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Medford area charging?

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PhilBa

Active Member
Apr 20, 2013
1,383
70
Seattle
I will be staying near Medford for a few days this July and am looking at charging options. I know I could use the Grants Pass SC (and will) but it's more than an hour round trip. I am pretty sure I'll be running to the airport multiple times and giving a number of demo rides so am looking for a halfway decent local charging option. I've got a dialog going with the hotel but the best that is likely is a 110VAC outlet. It would be great if the chademo adapter is out by then because there are 2 in the area (though one seems to be down a lot). I am not holding my breath on that one... PlugShare lists some othter options, none are that good though. There a couple of SemaCharge J1772s in the area but at $.50/kwh, I'd rather charge elsewhere (slow and expensive).

The hour round trip to GP SC may be the best option. ):

Any other suggestions?
 
I will be staying near Medford for a few days this July and am looking at charging options. I know I could use the Grants Pass SC (and will) but it's more than an hour round trip. I am pretty sure I'll be running to the airport multiple times and giving a number of demo rides so am looking for a halfway decent local charging option. I've got a dialog going with the hotel but the best that is likely is a 110VAC outlet. It would be great if the chademo adapter is out by then because there are 2 in the area (though one seems to be down a lot). I am not holding my breath on that one... PlugShare lists some othter options, none are that good though. There a couple of SemaCharge J1772s in the area but at $.50/kwh, I'd rather charge elsewhere (slow and expensive).

The hour round trip to GP SC may be the best option. ):

Any other suggestions?

Call RV Parks in the area. There appear to be several, Google Maps - RV Parks near Medford, OR. Biking in Oregon can be delightful. If I were you, I would make a deal with one of the local RV Parks for multi-day use of a 50A, 14-50, outlet and ride my bike back and forth from/to the RV Park and the Hotel.
 
That's interesting, PlugShare lists them as SemaCharge, not Chargepoint. Recent comments on PlugShare are consistent with them being SemaCharge EVSEs. The "upside" of them being on the SemaCharge network is they will most surely be unused - $0.49/kwh.
 
Chargepoint shows several L2 stations in town. https://na.chargepoint.com/charge_point

If you zoom in on them further, you will see they are listed as "Other", not "ChargePoint". If you have to use SemaCharge, you might as well drive an ICE as it's cheaper. :biggrin:

As for the OP, as luck would have it, I'm currently visiting Medford right now in my MS60! Pretty much any J1772 public charger is worthless unless you are staying within walking distance of it. Otherwise they take so long you might as well drive to Grants Pass as it would be faster. However if you can get the hotel to provide an outlet for you, it's not that bad. If you are parked at the hotel for 16 hours a day, that will get you about 48 miles of range added each day. Assuming you are staying in Medford for 3 days, and you arrive with a 200 mile range, that means you can drive an average of 98 miles a day before getting down to about 50 miles of range left. At that point you'll need to go to Grants Pass.

So between the 48 miles a day and my existing charge, I should be set for this visit. If you are unsure about the hotel providing an outlet, I can recommend the Comfort Inn on East Stewart Ave. I found an outlet up front and they said it was OK for me to plug into it. There is no sidewalk there which is good as there isn't a tripping hazard either. Regardless of where you stay, I recommend you also be sure to bring a 50 foot outdoor extension cord that is 12AWG. Many standard extension cords are 14-16AWG which is too small to handle the amount of power the MS will pull. I'm using it right now as the outlet is too far for the UMC to reach on its own. For even more flexibility, you can bring another 25 foot one as well. You can then select/mix to get 25/50/75 foot lengths. Keeping the extension as short as possible is always best considering the amount of power going through them.
 
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Another option on charging is to get an adapter which is a NEMA 6-50 male plug. I bought mine from Tesla and it interchanges with the Tesla provided charger cord plugs. I looked tonight at the Tesla website but they no longer list it for sale. You can build your own adapter with the plug end from Lowes/Home Depot, a short 1 foot cable then a NEMA 14-50 female socket which accepts the 14-50 plug from your Tesla charger.

This is the plug that (almost) all arc welders are equipped with so the female sockets are in all welding shops and many garages. Since they are almost all commercial power (3 phase) the voltage is approx 209 volts (instead of 240 volts at residences) but they usually provide 40 amp. This charges at approx 25 mph or 4 hours gives 100 miles of range. I tested mine at my welders shop and it works very well. A lot quicker than 120 volt/15amp sources.

240 Volt NEMA 6-50 plug.png


Now all you have to do is find a welding shop that you can "sweet talk" :biggrin: into selling you some joules - hopefully cheaper than the J1772 plugs.
 
@chrisPDX, no kidding - I would only use SemaCharge if it was the last option left.

Unfortunately the hotel where I am staying (in Jacksonville) told me they don't have anything. This was after I explained that I could use a 110V outlet. I was polite about it, offered to pay for the juice I use and explained how they could get positive promotion on this forum and the plugshare/recargo sites. Probably won't matter, though - small town hotel. Since this is for my wife's niece's wedding, I don't think I have the option to try another hotel. There are two RV camps within a mile so I'm looking there. I've got a folding bike that fits in the frunk so I'll probably be ok.

And, the worst case is a 90 minute supercharger run to Grants Pass.