If I left you a nasty note today...

[adric22]

A Volt never has to charge. A leaf parked for extra time in a space is no worse than a Volt parking there at all.

I have to respectfully disagree. Although I don't personally own a Volt, if I did I would want to run it on electric power whenever possible and only use the gas engine when there is simply no other choice. So as far as I'm concerned it is an EV with a 35 mile range, and a gas engine for emergencies or road-trips only. They have every right to use a public charger.

While I would agree that when the car (volt) is charged, it should be moved just like a Leaf if there are other people needing to use the spot.

 

[TEG]

You also don't know how much gas is in the Volt's tank.
They could be recharging on battery power to get enough EV range to make it to a gas station!

 

[davewill]

A Volt never has to charge. A leaf parked for extra time in a space is no worse than a Volt parking there at all.

I have to respectfully disagree. Although I don't personally own a Volt, if I did I would want to run it on electric power whenever possible and only use the gas engine when there is simply no other choice.

I have to agree with adric22. When we LEAFers decided to go all-electric, we all knew that the charging infrastructure was lacking, and wasn't likely to improve quickly. Insisting that PHEVs not charge in public because of our "need" just doesn't make sense.

 

[TRONZ]

A decent network of solar L3 stations solves pretty much all the above problems. Park where ever you want. If an L2 station is available where you end up then great, use it. If not who cares.

 

[Herm]

the reality for me is that when I leave my car in a parking space it's often a good distance from where I'm going to be and having to track exactly when it's done charging every time I park is going to make this EV experience a PITA! In the end, this has got to be convenient...

Thats why I like the idea of QC stations with an attendant, plus the driver has to stay with the car while it charges or leave the keys with the attendant. This will cut down on greedy charging, ICEd spots and free parking hogs. One QC station would serve many drivers equally, and it would guarantee the ability to charge at your destination.

If an attendant is not practical (like at a gas station or plot fee booth) then stay with the car, other wise it can be towed away if its not actually charging but occupying the spot.

 

[padamson1]

That's why I like the idea of QC stations with an attendant, plus the driver has to stay with the car while it charges or leave the keys with the attendant. This will cut down on greedy charging, ICEd spots and free parking hogs. One QC station would serve many drivers equally, and it would guarantee the ability to charge at your destination.

If an attendant is not practical (like at a gas station or plot fee booth) then stay with the car, other wise it can be towed away if its not actually charging but occupying the spot.

and so it sounds like gas stations or attended parking lots, where there already is an attendant doing a similar duty, are the right place for charging stations. It also should remove the threat of copper thieves.

 

[planet4ever]

I will never leave a note or expect a self imposed instruction card. Lucky if 2% followed this card idea so may as well get used to it.
I would make an effort to get there earlier.

In other words, your solution is to monopolize the charging station even longer than you normally need to be at the location? Doesn't that just aggravate the problem?

I carry two charging protocol forms in my car, and I use one whenever I charge at a public station. I haven't had the problem under discussion yet, but when I do, the second form will go face down under the offending car's wiper blade and I'll print another one when I get home. If enough of us do this enough times we can get way more than 2% participation.

Ray

 

[Danal]

the reality for me is that when I leave my car in a parking space it's often a good distance from where I'm going to be and having to track exactly when it's done charging every time I park is going to make this EV experience a PITA! In the end, this has got to be convenient...

Thats why I like the idea of QC stations with an attendant, plus the driver has to stay with the car while it charges or leave the keys with the attendant. This will cut down on greedy charging, ICEd spots and free parking hogs. One QC station would serve many drivers equally, and it would guarantee the ability to charge at your destination.

If an attendant is not practical (like at a gas station or plot fee booth) then stay with the car, other wise it can be towed away if its not actually charging but occupying the spot.

EVgo's contract has an interesting little clause: Sit at a QC station for more than an hour, and get charged 1 dollar a minute.

 

[Packet]

I have to respectfully disagree. Although I don't personally own a Volt, if I did I would want to run it on electric power whenever possible and only use the gas engine when there is simply no other choice. So as far as I'm concerned it is an EV with a 35 mile range, and a gas engine for emergencies or road-trips only. They have every right to use a public charger.

I'm with Adric on this.

