Coin Operated Charging

[steeeve]

I am about to move to Colorado. I noticed H.B. 1258 was signed on 5/3/2012. This allows for individuals to sell electricity for the recharging of electric vehicles. I thought it would be cool to get e-bike/ev charging stations that were coin operated. You plug into the charging station with your own charger and prepay. The machine charges your vehicle for a certain cost per kWh and the leftover money is returned to the customer. You could list the location online and people would use it when needed.

Thoughts?

 

[Ykick]

Imagine if someone cleverly re-purposed old pay phones like these:

http://freeversephotography.com/freeversephotoblog/2013/06/16/payphone-graveyard/

 

[steeeve]

That is a great idea. I know there are tons of those out there, it would make a great platform for the charging stations.

 

[hydro-one]

ive thought of this too. k lets design one. so we need a coin acceptor, or swipe for bank card/ credit card.

coin acceptor/storage
relay to turn on socket
gfci to monitor for faults
current monitor (simple loop sensor like ac ammeter?)
microcontroller/telemetry


if enough are deployed in one are eg a parking lot. we could have them linked together via zigbee to a main unit which would contain cellular and video monitoring, along with realtime revenue reporting .

 

[bowlofsalad]

You might be interested in http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=50515 reading this thread.

 

[steeeve]

ive thought of this too. k lets desi

It couldn't be that hard to arrange this.

It would need a way to estimate money per charge based on the person's battery. This could reduce the volume of change/money the machine is required to hold. Also, it would be cool if it could print a ticket with a code. This would prevent theft of the returnable money by only dispensing money once the code is entered.

 

[mattrb]

I believe a better solution to our problems would be a coin operated muzzle for a wife or a girlfriend.

 

[Punx0r]

They already make coin-operated electricity meters

It would just need a casing for weather/vandal protection. I wouldn't bother with the complexity of returning change, just make it clear how much you get for X coins inserted. As long as the overall cost is reasonable I doubt anyone will be concerned with recovering a few pence/cents. With unused credit available to the next user it ought to be similar in mentality to a take-a-penny-leave-a-penny dish.

 

[corim123]

Are you just here to spam your stupid app?

 

[bowlofsalad]

Imagine if someone cleverly re-purposed old pay phones like these:

http://freeversephotography.com/freeversephotoblog/2013/06/16/payphone-graveyard/

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/09/lets-make-old-payphones-ev-chargers/6760/

Maybe they read Ykick's idea.

 

[dogman dan]

Simple thing would be to make it just run for x wh per cent. You want 250wh, put in a nickel, you want 300wh put in a nickel and a penny. Unused wh would be available for free to the next person.

I'm thinking in terms of ebikes that would charge for less than a quarter. For cars, you'd need a phone line and a card swiper.

But what I'd really like to see is just free power at bike racks. Especially at stores and restaraunts. Not where a car could charge up easy an run up the bill a lot.

For other public spaces, have a fund set up with the E company to cover the costs of the power to that plug. Then folks with money and a big heart could go and donate to a fund that pays the bill for ebikes and scooters to charge free.

 

[t3sla]

They have these in China, I'll try take a snap.
It's got a coin slot, voltage selector and a few common charge leads.

 

[liveforphysics]

You would have more money and a better user experience if you simply left out the charging-money part for people to use the electricity.

Ever seen parking lots in cold places? Weatherproof outlet installed in every parking slot for people's engine block heaters to be plugged in while they shop or eat or whatever.

When you're not making a stupid "charge station", and rather just providing an outlet for people to use, the cost per slot people can charge from is radically low.

I would imagine for the price of a single pointless J1772 "charge station" you could afford to install 10 x RV weatherproof outdoor campground 220v outlets/circuits, and each one supports higher power than a J1772.

 

[Lock]

Hey! I saw that (this thread)! Hi all (and LFP)... I know it costs just pennies for an ebiker to maybe "take a break" and plug in for a bit... But it might be *nice* if those charging "stations" accepted some coin that the machine or signage promised would be donated to some favorite charity... Like, oh, I don't know... like Endless Sphere? Or the "Help an old ebiker fund", or something?

Just a thought...

L

 

[friendly1uk]

Coins would be good, but then theft becomes more of an issue, and what good is a smashed up machine when you arrive needing a charge. Plastic might be the only way forward.

We have a council run park and ride scheme* where there are charge bays. They take an unknown plastic card, and the council websites don't list charging as a facility at any of there sites. There is no sign near the machines explaining anything. They offer a pair of 32A 230v commando sockets though if they were any use.





* Park and ride is situated on the outskirts of town. You park there and the last leg of your journey to town is by bus. Saving city center parking charges.

 

[liveforphysics]

Put a sticker on the simple weatherproof outlet box with a Paypal or google wallet address.

Or even a simple $0.10 RFID tag people can swipe with there phone to pull up a paypal donation page if you like.

Things that require humans interfacing with them to collect coins or something, and coin mechanisms being clogged up and needing regular servicing, as well as blowing the system cost up by perhaps >10,000% with the end goal of giving a worse user experience just seems silly.

 

[Lock]

Yes... Card-based payment systems do seem to promote longer lineups at some establishments, don't they? Plus it maybe easier for some not to "tip" the crew/employees so much...

