.

Five other charging locations within 5 miles, and 17 gas stations within 2 miles. I'll bet that in an emergency you can always count on finding an available charging station, and that you never see a Volt there.

Unfortunately if parking is scarce there, then EV's staying away in droves could lead to the spaces being frequently ICEd so you couldn't really count on it in an emergency anyway. And it could lead to frustrated drivers looking for parking complaining about all the empty EV parking that "clearly isn't needed." :-(

smkettner said:

Does not seem real public friendly. $2.50 / hr, I will pass.

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In one hour the Leaf can consume only 3.3 kwh and at the rate of $2.50 per hour that is about 75 cents per kwh if I did the math right. hmmmm

The national average electricity cost is 12 cents per kwh and they sell it for 75 cents, not bad.

I think 3.3 goes into the battery, consumption is closer to 3.8 kW
I would WAG cost closer to 15 to 20 cents kWh. This is SCE you know :|

$2.50/hr + parking fees? I'll pass. And it looks like they even didn't use their own money to purchase/install the chargers which could justify the markup.

walterbays said:

Unfortunately if parking is scarce there, then EV's staying away in droves could lead to the spaces being frequently ICEd so you couldn't really count on it in an emergency anyway. And it could lead to frustrated drivers looking for parking complaining about all the empty EV parking that "clearly isn't needed." :-(

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Well, if people are not using them thats the case.. if they truly needed the charge then they would pay or buy an EV that actually met their range needs. For sure you would never see a Volt hogging that for-pay EVSE.

Everyone keeps pushing this need for infrastructure, is it true?.. maybe you got the wrong car.

Herm said:

Everyone keeps pushing this need for infrastructure, is it true?.. maybe you got the wrong car.

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Nope, I got the right car. If I needed a charge I'd pay the equivalent of $5/gallon. I actually do like the idea that paid charging will mean there will likely be a plug available for me when I do need a charge. And the availability of even $5/gallon charging is great range security, even if it's very unlikely that I will actually need it.

Planning a modest road trip however, I'd have to say that instead of paying UCI $5/gallon I might just leave the Leaf in the garage and pay Chevron $3.75/gallon. More likely though I'd go to another nearby charging station and pay half as much.

With gasoline at around $4/gallon, and home electricity at $1/gallon equivalent or less, I think the sweet spot for public charging is around $2/gallon equivalent: high enough that you wouldn't charge there in preference to charging at home in the off-peak night, but low enough that you'd drive the EV instead of the ICE car.

I do worry about EV haters seeing empty charging stations and shouting that it proves there should be no charging stations. They wouldn't stop to consider the reason might be that the price makes the stations uneconomical to use, or somewhere else maybe AB475 signage makes the stations unsafe to use, or somewhere else the location makes the stations inconvenient to use.

Herm said:

walterbays said:

Unfortunately if parking is scarce there, then EV's staying away in droves could lead to the spaces being frequently ICEd so you couldn't really count on it in an emergency anyway. And it could lead to frustrated drivers looking for parking complaining about all the empty EV parking that "clearly isn't needed." :-(

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Well, if people are not using them thats the case.. if they truly needed the charge then they would pay or buy an EV that actually met their range needs. For sure you would never see a Volt hogging that for-pay EVSE.

Everyone keeps pushing this need for infrastructure, is it true?.. maybe you got the wrong car.

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You don't seem to understand. A lot of people commute here and want a place to fill up on a daily basis. No one is going to do that at these prices.

coolfilmaker said:

You don't seem to understand. A lot of people commute here and want a place to fill up on a daily basis. No one is going to do that at these prices.

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This brings up an interesting question, What would be a reasonable price to use something like this on a daily basis.

As an EV driver I agree I want the lowest price possible, but if I owned the parking lot and paid 5 grand apiece ( a wild guess) for these coulomb stations then I might have a different point of view.

KJD said:

coolfilmaker said:

You don't seem to understand. A lot of people commute here and want a place to fill up on a daily basis. No one is going to do that at these prices.

Click to expand...

This brings up an interesting question, What would be a reasonable price to use something like this on a daily basis.

As an EV driver I agree I want the lowest price possible, but if I owned the parking lot and paid 5 grand apiece ( a wild guess) for these coulomb stations then I might have a different point of view.

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These were grant-funded, so there was probably no up-front cost, and no fees through this year. In 2013, ChargePoint networking fees may apply.

As for what's a reasonable price, I think that depends on what the site owners goals are. They might want to service as many EVs as possible, or just offer the stations for emergency use.

In this case, UCI seems to want rapid turnover. So they want to give students and faculty a chance to get a significant charge (but not 100%) and free up the station at least once during a working day. Their price/hour doesn't seem to align with their goals.

The worst deal here is the poor non-UCI affiliate sap who charges with the Level 1 port. $2.50 for $0.17 cents of electricity. That's a markup of 1446%, somewhere between the markup for hotel mini-bar items and printer ink.