About a week and a half ago, I went to Fred Meyer and just before I was about to pull into the one remaining EV charger, a Volt pulled in. I pulled into a nearby space, and when the Volt's driver got out and realized I was the black LEAF's driver, he asked if I needed the spot; he was almost on empty for his electric range, and while he had a tank of gas -- so he could get home if needed -- he preferred to go full EV when he could. (I had 3/4 of a charge remaining and only 10 miles to go home after shopping, so I told him to keep the space; I definitely didn't need the charge. I'd only planned to park there and top off while getting groceries to demonstrate to the Fred Meyer folks that, yes, the chargers get used.)

We did stop and talk for a while, though; he was curious about how I liked the LEAF, and I was curious how he liked the Volt. He explained that while he liked the gas engine for the extra range -- to let him go out camping or go up to Canada and all -- because his wife still wanted to do road trips, he preferred to go pure electric when in the city as much as possible. I strongly doubt he's alone among Volt owners.

 

[hodad66]

nice to see two EV owners cooperating.........

 

[mwalsh]

Do we know if there are any regional LEAF sales numbers? Or, better still, numbers on a metropolitan basis? I want to tell the LA Convention Center how inadequate their single, fully-dedicated EV parking space is now that there are "x" new EVs running around in the Greater LA area.

The idea is to have them address the inadequate signage for the third parking stall, and cone it to stop non-EVs from parking there on a whim. And then maybe asking them to reconsider having the first parking stall reserved exclusively for city vehicles that are rarely going to need to charge there.

EVS26 is at the LA Convention Center come spring. Imagine what kind of nightmare that is going to be!

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

what i see is a culmination of several mis-steps leading to a bad situation.

1) i have to say, being fully charged and taking up the space, seemingly inconsiderate, the driver may simply not have a choice.

2) lack of policing allowing the spots to be ICE'd

3) positioning of the charging spaces. i MUCH rather park in the back row and be guaranteed a chance to charge then to be ICE'd out because the spaces are in the first row

4) not allowing 3 spaces to be serviced by one charger. the City of Lacey install L1 chargers more than 4 years ago (i started using them 4 years ago so dont really know how long they have been there) and they are spaced about 150 feet apart. one space because its on a corner could be serviced by 4 spaces

5) inadequate charging spaces. despite the perceived perks, incentives, etc. the country is essentially paying lip service to EV'ers in piss poor support, ridiculous electrical rates (unless you are willing to jump thru the hoops AND pay for those hoops) Cali make take pride in leading the EV revolution, but from what i see and read; you are behind in mentality.

hate to see the rest of the country using California as an example. so far, your state has sucked big time.

 

[mwalsh]

1) i have to say, being fully charged and taking up the space, seemingly inconsiderate, the driver may simply not have a choice.

At 9am, when he was done charging, there was plenty of choice. Not so much by lunchtime, which is why I really couldn't have moved the previous day without exchanging spots with the new arrival - hardly fair for him to take the EV spot leaving me circling the garage trying to find an alternative (the parking is really horrible at the convention center during major events).

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

1) i have to say, being fully charged and taking up the space, seemingly inconsiderate, the driver may simply not have a choice.

At 9am, when he was done charging, there was plenty of choice. Not so much by lunchtime, which is why I really couldn't have moved the previous day without exchanging spots with the new arrival - hardly fair for him to take the EV spot leaving me circling the garage trying to find an alternative (the parking is really horrible at the convention center during major events).

hmmm... pretty early in the day to be done charging. now wondering if he spent the night there?

 

[mwalsh]

hmmm... pretty early in the day to be done charging. now wondering if he spent the night there?

I went the other way, and figured he maybe got there at like 7am (breakfast was the first event at 7:40am). Only needing two hours of worth of charging to get there = only two hours of worth of charge needed to get home? I know, total speculation on my end - he might well have been going elsewhere after the convention center, requiring the full-charge.

BTW, I did leave a note on his car in advance of the "nasty one", indicating that I needed to charge and asking if he would call me, should he come back to his car. So he apparently didn't come back for the duration.

 

[EVDRIVER]

what i see is a culmination of several mis-steps leading to a bad situation.