L

 

[hydro-one]

k , the electric meter will run on credits that are established online. you will be issued a token(rfid chipo) and you just have to swipe the token and we will take care of the rest. We will even allow you to use some "credit" --eg charge for free and pay later. hows that for user experiance. the token will be avail at 711 and walmart. i know LFP is dreaming of my homeland winnipeg where charge receptacles are everywhere (not at malls tho haha). and yes ive never paid for charging , but i would have no problem paying a quarter for a place to sit and charge up my bike without "stealing" power.;..

 

[liveforphysics]

k , the electric meter will run on credits that are established online. you will be issued a token(rfid chipo) and you just have to swipe the token and we will take care of the rest. We will even allow you to use some "credit" --eg charge for free and pay later. hows that for user experiance. the token will be avail at 711 and walmart. i know LFP is dreaming of my homeland winnipeg where charge receptacles are everywhere (not at malls tho haha). and yes ive never paid for charging , but i would have no problem paying a quarter for a place to sit and charge up my bike without "stealing" power.;..

But why? To cost the person who provided the outlet more money/time/hassle in exchange for a few quarters or to create a situation were you need some token or whatever that you may or may not have?

Let's say, 12hrs a day you have a pair of 250w ebike chargers plugged into your outlet. This costs you ~$0.60. Let's say it takes quarters or whatever, each week you have to pay some guy to go empty your quarters or whatever, and yet your expense for the entire month of electricity with 2 x 250w chargers on it 12hrs out of everyday that month was only $18.

Part of the beauty of electric charging infrastructure is the reduction of parasitic resource wastes, like having somebody go around picking up quarters or whatever and servicing the machines, not to mention making the initial costs many orders of magnitude greater to install.

Put a donate sticker on it. I personally wouldn't pay on principal, but I would happily donate $10-20 for somebody who did something cool that improves EV user experience and isn't being a short-sighted corporate douche. Depending on how many ebikes actually used it, a single donation might cover the entire years electricity.

If you've read much about the open-book model vs closed-book model, or open-music vs closed-music model, open-app's vs closed-apps, etc cutting out all the overhead and simply giving your service away freely with a 'donate if you like it' page or link or whatever makes serious money, and WORKS.

In a world were the resources the government steals from it's productive people are focused on more than organizing large scale invasion and murdering, you would have 'free' government EV charge stations everywhere. Who pays you ask? This would be reducing your countries expenses in a huge way over the alternative option of you burning gasoline to get somewhere, as a large portion of each gallon is subsidized due to oil company/government corruption.

 

[John in CR]

There's no way to make money with it. I agree with LFP, ie just make it free. The amounts are so small that it could never pay for the coin operated mechanism. Maybe someday in the future when the system recognizes your vehicle via some handshake when you connect and it automatically bills you, then it could work, but what will kill it will be the businesses offering free charging for customers while they shop....now that's the idea to pursue. Once ebikes get a certain level of momentum, then sell the charging system to retail businesses. Be sure to include a secure area where ebikes can park and charge with no worries about theft, along with the primo parking spaces for electric cars to charge.

 

[dogman dan]

Exactly what I was thinking, just make it free, provided by the business. Or if provided by a non profit, have a way to go on line and donate.

You could have a deal on your electric bill, check this box if you'd like to donate a buck to free charging stations that would be part of city infrastructure, such as outlets at streetlights in the parks.

 

[friendly1uk]

The electricity is not the real cost. It is not the installation either. It is the ground rent. I find it odd that anyone expects free parking and free electricity. If I offered such a thing it would be for 90 minutes maximum for store customers only. 300w limit. That gives customers 10 miles and costs about 10p (15c) in power alone. This would keep all day parkers from hogging the outlets and the 300w limit would make hanging around the store for a while more likely. I think coffee shops with free wifi might be ideal locations, as some are allowed to spill out on to the street.

 

[Ykick]

Obviously, coin-op is a thing of the past but the old payphone hulks would appear to be sturdy housings for small charging ports.

Tesla offering free charging for it's customers, it will only be a matter of time before restaurants and/or store merchants along busy routes realize the potential of EV's as customers and offer "charging while you shop, browse or dine".

 

[Lock]

"...it will only be a matter of time..."

So, how much time? (Some old guys are curious, maybe are impatient... dunno how long they have to "wait"... Hehe...)
L

 

[Dauntless]

Mostly it's impractical. Large numbers of abandoned phone booths are indoors, such as hotels which once had walls lined with phones. Gas stations which once had 3 phones are down to 1, with booths that just weren't put in a good location for a charger. The wiring that was run for a phone isn't going to carry the current for serious charging. You'd basically starting all over from the start.

Gotta go with Mr. Physics on the startup cost of pay chargers. My own thought is that public charging will remain a novelty in search of sponsorship. Walgreens has chargers, as long as they wish to pay for it that's fine. Maybe the malls will get a few with 'Brought to you by. . . .' signs. But I don't think there will be mass charging available prior to some paradigm shift in the technology to make it cheaper to install and operate, whether it's pay or free.

If you're in California, I'm sure you're familiar around your neighborhood with large numbers of abandoned chargers from that great expansion some 15 years ago, even places where those have been removed. I don't see how it will remain novel enough to the providers to go on providing the free charging. It'll happen again as the novelty wears off.