Solid green is not universal. I'm told that Volts use solid green for charging, blinking green for complete.
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Solid green is not universal. I'm told that Volts use solid green for charging, blinking green for complete.
No matter what is done, there are going to be rage incidents. Yes the op was wrong for doing a delayed charge on a public charger. The op could have done their max range charge which finished at say 4am. Then been kind enough to move their car so someone else could have charged.
- Would this have fixed the problem? -- No
- Is this practical for most people to do? -- No
- Would a phone call to the op fix the issue? -- Maybe if you dont mind getting phone calls at 2am.
There are literally 1000 ways to get plug rage. I read an article yesterday about a efiat being blocked by a plug in prius and getting raged because "they can use gas". The ultimate problem is there is not enough plugs for every situation and considering most plugs are only 30 amps or less, 1 car can easily still be using that plug for 10 hours straight. In a gas station each station maybe used for 5 minutes to service a car and thereby everyone involved is typically attentive to the needs of everyone around them. If your car takes 5-10 hours to recharge that attentiveness goes away.
I dont know what the solution should be. Ultimately more plugs with faster charging solves the problem. Plac cards is only a temporary solution but can only be expected to be followed by a very small percentage of the community. All i know is if plug rage grows with the increased number of BEV's out there, some people might be removing their plugs so they dont have to deal with the squabbles.
- Would this have fixed the problem? -- No
- Is this practical for most people to do? -- No
- Would a phone call to the op fix the issue? -- Maybe if you dont mind getting phone calls at 2am.
There are literally 1000 ways to get plug rage. I read an article yesterday about a efiat being blocked by a plug in prius and getting raged because "they can use gas". The ultimate problem is there is not enough plugs for every situation and considering most plugs are only 30 amps or less, 1 car can easily still be using that plug for 10 hours straight. In a gas station each station maybe used for 5 minutes to service a car and thereby everyone involved is typically attentive to the needs of everyone around them. If your car takes 5-10 hours to recharge that attentiveness goes away.
I dont know what the solution should be. Ultimately more plugs with faster charging solves the problem. Plac cards is only a temporary solution but can only be expected to be followed by a very small percentage of the community. All i know is if plug rage grows with the increased number of BEV's out there, some people might be removing their plugs so they dont have to deal with the squabbles.
I certainly don't hope people expect someone to wake up at 4AM at a hotel to unplug. A free valet service that controls the EVSEs is probably the best way to handle that. Or when you get up in the morning you could move your car too.
The advantage of starting your charge right away is that you are more likely to be done early and if someone comes by at 8AM and unplugs you then it is not an issue. If you are planning on leaving at 10AM and time your charge to finish at 9:30AM then someone unplugging you is an issue.
The advantage of starting your charge right away is that you are more likely to be done early and if someone comes by at 8AM and unplugs you then it is not an issue. If you are planning on leaving at 10AM and time your charge to finish at 9:30AM then someone unplugging you is an issue.
I don't think it matters when the OP charges, whether it be as soon as you parked or waiting at the last minute. Arriving at the spot, you can't make any assumptions on how long that car has been there and if its currently charging, finished charging, or even scheduled charging (albeit in that last case the proper thing to do would be a leave a note), but in any case I find it extremely rude to unplug another car without knowing for sure that their charge was completed.
I would unplug a car that is not charging, and I hope someone would do it to me as well. Part of what I love about the EV community is that we're all in this together, and there is a general spirit of sharing and supporting one another.
If the guy unplugged you with no knowledge of whether you were actively charging, then yes he's a total jerk. But I seriously can't imaging anyone doing that. I'm sure he looked at the charger, saw that you weren't pulling any juice, and then unplugged it so he could use it. I don't think he did anything wrong at all, and am kinda surprised at some of the reactions about "don't you ever touch my car".
I think it is extremely inconsiderate to tie up a charger without actually charging from it.
If the guy unplugged you with no knowledge of whether you were actively charging, then yes he's a total jerk. But I seriously can't imaging anyone doing that. I'm sure he looked at the charger, saw that you weren't pulling any juice, and then unplugged it so he could use it. I don't think he did anything wrong at all, and am kinda surprised at some of the reactions about "don't you ever touch my car".
I think it is extremely inconsiderate to tie up a charger without actually charging from it.
Someone correct me if I am wrong here but I was under the impression that the charge cable was locked in place and only able to be removed when the vehicle was not charging/finished charging or if someone with the correct key fob (the owner) was near by. Would this not mean that if a stranger went up to your Tesla and was able to unplug it, the vehicle was not charging or was finished charging?
