Why Level 2 around-town charging is needed...

[Crissa]

Even if you don't need it, the fact is others do. Whether it be people without home charging, apartment dwellers, old or short-range EVs... On street charging means more EVs and more reliable charging. It means going to grandma's you don't need a granny lead to charge - there's parking nearby with a charger. Work or school, or whatever, there'll be room for those who can't afford a dedicated parking space to also charge. As the used market grows, more and more EV owners will fall into these categories.

Yeah, it ends up being politics, but it's interesting seeing solutions pop up like the Seattle one to place power drops in neighborhoods which have EVs and too few home spots.

-Crissa

 

[TomGriff]

Given the current technology and infrastructure I wouldn't own an EV if I couldn't charge at home (or at work). Widespread level 2 chargers are an important piece of the puzzle and will make EVs more convenient if you can't charge at home.

More level 2 would also help make some rural areas more accessible. Their are a few trips I've wanted to make where having more level 2 options (or more DCFC) would have made the trip possible. They were about 3/4 of the way between fast chargers, meaning I didn't quite have enough range unless to make a round trip from the "last" charger without driving all the way to the next charger adding an hour of driving. In both cases if there were a level 2 charger convenient to were I was meeting, I could have gotten enough charge in the couple hours I was going to be there to make it back to the first charger. There is definitely a role for more level 2 chargers.

 

[Tinker71]

Level 2 chargers at work are most important in my book. Solar power is at it's peak and this helps people in apartments. Half a day on a charger 3 days a week will cover a lot of people per charger.

 

[firsttruck]

Level 2 chargers at work are most important in my book. Solar power is at it's peak and this helps people in apartments. Half a day on a charger 3 days a week will cover a lot of people per charger.

That is also what I think.

Almost every workplace is Western or Southern U.S. in locations where it rarely snows, that has more than two parking spots and roof should have solar and L2 chargers.

 

[Throwcomputer]

I'm one of those people. I don't drive enough in a week to absolutely need home charging and don't own my own place so driving to a local shopping center with super chargers once a week to fill up with "gas" will be enough for me. I'd expect I can get a week to two weeks of around town driving for chores before I drain a charge from 80-15%.

I'll just shift my preferred store for much of those chores from a closer one without super charger to a similar but slightly further store with super charger in the parking lot.

Long distance is no worry as super chargers are abundant up and down 95 which is where I do all my long distance driving.

 

[Jhodgesatmb]

Level 2 chargers at work are most important in my book. Solar power is at it's peak and this helps people in apartments. Half a day on a charger 3 days a week will cover a lot of people per charger.

Where I last worked there was no parking and so there was really no place to put Level 2 chargers, so they have to go in parking structures and parking lots, but they are doing that already (albeit on a small scale).

 

[RMK!]

Even if you don't need it, the fact is others do. Whether it be people without home charging, apartment dwellers, old or short-range EVs... On street charging means more EVs and more reliable charging. It means going to grandma's you don't need a granny lead to charge - there's parking nearby with a charger. Work or school, or whatever, there'll be room for those who can't afford a dedicated parking space to also charge. As the used market grows, more and more EV owners will fall into these categories.

Yeah, it ends up being politics, but it's interesting seeing solutions pop up like the Seattle one to place power drops in neighborhoods which have EVs and too few home spots.

-Crissa

I think this is inevitable and more and more public chargers will appear as EV adoption increases. As I drive around there are more EV's but it is still a very small percentage of the vehicles. So, as more affordable EV's arrive from China, and US manufacturers ramp up their production we will see more chargers springing up. Frankly, I would not own an EV without home charging.

Prior to our Teslas we had a several Volts and they were a good way to adjust to home charging but we seldom charged the Volt's at public charging stations. Funny story: In early 2021 my wife got an error message on her Volt telling her that the car needed to use the gas in the tank before she could resume using battery power. She has a 22 mile RT commute and due to COVID, she hadn't put fuel in the car for nearly a year. The way she used the Volt, it was essentially a EV with home charging every night.

 

[Tinker71]

I think this is inevitable and more and more public chargers will appear as EV adoption increases. As I drive around there are more EV's but it is still a very small percentage of the vehicles. So, as more affordable EV's arrive from China, and US manufacturers ramp up their production we will see more chargers springing up. Frankly, I would not own an EV without home charging.

Prior to our Teslas we had a several Volts and they were a good way to adjust to home charging but we seldom charged the Volt's at public charging stations. Funny story: In early 2021 my wife got an error message on her Volt telling her that the car needed to use the gas in the tank before she could resume using battery power. She has a 22 mile RT commute and due to COVID, she hadn't put fuel in the car for nearly a year. The way she used the Volt, it was essentially a EV with home charging every night.

Given the pure BEV material constraints I would not be opposed to plug in hybrids as a bridge vehicle over the next 5 years if they can get at least 30 ICE free miles per charge.

The dual system maintenance sucks, but if we went with 15kWhr packs we could take 4-8 pure ICE vehicle off the road using the same battery resources as one BEV. 80% of these vehicles miles would probably be ICE free. Electric heat pumps would also eliminate excessive idling.

This really makes sense for anyone with a truck that tows a fair amount. A small ICE motor for sustained towing and or charging the battery pack with the electric drive kicking in for acceleration and hills and maybe 4wd situations. A 60 HP ICE, 200HP electric motor, plus a 60kWhr battery pack sounds about right to me.