1) i have to say, being fully charged and taking up the space, seemingly inconsiderate, the driver may simply not have a choice.

2) lack of policing allowing the spots to be ICE'd

3) positioning of the charging spaces. i MUCH rather park in the back row and be guaranteed a chance to charge then to be ICE'd out because the spaces are in the first row

4) not allowing 3 spaces to be serviced by one charger. the City of Lacey install L1 chargers more than 4 years ago (i started using them 4 years ago so dont really know how long they have been there) and they are spaced about 150 feet apart. one space because its on a corner could be serviced by 4 spaces

5) inadequate charging spaces. despite the perceived perks, incentives, etc. the country is essentially paying lip service to EV'ers in piss poor support, ridiculous electrical rates (unless you are willing to jump thru the hoops AND pay for those hoops) Cali make take pride in leading the EV revolution, but from what i see and read; you are behind in mentality.

hate to see the rest of the country using California as an example. so far, your state has sucked big time.

With the lack of L3 stations it seems Washi is leading.

 

[walterbays]

what i see is a culmination of several mis-steps leading to a bad situation.

1) i have to say, being fully charged and taking up the space, seemingly inconsiderate, the driver may simply not have a choice.

True. I don't want to leave a play in the middle to move my car, nor forego charging if I don't have time to babysit it. Much better if the next person who needs a charge could just move the cord.

2) lack of policing allowing the spots to be ICE'd

This was about to be fixed with an EV parking bill drafted in cooperation with Plugin America. It would also have given PHEV's like Volts equal access to charging, as I think is proper.

3) positioning of the charging spaces. i MUCH rather park in the back row and be guaranteed a chance to charge then to be ICE'd out because the spaces are in the first row

Four reasons most charging spaces are poorly located: #1 ADA compliance. #2 electrical service often near building. #3 show off green credentials. #4 better monitoring to deter vandalism. I can hope that when the second wave of charging spaces begins to be installed, #1 and #3 are already taken care of. So where electrical service permits, maybe the next ten spaces can be located in a distant corner with a security camera.

4) not allowing 3 spaces to be serviced by one charger. the City of Lacey install L1 chargers more than 4 years ago (i started using them 4 years ago so dont really know how long they have been there) and they are spaced about 150 feet apart. one space because its on a corner could be serviced by 4 spaces

Outlawed in CA by AB475. GM rewrote the EV parking bill to prohibit plug sharing, and Rep. Betsy Butler pushed it through for them, flipping off Plugin America and EV drivers. The resulting loss of public infrastructure makes a PHEV more attractive versus a BEV, as I think GM intended. As they did not intend, it makes a plug-in Prius more attractive versus a Volt.

5) inadequate charging spaces. despite the perceived perks, incentives, etc. the country is essentially paying lip service to EV'ers in piss poor support, ridiculous electrical rates (unless you are willing to jump thru the hoops AND pay for those hoops) Cali make take pride in leading the EV revolution, but from what i see and read; you are behind in mentality.

Besides Butler's shenanigans the other big mistake by CA was the PUC's decision not to exempt car charging from demand fees, pending more information on how they are used. This means that DC quick charge facilities cannot operate economically, nor can large numbers (~8) of L2 stations. One quick charger might be as good as 10 or 20 L2's in obviating range anxiety. What's the exact number? The EV Project would have found out by studying the usage patterns of the first cars and the first L2 and quick charge stations. Which haven't been built because of the PUC's inaction, as they wait for the data which now will not be coming from the EV Project because the chargers aren't built.

hate to see the rest of the country using California as an example. so far, your state has sucked big time.

:-(

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

With the lack of L3 stations it seems Washi is leading.

nah we "currently" suck at that. teeny tiny OR is kicking our butts on that as well. but check back in a few weeks. there is light at the end of the tunnel

 

[LakeLeaf]

Maybe the signage there should be Electric vehicle charging only, instead of Electric vehicle only

If all of the signage was for charging spots rather then parking spots, owners might be encouraged to move when the pack is full.

 

[Packet]

Maybe the signage there should be Electric vehicle charging only, instead of Electric vehicle only

That's how the signs up here in Seattle read at every L2 station I've been to. "Electric Vehicle Parking While Charging Only" or similar phrasing.