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
The J1772 adapter does not lock to the connector so anyone can just disconnect the connector and then connect it to their own adapter (or directly to their car if it's not a Model S).
with most public J1772 type chargers charging can be stopped and the vehicle unplugged by anyone. The adapter will remain connected to the car.
Someone had a great idea a while back to have the brake light bar on the rear windshield display the percentage charge while charging. You could have this disabled at your home where it does not need to show.
Some interesting comments in this thread... some helpful, and some making some big assumptions.
First of all, I'm certainly willing to try and improve my behavior for the benefit of us all (after all, we are all in this together, right?). As such, I believe I agree with the sentiment of what I think I'll term: "Charge early, Charge often" when using public charging infrastructure. Not only does this allow me additional margin for error in case of the unexpected, but frees a limited resource up for others more quickly.
In this case I didn't think a scheduled charge that was going to shift my charge session back by a couple of hours to be a big deal, especially considering it was already something like 1am and there was no contention at the time. As I said earlier, I'll also print some placards up, but I'll be frank: I'm not inclined to accept phone calls at 4 am to go move my car.
Now to clear up some presumptions several folks have made:
1) My car WAS charging. When I checked my charge status in the morning, significant mileage had been added. It had simply been unplugged in the middle of the session about 60 minutes before it was complete.
2) My car has no indication charging is still in progress. With my firmware version, my charge ring, dash, and center console all go dark several minutes after the car is locked. Those who assumed you could tell by observing my car that a charge is complete are incorrect.
3) It was not a chargepoint station with any sort of LCD readout of charge current, etc... It is a Tesla branded (model TS-70) charger. It DOES have a charge indicator lamp, but it seems to kick on as soon as the car is plugged in and handshake completed. This could perhaps be due to initial current draw for the battery cooling etc... similar to my HPWC. I would assume the indicator goes dark when charge is completed but this shouldn't have been the case for me (see #1 above).
4) This is a hotel with valet parking. Not only do I not park my car, I observed the valet's park Teslas and Volts in the spaces set aside for using charger of their own accord. Even when I didn't ask to come down and connect the charger via my J1772 adapter, they did this. They retained the key fob (not me) for purposed of parking, retrieving, or moving cars.
5) There are 4 spots that the single charger can service. I was parked in the rear-most one, which does NOT block access to the other three (and actually is the spot that would in turn be blocked if additional cars came).
Perhaps that provides some context for those that made some assumptions.
Incidentally, after an hour I came back down to unplug, and was going to plug the other model S in, but it had left.
(And finally to the one poster that asked for the plate of the other car, please... I'm not going to post car plates on a public forum, and I'm not going to call any user names out. If they are reading this then you've already made your point to them. )
First of all, I'm certainly willing to try and improve my behavior for the benefit of us all (after all, we are all in this together, right?). As such, I believe I agree with the sentiment of what I think I'll term: "Charge early, Charge often" when using public charging infrastructure. Not only does this allow me additional margin for error in case of the unexpected, but frees a limited resource up for others more quickly.
In this case I didn't think a scheduled charge that was going to shift my charge session back by a couple of hours to be a big deal, especially considering it was already something like 1am and there was no contention at the time. As I said earlier, I'll also print some placards up, but I'll be frank: I'm not inclined to accept phone calls at 4 am to go move my car.
Now to clear up some presumptions several folks have made:
1) My car WAS charging. When I checked my charge status in the morning, significant mileage had been added. It had simply been unplugged in the middle of the session about 60 minutes before it was complete.
2) My car has no indication charging is still in progress. With my firmware version, my charge ring, dash, and center console all go dark several minutes after the car is locked. Those who assumed you could tell by observing my car that a charge is complete are incorrect.
3) It was not a chargepoint station with any sort of LCD readout of charge current, etc... It is a Tesla branded (model TS-70) charger. It DOES have a charge indicator lamp, but it seems to kick on as soon as the car is plugged in and handshake completed. This could perhaps be due to initial current draw for the battery cooling etc... similar to my HPWC. I would assume the indicator goes dark when charge is completed but this shouldn't have been the case for me (see #1 above).
4) This is a hotel with valet parking. Not only do I not park my car, I observed the valet's park Teslas and Volts in the spaces set aside for using charger of their own accord. Even when I didn't ask to come down and connect the charger via my J1772 adapter, they did this. They retained the key fob (not me) for purposed of parking, retrieving, or moving cars.
