IMO - These are interesting times we are in. The people who do not drive plugins are deciding how huge amounts of money are to be spent so as to allow plugins to charge.
I came across a piece while searching for interesting newswires for evdl members to read. This one is about newly installed EVSE which I had stopped posting about for lack of member interest (I try to measure this posts and hopefully post the one readers like first). But this one hit home as it was EVSE to be installed at a local EAA Chapter's rally location: De Anza College College in Cupertino, CA. Here are last year's images: http://brucedp12.20m.com/eaasvr2012/ The newswire http://www.lavozdeanza.com/news/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-delayed-1.3010585#.UUkasjexsxr speaks of how 10 out of 19 pre-allocated EV spots (which already have weak EV signage without EVSE, that ice-drivers ignore), will soon have EVSE installed. Its taken over a year for this to happen. The EVSE use-fee cost will be $0.55pkWh, or for plugins with a half-powered 3kW on-board charger, that would be like $1.65/hr, or for the plugins with a 6kW on-board charger, that would be like $3.30/hr. Looking at the image in the newswire, the EVSE is a GE Wattstation. After asking a mess of questions using GE's EVSE support email, I found out several things that are not painting this EVSE installation picture in a driver-friendly way. First, according to GE's EVSE map, there are few GE EVSE installed in the SF area. Next, the reply I got back from GE, states there are only two ways to enable a charge from the EVSE once you are on site. -One is to use their smart phone app and read the special code off the EVSE (not a UPC bar code, but one of those funny looking scribbles in a square thingies), -and the other is to have a GE rfid card that the EVSE can read. In either way, your GE account has to be pre-arranged as linked to a PayPal account, and you have to have either your smart phone app already installed or their EVSE card on you when you arrive. The GE Wattstation does not allow use of any other brand of rfid EVSE card, nor does it allow use of a driver's own rfid credit or debit card, nor can the driver call in to GE's toll-free number to enable the EVSE and get a charge. You might think that GE's method is a bit of a hardship on the driver by being rather inflexible in the driver's use-fee payment options, and I would agree with you. Or you may think well what is the big deal, other EVSE companies require their own rfid card be used, so what? The majority of EVSE in the SF area are either Chargepoint, or Blink, with a small amount of semaconnect. But if a driver shows up because a EV Charging finder app/site says the College has EVSE, and the driver does not have any of those EVSE brand's rfid cards, the driver is not totally stuck, like with a GE EVSE. A driver can call into any of those three EVSE company's toll-free telephone number and enable the charge via a credit card, or other payment method, on-the-spot/right-then-and-there. So, what type of EVSE a site uses is pretty important, especially now that there are plenty of plugin vehicles on the road. Back in the day when credit cards were a fairly new thing, each petrol company had their own card, the host had to carry their particular multi-layered-carbon-copy forms to use them, and ice-drivers carried a wallet full of plastic gas cards of each brand. When Visa, Mastercard, and others were allowed as payment at these stations, that reduced the need to carry around all that plastic. Seems to me, with Chargepoint allowing other EVSE to charge through their network, and the announcement that a Chargepoint or Blink rfid card will work or either EVSE, that GE is behind the curve on this. Unless of course a company or organization 'wanted' to exclude any ol' plugin driver using their EVSE, then choosing an odd-ball, outsider, non-majority EVSE brand that is inflexible in their payment options, would be a perfect choice for them. Then only the students or faculty that knows how to gain access would use the EV spots. So, the College is going to have 10 out of 19 EV spots with proprietary EVSE that few drivers will use. Hmm ... in a couple years, the College board may find the lack of EVSE use was a huge mistake and yank those spots, especially because the board was dumb-enough to locate them in up-front preferential parking-spots. This is what happened at the Costcos, the old EVSE had no logging, so clueless Costco managers ripped out the EVSE as they considered the parking spots as prime real estate. I do not think I am crying the 'sky-is-falling' here. It just looks like too much power is given to too many non-plugin driving management to waste too much money, and then for political purposes later, complain about its misuse and blame the whole plugin world for really what were their blunders. I hope historians will look back on these days and comment on 'what a wasteful way' the emergence of plugin infrastructure was handled, and state they are surprised that the beginning plugin movement did as well as it did. There is a good thing about having 10 GE Wattstation EVSE installed, though they will likely go mostly unused ... They will make great futuristic-looking perches for birds to poop on. {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Chargeabout-How-to-keep-drivers-from-using-the-EVSE-you-have-installed-tp4661948.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