 

[Ogre]

Even if you don't need it, the fact is others do. Whether it be people without home charging, apartment dwellers, old or short-range EVs... On street charging means more EVs and more reliable charging. It means going to grandma's you don't need a granny lead to charge - there's parking nearby with a charger. Work or school, or whatever, there'll be room for those who can't afford a dedicated parking space to also charge. As the used market grows, more and more EV owners will fall into these categories.

Yeah, it ends up being politics, but it's interesting seeing solutions pop up like the Seattle one to place power drops in neighborhoods which have EVs and too few home spots.

-Crissa

They need to fix billing for this to be exciting. Having to spend a couple minutes futzing with authentication every time you charge would be a headache

One of those places Tesla seems consistently ahead where it makes little sense.

Or plan B. Free charging. If they want people glimpsing onto EVs free charging would be huge.

 

[Ogre]

I think this is inevitable and more and more public chargers will appear as EV adoption increases. As I drive around there are more EV's but it is still a very small percentage of the vehicles. So, as more affordable EV's arrive from China, and US manufacturers ramp up their production we will see more chargers springing up. Frankly, I would not own an EV without home charging.

Prior to our Teslas we had a several Volts and they were a good way to adjust to home charging but we seldom charged the Volt's at public charging stations. Funny story: In early 2021 my wife got an error message on her Volt telling her that the car needed to use the gas in the tank before she could resume using battery power. She has a 22 mile RT commute and due to COVID, she hadn't put fuel in the car for nearly a year. The way she used the Volt, it was essentially a EV with home charging every night.

A good idea. Gas rots when left in the tank for too long.

 

[RMK!]

Given the pure BEV material constraints I would not be opposed to plug in hybrids as a bridge vehicle over the next 5 years if they can get at least 30 ICE free miles per charge.

The dual system maintenance sucks, but if we went with 15kWhr packs we could take 4-8 pure ICE vehicle off the road using the same battery resources as one BEV. 80% of these vehicles miles would probably be ICE free. Electric heat pumps would also eliminate excessive idling.

This really makes sense for anyone with a truck that tows a fair amount. A small ICE motor for sustained towing and or charging the battery pack with the electric drive kicking in for acceleration and hills and maybe 4wd situations. A 60 HP ICE, 200HP electric motor, plus a 60kWhr battery pack sounds about right to me.

That sounds reasonable to me ... I wonder how many existing plug in hybrids can go 30-40 miles without ICE assist.

 

[HaulingAss]

They need to fix billing for this to be exciting. Having to spend a couple minutes futzing with authentication every time you charge would be a headache

One of those places Tesla seems consistently ahead where it makes little sense.

Or plan B. Free charging. If they want people glimpsing onto EVs free charging would be huge.

I totally agree. I recently returned from a two-day trip to the Olympic Pennisula, an area that still does not have a plethora of Superchargers. However, Alderbrook Resort where we spent the night had two Tesla Wall Connectors and one J1772 in the parking lot. It was so painless to plug in at 5pm and unplug as we finished our after dinner walk at 10 pm precisely because there was no billing involved. Just park and plug in.

The resort was not worried about trying to extract the $3.00 worth of electricity from us nor were they worried that people who were not resort guests would plug in and steal 70 cents worth of electricity for each hour they managed to plug in undetected. People simply have more valuable things to do than steal 70 cents per hour of theft.

Sadly, even though the resort was moderately busy, no one else used any of the 3 free charging points for the rest of our stay. The point is, we are still in the early stages of the transition to EV's and more charging points will continue to be added as the demand for them increases.

 

[HaulingAss]

A good idea. Gas rots when left in the tank for too long.

Gas rots if left anywhere too long. Ideally, it used within around 3-6 months of being refined although the exact amount of time depends upon the formulation of the gasoline and whether the refiner or the consumer has added stabilizers to the mix.

 

[Ogre]

I totally agree. I recently returned from a two-day trip to the Olympic Pennisula, an area that still does not have a plethora of Superchargers. However, Alderbrook Resort where we spent the night had two Tesla Wall Connectors and one J1772 in the parking lot. It was so painless to plug in at 5pm and unplug as we finished our after dinner walk at 10 pm precisely because there was no billing involved. Just park and plug in.

The resort was not worried about trying to extract the $3.00 worth of electricity from us nor were they worried that people who were not resort guests would plug in and steal 70 cents worth of electricity for each hour they managed to plug in undetected. People simply have more valuable things to do than steal 70 cents per hour of theft.

Sadly, even though the resort was moderately busy, no one else used any of the 3 free charging points for the rest of our stay. The point is, we are still in the early stages of the transition to EV's and more charging points will continue to be added as the demand for them increases.

We pick hotels based on charger availability. At $0.47/ kW hour in California for Supercharging it shaved about $30 off our travel bill plus cut a stop out. Definitely worth being a bit choosy on stops.

We’ve also found hotels where they don’t mind non customers using it in a pinch.

 

[ajdelange]

...we will see more chargers springing up.

At taxpayer expense only to be mown down by vandals and copper thieves.

Frankly, I would not own an EV without home charging.

I wouldn't either and i really fear that so many will also feel this way that BEV adoption will be slowed and/or limited because I am very cynical about a workable charging solution for the hoi polloi.