EV friendly hotels: Portland?

As far as I know, the only hotels with EV charging are more on the high end: Hotel Monaco and the Heathman Hotel. We have a room booked for the end of July at the latter, and when I called to confirm about their charger the front desk person answered in the negative. It was only after I insisted that he consulted another employe who set him straight. Be forewarned, their rooms run about $250-300 a night.

Hotel Modera has chargers.

Where are you looking to stay in Portland? Downtown or just nearby? A quick check shows that in NE Portland near the convention center there's a DoubleTree with a OpConnect charger (similar to Blink in you'll need a membership card). At the airport there's Aloft and Hyatt which are within walking distance to Ikea that has some Blink chargers. There should be plenty more options in and around Portland. If you do stay in downtown, see about parking in some of the SmartParks. Several of them have Blinks. I'm just not sure what the price difference would be between SmartPark and the hotel parking. You also have to be mindful that Blinks bill you by the hour, regardless if you are finished with charging are not. So you need to get back to them and unplug the car once finished charging unless you want to pay an extra $1-2 per hour.

Hotel deLuxe also has a charger in their parking structure (a GE wattstation). I stayed there once before and am staying there again on my way back from TESLIVE. Their room rates are reasonable for a boutique hotel (about $170 - $200 a night...at least that's what hotels.com wants for booking a month out). It's $19/day to park in their structure, with unlimited in/out privileges...charging is free. Highly recommended.

Heathman does not have parking at all but do have valet paring which they use near by parking. that near by parking do have blink chargers. When I stayed there a few weeks ago, I was able to use that blink chargers (which you pay). For EV, they told me to follow a car they also happen to be parking at the same time. I then was instructed to park in a space that are by blink chargers (BTW, I saw 2). Valet person told me that they typically let EV owners drive their own EV cars, park and plug to the car. I was able to go in/out without any additional charges. That parking was about 2 (3?) blocks away from the hotel. Reception for cell (for the car) appear to be poor at the parking location. you may not be able to get charging status of the car, btw.

ya... wireless connection (app from cell phone) worked about half (or less) the time. when it does not work, it could not basically talk to the car. But, being blink charger, it will text you, if someone is to unplug it.

tokuro said:

Heathman does not have parking at all but do have valet paring which they use near by parking. that near by parking do have blink chargers. When I stayed there a few weeks ago, I was able to use that blink chargers (which you pay). For EV, they told me to follow a car they also happen to be parking at the same time. I then was instructed to park in a space that are by blink chargers (BTW, I saw 2). Valet person told me that they typically let EV owners drive their own EV cars, park and plug to the car. I was able to go in/out without any additional charges. That parking was about 2 (3?) blocks away from the hotel. Reception for cell (for the car) appear to be poor at the parking location. you may not be able to get charging status of the car, btw.

Click to expand...

I think what was neat was that the valet put a cone on the space, essentially reserving the space for us during our entire stay. I did phone ahead and notified the concierge. We weren't charged for valet parking (which I believe is $32) however, I suspect that might have been an oversight on their part.
The hotel is spendy, but the service is fantastic and the rooms are posh. If you book through Amex they offer many other pluses with your stay.

Yes, the Heathman will reserve the charger for you, and the valets are very accommodating -- they will go with you or let you go yourself (or do it for you, but then you need to give them your Blink card). I had a bit of a problem getting the charger to accept my credentials, but called Blink and was given a number that allowed me to log in. Cell access to the car was about 50-50, as mentioned above. The Heathman is a very nice hotel with great service. I got a senior rate that included parking.

I stayed at The Nines in my last Bellevue to Portland weekend trip. I parked my car at the SmartPark multi-storey parking 2 blocks away. It has Blink chargers and you can see it at Plugshare at SmartPark - Electric Car (EV) Charging Station - PlugShare. I left it there overnight. Honestly, I was a bit worried but it turned out fine.

However, now that we have the Centralia supercharger, there is no need to charge at Portland. It is about 85 miles from Bellevue to Centralia and 90 miles from Centralia to Portland. So if I charge to 260 rated miles at Centralia on the way south, I can head to Portland and back to Centralia easily - only 180 miles round trip. I then charge up at Centralia before heading home.

I learned that Hotel 50, has a pair of BLINK units. Beware, I nearly got screwed there. I called ahead, confirming that they had a J-plug based EVSE, and there was valet parking for guests. On the first night, I arrived after having been told that I could park overnight at the hotel and charge for $25/ night ($29 if they parked my car for me. Right! ), they claimed the unit was not "replenished" Not being sure what that meant, I asked the concierge if they'd take car of it. Being an accomodating folk, they did so. Connecting after midnight, I charged for 14+ hours, filling completely.

The next night, I didn't need to fill, but the third night, they wouldn't replenish things, instead told me that this time "it would be on me"! $2.00/hr as a non-Blink member, $1.50/for some other condition, and $1.00 if I joined their network.

Now having heard numerous horror stories about BLINK (with an ironic and fitting brand name!), and having heard how a BLINK unit melted the J-plug receptacle on a certain Tesla Toyota RAV4 in San Diego, as well as on a Honda Fit EV down there too, I was reluctant. "Ok, I have a need, I'll join..." They gave me a one-time password to use via their always-on toll free number, and I asked if I could safely leave it plugged in all night and not be interrupted. (I was wise to the low availability and reliability of the Blink units, based on PlugInAmerica studies by Tom Saxton, Roadster driver.) To their credit, they suggested that I'd better 'come check' just after midnight, to see if it was still drawing power, as they do a "daily system-wide reset" at 00:00. I began close to 10:30PM and reluctantly put my street cloths back on again at 00:04 to check things out.

My worst fears confirmed: the unit had ceased supplying power, even tho my session had started before the bewitching hour. (Stupid 'operational process decision' doing such, imo.:cursing:
A best practice would be to simply skip the 'reset' on any stations with sessions in progress.) Worse, when I called their toll free number which was 24X7 (or so they claimed) - no one answered! The concierge and I tried for 40+ minutes, and finally I just drove down to a curbside L2 Chargepoint in front of the World Trade Center, plugged in at 12:50 and walked back to the hotel, a couple of blocks away. This was "Cinco de Mayo" weekend, and everyone was partying. Not feeling real comfortable leaving my car on the street of a foreign (to me) city - I was back at 6:30 to retrieve my ride, now with a full charge. I lucked out, and had an uneventful trip back to the Bay Area. :tongue:

So there is another hotel with facilities, but bring your BLINK access card, and have plan for a back up charge!
-Ron

The lesser expensive of the EV friendly hotels were all book on this trip to PDX. We ended up booking a last minute rate at the waterfront Marriott. A block away at the 1st and Jefferson Smart Park is a 14-50 right on the first floor (actually didn't find the Blink chargers that were listed on PlugShare). Charged over night for free and paid $10 for the parking (way cheaper than the hotel). Felt relatively safe leaving the car there.