Electric car owners using free public charge points

Wiki:

The Irish Examiner, formerly The Cork Examiner and then The Examiner, is an Irish national daily newspaper which primarily circulates in the Munster region surrounding its base in Cork, though it is available throughout the country. Its main national rivals are The Irish Times, and the Irish Independent.

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http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/electric-car-owners-using-free-public-charge-points-426071.html

Many electric car owners are using free public charging points as the main source to power their vehicles with one motorist charging his vehicle more than 230 times at such a location in a seven-month period.

The results of a pilot project on the use of electric vehicles (EVs) in the Republic indicate some motorists are making extensive use of the network of free, fast charging points, despite the fact that the annual cost of charging their vehicle at home is estimated at just €260.

However, they also reveal that the overall use of the public charging infrastructure is still relatively low.

An analysis of usage of six fast charging points located at motorway stops on the M1 and M4 in 2014 show that less than one vehicle used each location on average each day. The average time spent using the fast charging point was around 25 minutes.

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The third time I drove the PIP into town, to a job site where I already had the crane set up, as I got out of the car and walked towards the crane, I happened to notice I had fortuitously parked in the perfect location to get a free charge! This is the main power pole delivering power to the entire job site, and I gave it a second's thought and went "what the hell", and plugged it in. No one even noticed. I guess this classifies as guerrilla charging? This gave me 11 miles of EV travel when I drove home later, plus 3 miles of going to a lunch spot and back. Getting in and soundlessly gliding off, while others started their pickup trucks and probably got 15 mpg on their lunch run, was an odd feeling. The overwhelming emotion, or thought anyways, was :"this is the future, that is the past."

Just for historical perspective, not that ANY of us would ever pull something like that, you're saying this was 120v or 240v? You carrying what charger with you at the time?

120vac, stowed in car at all times. I think the charger is built into the car, it came with a heavy 25' cord with a small box on one end, that I think may be a GFI, not sure. About 2- 2.5 KW, at rates here about 15 to 20 cents. State owned/ funded project, 3 million dollars worth, make that 3 mil and 20 cents!

Sounds like they just need more EVs.

Our charging stations in Cali are slammed regularly.

Strangely, the car you see charging more than any other the GM Volt. Most owners HATE burning any gas and it's only a very short range EV so they charge everywhere they go. From an environmental perspective thats great to not have them also burning gas, but what a poor range EV burdened with all the cost and mass to carry of the ICE crap.

They were saying the original Volt was supposed to be good for 40 miles, but the owners say more like 30. They're claiming 53 miles this year. I don't think there's anything strange about seeing them as long as they're SELLING, and they are. Expect them to turn up.

So... LOTS of (empty) seats? TONS of (empty) storage capacity? And a curb weight of 3,794 pounds? Betcha it's hard to pedal...

liveforphysics said:

Sounds like they just need more EVs.

Our charging stations in Cali are slammed regularly.

Strangely, the car you see charging more than any other the GM Volt. Most owners HATE burning any gas and it's only a very short range EV so they charge everywhere they go. From an environmental perspective thats great to not have them also burning gas, but what a poor range EV burdened with all the cost and mass to carry of the ICE crap.

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Agree 100% Volts are the charger hogs in SoCal meanwhile people in full EVs who may not be able to make it home are not able to access the charger. I think all full EVs should have a "right of way" to public charging ports over vehicles that don't depend on a charge to make it home from work.

I thought about trying to build a "portable" solar trickle charger for an EV. Im guessing that the inflection point would be on battery size vs. PV wattage in full sun conditions? Depending on the battery size and SOC Im thinking the panels would need to supply at least 65% of the 1350s watt that the trickle charger draws. The obvious drawbacks is the battery may too large and the solar panels (even thin flexible) may be too numerous for practicality. Sort of like how some people bring a little Honda Generators along in the trunk just in case. This would be a much greener solution but many times bulkier until solar efficiency so much increases to reduce the surface area needed for 6-700 watts of solar.