I recently purchased an electric vehicle and I’m excited about being able to charge it while I’m at the space!
However, it seems that the majority of the time I’ve pulled back to charge, there is someone working on an outdoor project in the EV charging area. (spray painting, power washing, dusting, etc…) I completely understand the need to be there because that’s the only place to access the air compressor and other power while still being outside.
After thinking about for a bit I realized this will most likely be solved by the expansion. But I wanted to start a small dialogue about it to see other’s thoughts for the short term.
Seems like the ideal solution would be to move the chargers so they aren’t located in a loading zone. In theory maybe that could be included in the electrical build out work of the expansion
As a sometimes user of the EV charging station, moving it was fairly high on my ‘want’ list, but as a cost to benefit ratio, it was difficult to argue for in any discussion had about moving the stations.
I’ve actually found it to be easier than I would have thought to get access to the plugs for my car…
@Adam_Oas While i have been able to pull in a couple times now, every time i did, someone was working there and i had to ask them to text me when they were finished. And I can’t help but think that people are wanting to work there while i’m charging, and they can’t. This makes me feel like I’m in the way and it’s not so excellent for everyone else…
I feel like we should designate an actual parking spot as close to the chargers as possible. That way the space in the back will always be free to work in. The Telsa and J1772 could share the same spot.
We would need an extension to make that happen. I’m seeing positive reviews but i don’t know if it’s a good idea to have an extension “permanent”. Maybe we could store it inside and only pull it out when it’s used?
JUST MY OPINION… I suggest eliminating the chargers. Yeah I know Tesla “Gives” us the charging stations… but it doesn’t really benefit anyone except the people who get “Free” ( Electric) Gas… Does not contribute to a less polluted environment in any appreciable way and still is charged by electricity generated by fossil fuels… While I encourage people to seek alternatives… they should be practical and if there are hardships… well no one forces you to buy an electric car. (Heck I own a hybrid but that doesn’t require any special considerations) I am not against anyone wanting an alternative but to me… things like Tesla are a failed experiment. Kudos for trying but no cigar. Now propose solar panels to generate charging electric cars… hey I’m all ears!
You and @TLAR will get along just great… go talk to him.
You won’t win any converts in this thread, so please don’t pollute it with off topic rants.
The EV Chargers are very cheap PR for us. The cost on our electric bill doesn’t even show up as a rounding error.
Edited to add: A quick summary of the “long tailpipe” rebuttal: the electricity needed to refine a gallon of gasoline would get you farther if it was put into an EV. Leave the oil in the ground.
When I worked for ARCO we often made long trips to Texas City. A lovely refinery on the Gulf Coast that is a very impressive installation.
While setting up lights for a video shoot I asked the lead engineer in the control room how much electricity it took to refine one gallon of gasoline. His answer was 6-12 kilowatts! The variation depended on how much sulphur was in the crude, sweet vs. sour. At least the sour crude produced another product stream.
Unless you go nuclear, you HAVE to use oil or coal to produce enough electricity. Can’t leave it in the ground. (" Leave oil in the ground"…Now THAT sounds like a rant.)
A micro rant first: I wish that businesses would stop putting plugins in optimal parking spots. Makes no sense. Put them way out in the back of the lot where no ICE cars will want to use those spots and block the chargers.
I don’t think anyone, in general, will disagree that the current placement of the chargers at DMS is sub-optimal, but the cost to move them is not insignificant.
PS I was SUPER happy that the charger wasn’t in use or blocked on Friday evening. I miscalculated the distance I needed to drive that day and would have had to spend about 3 hours on 110v vs 30 minutes on our shared 208v to get enough charge to get home!
Making some assumptions about what kind of power the EV chargers can deliver …
… doesn’t make it seem all that expensive from an operations perspective. We know it’s not in use terribly often and it’s doubtful that most EV’s even pull that ~10kW.
A couple dozen regional electric power stations generally located outside of population centers are more efficient and have better pollution controls than millions of automobiles operating everywhere you work and live.
We can generate electricity many ways - coal, gas, nuclear, wind, solar being the most common in this state - and the grid gets cleaner every year. Internal combustion engines can only burn a very narrow range of fuels.
The well-to-wheels game is complicated and fraught with assumptions, but ultimately every form of mechanized transportation causes some sort of pollution.
It is indeed a benefit specific to EV drivers. But it’s not like we don’t have consumables we offer up for free to users in automotive (zip-ties, hose clamps, chemicals), woodshop (sandpaper, wear on cutting tools), e-lab (solder, components), and doubtlessly other committees.
