I've been involved with EVs for almost two decades, but I just used an EVSE for the first time a couple of weeks ago on my new-to-me i-MiEV. So please forgive me if I'm a bit slow on this topic.
See, living on the east coast (Philadelphia suburbs) means living in an EVSE desert. Up until recently the only EVs I'd seen were hobbyist cars that plugged into range and dryer outlets. Then came the Teslas, which seem to be more common around here than ICE Mercedes. But they have 260+ mile range, so I literally have never seen one charging. Never seen a Supercharger station. They charge at home. I've seen a few Leafs (Leaves?) and i3s, but only on the road, and certainly no more than five of each. My i-MiEV is not only the only one anyone has ever seen around here, no one has even heard of it. "An eye-what?!? Do they sell those in this country?" So I find myself rather embarrassingly ill-equipped to advise my employer about installing EVSE stations. I can get to work and back OK if I drive conscientiously, but not during winter. An EVSE at work would be very handy. There are some receptive ears at work and there is a substantial parking lot expansion coming up, so I convinced them to at least plan for getting some power out there. And I, being the closest thing they have to an expert on EVSE, would get back to them with my recommendations. So here's my main concern - in this area EVs needing a charge are *really* rare. That will certainly change, but I wonder if that change will be driven largely by acceptance of the soon-to-be-available 200 mile range EVs we keep hearing about - which will have much less need for at-work EVSE. Is there going to be a shift toward residential EVSE? My gut tells me my employer (with a head count of around 300) should lay power for three EVSE spots and install one, situated so two to four parking spaces can use it. Add others as/when needed. These would likely be at the back of the lot, near an outbuilding that already has power. Thoughts? Other finer points - recommendations for commercial-use EVSE? Pros and cons of different layouts (serving side-by-side spaces or one in the middle of two spaces on each side of a parking row)? Charging rate - what's really needed? Indicators on the EVSE to show if charging? (My i-MiEV dashboard indicator is very hard to see from outside the car.) Do any of these have a network connection to email the EV-driver employees? What are the little details of living with EVSE that can be optimized with a little forethought? Chris -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20151011/bb31b433/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