KJD said:

coolfilmaker said:

You don't seem to understand. A lot of people commute here and want a place to fill up on a daily basis. No one is going to do that at these prices.

Click to expand...

This brings up an interesting question, What would be a reasonable price to use something like this on a daily basis.

As an EV driver I agree I want the lowest price possible, but if I owned the parking lot and paid 5 grand apiece ( a wild guess) for these coulomb stations then I might have a different point of view.

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Personally I think that the prices are WAY too high. I think that Universities/businesses and retail establishments have different stakes in regards to choosing to (and how much to) charge for charging. For instance, if I had the choice of driving to a Walgreens that was further away but I could charge for free, verses a Rite Aid that was closer but did not have charging facilities, I'll go to Walgreens. So for Walgreens, a retailer, the purpose of installing chargers is to bring in more business - much like free WiFi in coffee shops. Now, if Walgreens charged me $1 or more, forget it - I'll charge at home and drive to the closer Rite Aid - unless there was another reason I liked Walgreens. However, for businesses and Universities (UCI) where people are going there because they have to (unlike the Walgreens vs Rite Aid), I can see where they would want to to charge for charging - there's no competition per se.

With that said, if I was a commuting student at UCI and I had the choice of either (a) drive my Leaf and charging at my destination was mandatory to get home vs (b) driving my ICE, I would drive my ICE - at those charging prices... unless there were other influential factors (HOA lane, etc.).

I am still of the belief that for retail establishments, charging stations are going to be the new coffee shop wifi - some will offer it free and some will charge, but eventually they will all be free to some extent if they all want to remain competitive with other retailers or malls that offer it. Cofee shops had to roll the cost of offering wifi into their cost of doing business... perhaps this is just the next thing.

$2.50 for perhaps 12 miles ... at Prius (say 48 mpg) equivalent, that is $10 per gallon.

Make it 50¢ per hour and you would have users. At 75¢ you will still have some users, and at $1 per hour you lose most users.

At $2.50 you will (mostly) only have users that have somebody else paying their bills.

KJD said:

As an EV driver I agree I want the lowest price possible, but if I owned the parking lot and paid 5 grand apiece ( a wild guess) for these coulomb stations then I might have a different point of view.

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It is a school. There are lots of student amenities on campus that generate no revenue. Suddenly EVs need to be a profit center :roll:
IMO 50 cents to 75 cents per hour would be plenty.

If you drove 50 miles one-way to UCI with a full tank of eFuel from your house, then charged up for 3 hours at $2.50/hr at UCI, your cost is $7.50 plus the $1.50 to top back off at home. That $9 total cost is a $4.50 per gallon equivalent in the most fuel efficient Prius at 50 mpg to travel that 100 miles.

Any car less oil efficient than a Prius type vehicle quickly becomes a more cost effective solution in the LEAF. A car that gets 20mpg would use 5 gallons, so fuel would have to be $9 / 5 = $1.80 gasoline. That isn't going to happen again.

Plus, you offer no concession for the higher cost of maintenance per mile of the oil burner.

It's fine to be extremely cheap (and I am truly amazed at how many here would drive the oil burner to save a nickel and not give any consideration to the TOTAL costs to environment, oil money funneled to terror groups, our tax payer funded military protecting oil assets around the world, etc), but when you factor all the true costs, even at $2.50/hr charge rate, it's still cheaper to take the LEAF.

I charge at home for "free" (well, prepaid energy from my sun harvesting equipment), so the cost further tips in favor of the LEAF for such a trip.

The email announcing these stations went out to all UCI students and faculty on Wednesday.

The key portion was this

These stations fuel the newest generation of electric vehicles, with the aim of reducing petroleum consumption and mobile source greenhouse gas production. Data from the stations will assist with future development of electric vehicle infrastructure.

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Unfortunately, their chosen price conflicts with their stated goals.

And, as some of you have mentioned, like other installations, usage data is supposedly being collected to help with future infrastructure decisions.

So we're between a rock and a hard place here. Use the stations and pay more than is fair, or let them rot and pay for it later in reduced infrastructure. I'm sure this consumer predicament is part of Coulomb's business plan.

I'd like to keep communicating with UCI, but I want to go back to them with something constructive, like what the community thinks is a fair price. So keep the comments coming.

richard said:

I'd like to keep communicating with UCI, but I want to go back to them with something constructive, like what the community thinks is a fair price. So keep the comments coming.

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Please tell UCI that this EV owner thinks $2.50 / hr is my fair price for L2. Based on my example above, it's cheaper than gasoline powered cars, except for the most fuel efficient ones.

Sure, I'd like everything free or subsidized, as we EV drivers have become accustomed, but I know that trying to get the cost of charging to something suggested by many here leaves virtually no incentive to install these things other places.

When there's a (hopefully) larger infrastructure, the price will sort itself out. The real problem will be all the free charging spots, of which I think there will be many in the future, IMHO, which will be competing with charging at any price.

The more thrifty minded folks might see that as a win. I see it as either free charging, or no charging. Guess where the free ones will be?