I recall prominent signs asking for EV charger users to consider tipping the space for electricity usage. Not sure if we can track that revenue or not.
Run the building a degree warmer in the summer if you want to see real operational cost savings. Heck, routinely closing the rollup doors when there’s no active transit of vehicles and materials is likely to save far more money than the EV charger.
Optimal parking spots tend to be closest to the building and power, thus less trenching/concrete-breaking/repaving and overall disruption. No argument that this leads to them routinely being ICE’d. Fry’s in Irving had an EV spot for a while up front (with no charger) that was treated as just another parking spot.
I’ve always thought that light standards would be decent EV charging spots, but those might not be rated for sufficient current (quad 400W MHI lamps are about the same as a household 110V outlet) and probably switch power at the building rather than the pole, rendering that mode of deployment more troublesome.
I assume you mean 6-12 kilowatt hours. Sound good. So I looked up the EPA info for a 2014RAV4 electric vs a RAV4 gasoline just so that there is time on the road, time for evaluation and an apples to apples comparison (same weight and size car). Their numbers give 3.8gal/100 miles and 44KWH/100 miles. On the high end of your numbers the gas powered 3.8 gals translates to 45.6KWH/100 miles. A 1.6 KWH savings. Hey times 1000 cars or more that’s actually an impressive number. The problem is that is at 12KWH/gal. At 6KWH/gal… not so good. This is the reason I don’t see the point of the chargers.
Since this is a post for dialogue, I’d like to see the charging stations expanded but reasonably close to the building and power and air accessible further away so there isn’t a space conflict.
I’ve heard a wide variety of claims as to how much electricity goes into making a gallon of gasoline. There are two general need as best I can tell - process heat and pumping. Process heat can come from anything - electricity avoids emissions, but costs more than burning petroleum which refineries have in abundance. There’s pumping to be done which is much more likely to be electric but doesn’t absolutely have to be.
No, the real comparison between say the RAV4 ICE and RAV4EV is the gross energy consumption. There’s something like 33kWH of energy in a gallon of gasoline which is what’s delivered to the customer regardless of the process heat used. So compare the delivery at the pump for the RAV4 ICE to the wall plug for the RAV4EV: 125.4kWh for the RAV4 ICE vs the 44kWH for the RAV4EV. Or look at the price - what the consumer truly cares about - 44kWh @ $0.11/kWH is $4.84 vs 3.8 gallons at $2.75/gallon is $10.45. Our example gasoline is slightly cheaper per thermal kWH than our electricity, but the RAV4 ICE needs almost three times as much energy to do the same work as the RAVEV. If gas were markedly cheaper - such as the glory days of ~$1 a gallon - the math would be far more advantageous for the RAV4 ICE.
That would be desirable, however priority on usage of available funds suggests it’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
Charger(s) mounted on a bollard on the stripe between parking spaces would probably be ideal - able to reach some 4+ spaces without major gymnastics:
Got it…costs are a problem. But I would encourage the Space to start some kind of plan to make it a reality. As long as the chargers are treated as an ugly step child, this discussion will keep coming up. As far as electric vs gas… I’ve watched Jurassic Park too many times.
The current placement is indeed sub-optimal, but I recall that the Tesla charger and its installation cost was provided by their namesake and I believe that the J1772 charger is on the same circuit thus our capital cost was quite low. Despite being a charger that Tesla owners can find using the factory nav, I don’t know that we have randoms show up and start using it very often.
BEV’s can’t possibly be everything to everyone, something that can be said about pretty much every genre of vehicle.
I took a long hard look at the Volt ~15 months ago and decided I didn’t like it for reasons of cost, the fact that adults can’t really sit in the backseat, visibility (A-Pillars are really far forward), and the fact I’d still be burning gas on my ~60 mile round trip commute. Bolt wasn’t really available at the time and suffers from the same malaise as pretty much every EV not made by Tesla - boring FWD drivetrains and the most meh of styling - and was more than I wanted to pay. Admittedly, a WRX is sort of 180° out of phase relative to those choices. I expect that by the time I’ve got the WRX paid off there will be more interesting EV’s on the market.
Thanks Stan, but I’m not in for this rabbit hole spiral…
I’ll stick with my super efficient non EV & non hybrid non gas burning vehicle.
For the record - the chargers should stay - they are part of the Space. They are like anything else in the workshop - if someone’s project is in the way, be patient and ask when they might be done or if they can move.
