Great meeting and turnout at the first public DCQC in San Diego county!
Only significant issue was that the Blink QC was not letting one queue up to charge if another car was already charging. If one car was already charging and another tried to queue up their session, the screen would either indicate an error or simply dump you back to the welcome screen. Waiting until the other car was finished charging solves the issue, but not before 2 cars had their 12v battery disconnected in an attempt to "fix" things.
Other minor issues - music blasting from the DCQC is highly annoying (this will be turned down) - the video playing in the LCD is stretched horizontally / letterboxed - and of course the $1/hour fee charging on L2 no matter how small of a fraction of an hour one used. The free DCQC more than made up for the $1/hour L2 charge for those that used it, though! I brought this up with Andy of Ecotality and he said he'd pass it along. He said that they are working on a "grace period", but don't appear to be working towards smaller incremental charges. Most agreed that even if there was a $1 minimum (there are credit card fees that Ecotality will get hit with), even 30 minute charge increments would be a big improvement, but consensus seemed to be 15 minute charge increments or lower would eliminate any angst. If you feel strongly about this, make sure you pass your feedback on to Ecotality when any surveys come through or through customer support.
The combination of the DCQC and 3 L2 stations easily charged up all 10 LEAFs from near empty to as full as needed to make their next destination. Even the 2 Volts got a bit of juice along with Tony's RAV4-EV. Those that needed a 100% charge moved to L2 to finish up once the bulk charge was finished on the DC QC. For sure the charging infrastructure got a workout!
A chargers are well positioned, each L2 station can reach 3 parking spots, though some felt that the stations would be better positioned on the other side of the lot closer to the road and away from "prime" parking. This would also make charging cars more visible from the road.
After brunch a number of people hit up Julian Pie Co for some delicious pies (warning, do not step in there unless you plan on buying something - the smell will convince you to buy at least one slice of pie before you leave!), some went on to sight-see around Julian and a few others with a 100% charge went on to
San Juan Capistrano for that launch event.
As far as energy use on the way up/down from Santa Ysabel:
My trip was 48.5 mi each way - I drove with the flow of traffic on the way up at posted speed limits, no HVAC with an eye towards efficiency. Got there with 2 bars and 13 mi on the GOM and efficiency 3.6 mi/kWh (though after my 12v battery terminal was pulled in attempt to get the car to queue up on the DCQC the car hit LBW and said 6 mi - weird - emails from CARWINGs confirm this). Taking the exact same route home starting with 9 bars (the 10th bar after QC went away after a power cycle) got me home with 5 bars remaining and 6.9 mi/kWh. According to the Blink website I charged 2.73 kWh on L2 (did this while we figured out the DCQC queuing issues) and 10.56 kWh on QC.
PS - Thank you to Tony for letting me test drive your RAV4-EV and Johnathan for letting me test drive your Volt!