5) There are 4 spots that the single charger can service. I was parked in the rear-most one, which does NOT block access to the other three (and actually is the spot that would in turn be blocked if additional cars came).
Perhaps that provides some context for those that made some assumptions.
Incidentally, after an hour I came back down to unplug, and was going to plug the other model S in, but it had left.
(And finally to the one poster that asked for the plate of the other car, please... I'm not going to post car plates on a public forum, and I'm not going to call any user names out. If they are reading this then you've already made your point to them. )
"Regardless of if the car is currently charging or not."
Woah, I strongly disagree. Effectively ICEing a spot is okay? So if someone just leaves their car plugged in all weekend (not what happened here), blocking everyone else from using a charger, that's okay because they got there first? No way.
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Dial back the attitude. ;-) Second, there's no need to touch your car at all to unplug a J1772 connector, so don't sweat it.
I suspect if it was a Chargepoint that you could not delay the charge. The one time I used a Chargepoint, if you didn't start charging within a reasonable time, you have to swipe your card again.
The OP stated it was not a Chargepoint.
In any case, I would never recommend scheduling charge at a charger not at home....
There are other EV's in the world
Not dependable - It may not start charging
Another possibility to leaving contact info (at a hotel) is to leave a note deferring to the hotel's front desk. Then leave notice at the front desk to contact you if someone requests or there is a problem.
The OP stated it was not a Chargepoint.
In any case, I would never recommend scheduling charge at a charger not at home....
There are other EV's in the world
Not dependable - It may not start charging
Another possibility to leaving contact info (at a hotel) is to leave a note deferring to the hotel's front desk. Then leave notice at the front desk to contact you if someone requests or there is a problem.
Fortunately not an issue with this charger. I thought your original post was clear on that, but then, I've used this charger, so your post was clear to me, at least. ;-)
Am I misremembrering? I thought it had an LCD that indicated something mildly useful. It's kinda dark where it is, so maybe I just thought it did. Anyway, probably the guy thought it was clearly indicating you weren't charging.
I'm not sure how this relates, but I've used the charger twice and didn't use valet either time.
I wonder if the Omni should take a little more ownership/management of charging here, since it's the only strong charger in the area. I've recommended it to folks here and at TM's forums, so I like your "charge early and often" plan, and hope others do this, too. Once the Richmond-area Supercharger comes online, depending on where it is, the importance of this charger will diminish greatly . . . but right now, it's the only decent charger in the area. (whimper) Richmond's not exactly a hotbed of EV charging possibilities--it's only got a few (slow) Chargepoints. At the very least, if they know someone's using it, they could offer to take contact info (only for use during normal hours ;-) ), offer to charge X when Y leaves, etc. I don't know if that is reasonable to suggest/expect.
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Great idea.
Nope, I Looked closely after this happened, just power and charging indicator, which as I mentioned lit upon initial handshake.
I didn't every time either, but when I needed to get my J1772 adapter out of my trunk and plugged in, we went down together.
Al Sherman
It's about THIS car.
i had this laminated and was going to keep it in the car with a grease pencil to use in situations like this.. haven't had the chance to yet.. but, fwiw. there are more technological solutions, like the car alerting us when charging is done, and perhaps a smaller display on the dash staying on while charging, with a countdown to finish, a mesh network of model s'ers (and other ev'ers) that coordinates charging swap outs, etc etc, and several other things to be done to help us navigate this new community system.. but, something like this could work well and for a while it seems to me...
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mknox
Well-Known Member
I feel there needs to be more intelligence in the charger.
Would be great if a charger comes with multiple, e.g. 4 plugs, and knows when one port is ready it switches to the next in line.
if it does not detect a charge in progress it will switch so the scheduled charge would be not charging, it would have switched to the other port.
For slow chargers especially at hotel/airport locations and such this would make sense. One charger could supply 4 parking slots and service more cars...
Also either the Tesla should notify through the app with push notifications events or a mobile number should be attached to the Smart Card or other Charging/Payment card and send SMS/Text messages on events (like charge started, completed or better in … minutes and such).
Would be great if a charger comes with multiple, e.g. 4 plugs, and knows when one port is ready it switches to the next in line.
if it does not detect a charge in progress it will switch so the scheduled charge would be not charging, it would have switched to the other port.
For slow chargers especially at hotel/airport locations and such this would make sense. One charger could supply 4 parking slots and service more cars...
Also either the Tesla should notify through the app with push notifications events or a mobile number should be attached to the Smart Card or other Charging/Payment card and send SMS/Text messages on events (like charge started, completed or better in … minutes and such).
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