For ~$400 dollars you could buy this, and some 4x4s to put in your car and never have to worry about a car parked in your way again!
Pallet Jack - 2.5 Ton
:tongue:
Pallet Jack - 2.5 Ton
:tongue:
Last edited:
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EV parking priority
- Thread starter Picasso
- Start date
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- Electric Vehicles
bonnie
I play a nice person on twitter.
Another thought for charging station manufacturers - consider a setup option where the price of charging is only slightly more than home charging (or free) - but then allow charging a premium rate for time parked, monopolizing the charging system, but not drawing meaningful current (meaning you're fully charged). That money could even be rolled into a fund for buying more chargers for that area.
Paying for NOT charging while monopolizing the charging station might sufficiently motivate people to move their vehicle. (Of course this shouldn't be applied at places like airports.)
Paying for NOT charging while monopolizing the charging station might sufficiently motivate people to move their vehicle. (Of course this shouldn't be applied at places like airports.)
Hi Bonnie,
Great idea. The premium rate for parking while not charging should be rather stiff.
Larry
I'm sure you do, but it's not you footing the bill, and that's exactly my point.
Why should someone install a charging station at their place of business, at considerable cost, and then let someone spin their meter, for no benefit that they can gain, and not be able to recoup at least some of the cost? Just to be nice? Maybe the government can afford to play that game, but private enterprise cannot, at least not for very long.
I patronize the businesses who's charging station I utilize...how many people here bank with Rabobank after using one of their stations?
Chargepoint stations are subsidized by the government and grants, it is completely up to the business if they do want to charge or not. I go out of my way to patronize malls and businesses that do indeed allow for free charging. I am not alone here
If the cost to use an EVSE is proportional to the maximum energy delivery rate of the EVSE, then EVs/PHEVs that can only use Level 1 chargers will avoid the more expensive Level 2 chargers.
Further, the meter should keep running as long as the vehicle is plugged in, whether or not it is charging. This will encourage people to scoot back to their cars promptly after it has sufficient charge.
Further, the meter should keep running as long as the vehicle is plugged in, whether or not it is charging. This will encourage people to scoot back to their cars promptly after it has sufficient charge.
I may be confusing Chargepoint brand chargers with just public chargers in general, but if all public chargers are being subsidized by the public as a whole (you say government), then that is news to me. Another thing I'm paying for that I'll never use.
But you make a good point about patronizing businesses with chargers. Hmm...
There are WAY more gasoline powered cars than electric. If I were to install a free gas pump at my business, just think of how many more people would patronize my business!
But then there would be people who would just take the gas and leave, and there would be people who would top off even if they were already at nearly a full tank, because hey, it's free, and then soon there would be arguments about how long some are taking to fill up, and still others would suggest that they need the free gas MORE because they are nearly empty but others don't have as far to drive and they can get their gas elsewhere.
Where have I heard of a scenario like this before?
It seems to me that the real key to EV's is Level 3 charging. The simple solution to electric car infrastructure would be to pass a federal law that every gas station must install at least one Level 3 charger for every four gas pumps they currently possess, within the next five years.
It takes about 10 minutes to refuel a gasoline car, in real time when you think about it. When the ability to fully charge an electric car in around the same time it takes to refuel (or even just five, or shoot, ten minutes longer) is available in the thousands of same locations we currently refuel gasoline cars, then suddenly range issues of EVs become moot. In this case even a 100 mile EV could get to most of the United States without ever being out of range of a quick charge. Now the batteries don't need to be so big nor complicated, and the price of an EV falls to within reason, and out of the range of needing to be subsidized. A LOT more people would consider an EV in this scenario.
I assure you, the EV market would explode if this were to happen. But you HAVE to let the private sector to recoup their investment, by charging for the electricity. Free charging gets the EV movement nowhere.
Great ideas. Spoken like an economist -- 'if we can only structure the incentives appropriately...'
Go on chargepoint or recargo, plugshare or whatever and take a look at which free stations are occupied and which paid stations are occupied. If all these stations started to charge I think the markup may make an EV more expensive to operate than an ICE...
For example a lot of Chargepoint stations charge 2.50-4.00 per hour, lets use the lower number for the sake of comparison:
220x30=6.6 KW/hr or .37 per KW/HR
Roadster gets like ~.25kw/hr per mile, not so much of cost savings to drive an electric vehicle at this point eh?
Except you do use it. If 1 person uses an EV instead of a gasoline the air ends up cleaner. Your air. This is like saying you wont use 'x' road. It isn't that particular piece of road it is the transportation network as a whole that gives benefits to all.
There is a fundamental difference in SCALE here. A charging station would be like handing out ketchup packets of gasoline to fill your car. You can't put $60 of electricity in your car in 120 seconds. Heck a empty 85kWh vehicle could only consume about $5 of commercial electricity.
This personally seems much more overbearing and 'big government' than subsidizing plugs at locations you want to leave your car at anyway. The subsidy is voluntary and wouldn't produce a bunch of chargers at locations where I don't want to be stuck at for 30-45 minutes.
I disagree but you may well be correct. One of the great things about getting a Model S is that I won't have to go to a gas station again.
