publicly accessible charging stations being removed or turned off

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cwerdna

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2011
Messages
13,674
Location
SF Bay Area, CA
Found this, thanks to a thread over at "TMC":
Derry pulls plug on electric car charging stations
https://www.eagletribune.com/news/new_hampshire/derry-pulls-plug-on-electric-car-charging-stations/article_637c090e-fc94-563e-bb31-9a4844686a1a.html

I'll chime in with probably 4 or up to 4 CHAdeMO stations that were removed and AFAIK, not replaced by anything:
https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31253&p=594676&hilit=walgreens+chademo#p594676 - I believe that Nissan research group has moved away from that Sunnyvale location to another one in the South Bay. But, that happened well after the CHAdeMO charger was removed.
https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=25212&p=594215&hilit=walgreens+chademo#p594215

Add other instances where working modern (J1772, Tesla connector, CHAdeMO or SAE Combo) EVSEs have been removed or turned off. Avcon claw and paddle chargers going away wouldn't be a big deal, in my book.
 
cwerdna said:
Derry pulls plug on electric car charging stations
https://www.eagletribune.com/news/new_hampshire/derry-pulls-plug-on-electric-car-charging-stations/article_637c090e-fc94-563e-bb31-9a4844686a1a.html

Hey, that's by my area.
Based on the article pics and Plugshare info, it looks like the town opted for 3 Tesla-specific and 1 ClipperCreek charge stations.
https://www.plugshare.com/location/155408
I'm not sure why they didn't just go with L2 ChargePoint stations like every other town in the nearby areas.

From what I've been seeing in my area, towns installed L2 ChargePoint stations in town halls and libraries, and offered free charging for about a year or so, depending on when the station was installed. After the stations gained popularity or abuse, the towns switched to charging a small fee for charging (e.g., free for 1 hr + $1/hr parking fee afterwards, flat $/kWh rate, etc).

I only know of one town hall in the area that has almost abandoned the ChargePoint stations. One station is out of order, cable was cut, and it is all wrapped in black trash bags. The other station is still working, but I expect they will shut it down once it breaks down too.

I think in the future, more towns will be abandoning these public stations as we move closer to more centralized charging stations, similar to gas stations.
 
henrydehoja said:
cwerdna said:
Derry pulls plug on electric car charging stations
https://www.eagletribune.com/news/new_hampshire/derry-pulls-plug-on-electric-car-charging-stations/article_637c090e-fc94-563e-bb31-9a4844686a1a.html

Hey, that's by my area.
Based on the article pics and Plugshare info, it looks like the town opted for 3 Tesla-specific and 1 ClipperCreek charge stations.
https://www.plugshare.com/location/155408
I'm not sure why they didn't just go with L2 ChargePoint stations like every other town in the nearby areas.

From what I've been seeing in my area, towns installed L2 ChargePoint stations in town halls and libraries, and offered free charging for about a year or so, depending on when the station was installed. After the stations gained popularity or abuse, the towns switched to charging a small fee for charging (e.g., free for 1 hr + $1/hr parking fee afterwards, flat $/kWh rate, etc).
Tesla used to provide wall connectors for free to some businesses for https://www.tesla.com/destination-charging and maybe would include a J1772 EVSE or two. Found a few examples. Search https://web.archive.org/web/20180806071550/https://www.tesla.com/charging-partners and https://web.archive.org/web/20170126103343/https://www.tesla.com/destination-charging for free.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-to-j1772-adapter.70591/page-10#post-2233232 has a reference to the program. Eventually, instead of providing 3rd party (e.g. Clipper Creek) J1772 EVSE, apparently, Tesla would provide a J1772 of their wall connector instead: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-wall-connector-with-j1772-plug-instead-of-tesla-proprietary-plug.167595/.

My work has been provided some free WCs but I don't know how much (if any) they covered for installation. We have over a dozen of them installed.

Tesla WCs are also cheap: https://shop.tesla.com/product/wall-connector.

ChargePoint stations are expensive. And, there's a recurring subscription fee. See below about costs for hardware:
https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=27228&p=543455&hilit=gateway#p543455 and the last two links (as examples) at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/why-chargepoint-is-terrible.128920/page-2#post-3040358.
 
cwerdna said:
ChargePoint stations are expensive. And, there's a recurring subscription fee. See below about costs for hardware:
https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=27228&p=543455&hilit=gateway#p543455 and the last two links (as examples) at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/why-chargepoint-is-terrible.128920/page-2#post-3040358.

Yeah, everything from ChargePoint is expensive. In the past I've downloaded info on their various plans from their website. I was surprised to see how much it was costing commercial units, especially if they had a subscription. I know some state grants cover a lot of the expenses, but it is still a lot.

My guess is that towns use ChargePoint over standalone stations like Tesla, ClipperCreek, etc because of the ability to offer charging schedules, fees and other programs. Not to mention that ChargePoint stations can be electronically locked to specific users; we have a lot of corporate businesses in the area that lock their ChargePoint stations for their employees use only.
 
henrydehoja said:
Yeah, everything from ChargePoint is expensive. In the past I've downloaded info on their various plans from their website. I was surprised to see how much it was costing commercial units, especially if they had a subscription. I know some state grants cover a lot of the expenses, but it is still a lot.

My guess is that towns use ChargePoint over standalone stations like Tesla, ClipperCreek, etc because of the ability to offer charging schedules, fees and other programs. Not to mention that ChargePoint stations can be electronically locked to specific users; we have a lot of corporate businesses in the area that lock their ChargePoint stations for their employees use only.
I don't know of any recent ChargePoint commercial units that don't require a subscription. AFAIK, the old CT2000 series and all the CT4000 series do. See https://www.chargepoint.com/products/guides/.

Yep on what you said. And yes, many companies (including mine) put access control on their ChargePoint stations so that only employees can charge.
 
These ChargePoint stations at https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=608364#p608364 in Fremont, CA at a fairly busy mall complex were removed.
 
You know what's tragic -- this site, where a ChargePoint station was erected, but never activated, then ultimately torn out and replaced with this other hardware, which finally does (or did -- the last report is bad) work. Perhaps not as sad as some, but a mystifying situation.

There was a great one, a free CHAdeMO station, at a Howard County government building in Columbia -- the first place I ever tried CHAdeMO. It got shut down after a lightning strike, supposedly. There was talk of bringing it back, but it never happened.

There are others I could list, but they tend to get pulled off PlugShare, so I can only vaguely say where they used to be. Of course, some remain, even as they become unmaintained, and fall to 1.0 ratings. E.g. the average dealership.

Sometimes they come back. They get powered off, seemingly forever, drift down to 1 for years, then suddenly they're fixed and climb back up to 10. This happened at the Columbia Whole Foods and the Muirkirk train station, for example.

But the top spots in my personal charging station Hall of Shame are reserved for the ones that are promised, but never delivered. (Not quite the thread topic, I realize.) My town opened a new public parking lot on Main Street a few years ago, and in the dedication speech, promised that it would have EV charging. So far, there's nothing. :x
 
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