The cost of the electricity is so small, and the costs of the chargers and installation ports is sufficiently high that the recoup install costs by charging for electricity (or time to avoid regulated utility laws) falls apart. Either you have to WAY overcharge for electricity to get you money back, which really puts their use to 'necessity only'. I won't pay $10 to charge at the grocery store when I can charge at home for $1. I will make sure I find a store within a round trip range of my EV.
I think the solution is to offer basic charging infrastructure to every parking space (or almost every parking space), for free, and have additional DC charging available for those who are willing to pay for that. We aren't talking about a huge investment, even to supply power to every parking space.
For larger installations it should be fairly cheap to put up charging posts that can supply 230V/16A (or 120V/30A in the US). I'm thinking around $1000 per parking space. For a business with 20 parking spaces, that makes for an investment of $20,000, which isn't that much, spread out over maybe 10 years.
I think we also have a viable path for businesses to arrive at this conclusion by themselves. As EV use increases, the businesses with sufficient charging infrastructure will attract more customers, and prosper. The businesses who do not cater to the increasing number of EV owners, will eventually see that their revenue starts decreasing, and they have to do something about their parking facilities.
This is entirely equivalent to free parking - around here at least, businesses who do not offer free parking, at least for an hour or two, don't stay in business very long. Yet, you won't find free parking anywhere really attractive, just as you won't find free charging that is really attractive (high power). That is the direction we are taking, imho.
For larger installations it should be fairly cheap to put up charging posts that can supply 230V/16A (or 120V/30A in the US). I'm thinking around $1000 per parking space. For a business with 20 parking spaces, that makes for an investment of $20,000, which isn't that much, spread out over maybe 10 years.
I think we also have a viable path for businesses to arrive at this conclusion by themselves. As EV use increases, the businesses with sufficient charging infrastructure will attract more customers, and prosper. The businesses who do not cater to the increasing number of EV owners, will eventually see that their revenue starts decreasing, and they have to do something about their parking facilities.
This is entirely equivalent to free parking - around here at least, businesses who do not offer free parking, at least for an hour or two, don't stay in business very long. Yet, you won't find free parking anywhere really attractive, just as you won't find free charging that is really attractive (high power). That is the direction we are taking, imho.
Perhaps something like Validation, or tokens from participating businesses to pay for your charging?
What business are you at for only 120 seconds??? I can't even get through the Taco Bell drive-thru in less than 5 minutes!
As I understand it, the point of an electric car is not cheaper fueling, but cleaner emissions and not using oil. Even charging at home, it will take many years to recoup the additional cost of an electric car from the fuel cost savings. So if you find it too expensive to pay to charge, then charge at home, just like you say. But wouldn't it be nice to know you could go anywhere you want, whenever you want? Would you pay a little more to do so? It's also cheaper to drive to Vegas, but I'll still gladly pay to fly there.
The government has no problem telling us what kind of light bulbs we have to buy, what kinds of equipment must be on our cars, what kinds of advertising we can view in what environment, tons of other things. So I don't see it as being too "Big Government" to mandate fast chargers. If they want to advance the market, that would be the easiest way to do it. Give the average person something to think about for their next car purchase. Give them a reason to want to. Most would still charge at home anyway, but at least they would know they could drive an EV the same way they do their gasoline car.
The key is how fast we can charge. I don't want you to have to be there 30 minutes either. Can we get to a 15, or better yet, 10 minute fast charge? I'm asking because I really don't know. From some things I've read, it might be possible. I think at 10 minutes you could change the world.
The major point here is that the vast majority of cars that will be clogging up the EV charging stations will not be EV's....These Plug In hybrid manufacturers have really not contributed much in terms of infrastructure development. If a manufacturer is going to release a plug in hybrid they have to at least provide a certain amount of charging stations based on the amount of units sold...Its irresponsible for Toyota to sell 20k PiP's and contribute almost nothing towards public infrastructure; even though their vehicles will probably be monopolizing the stations. Why can't Toyota come out and say for every 1,000 PiP's we sell, we will donate or install or whatever 100 charging stations?
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
The problem is that free charging encourages more daytime charging, which could negatively impact the grid. We expect most people to charge over night at reduced rates, that won't happen if they get free charging during the day.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
One of the selling points of EV's, even at a higher purchase point, is the lower fueling costs. It's an important factor. If you occasionally need to charge away from home then you can expect to pay more for that option.
I get the point, what I'm saying is that you would never see a PiP at a charging station if the owner of that car had to pay for the privilege. It's not worth it for the lousy 8 EV miles or whatever it is. In the absence of free charging there would be no justification for the plug-in variety over the conventional Prius; there barely is now.
Think about it in the examples that have been put forth thus far. With pay chargers, only owners of full EV's could justify plugging in, because they would NEED to. Everyone else would just let the ICE make up the difference. It might be an extreme stance, but I do believe it would work out that way.
The Volt and Fisker call themselves Extended Range electrics and chide pure EV owners since they see their gasoline engines making them better than Pure EVs since they are no longer limited by electric range. As far as I'm concerned they are asking for it both ways when they plug in a public site.
