I Couldn't Wait

[RUCRAYZE]

Sethodine- what's the "range" of costs for a public station?

 

[Coss]

Plugshare.com shows several stations around Battleground, WA, but mostly along the I-5 corridor. Note that the blue ones are privately-owned by people who share their home charging stations with other PlugShare members. Pretty neat!

That map confirms what I was saying, no stations in Battle Ground. That cluster of stations in Orchards is right by the shopping mall, makes sense that the park, charge and shop are there. The other cluster where I-5 and I-205 split is right by a hospital and medical clinics; another place where sitting and waiting is common. The one part I question the accuracy of the map is the 2 stations on I-5 by Ridgefield and just below it where Hwy 502 connects to I-5, I think they have them reversed; the one where 502 and I-5 meet is the Rest Stop and I know that one is a High Power station, the one by Ridgefield is the truck scales.

 

[Sethodine]

Sethodine- what's the "range" of costs for a public station?

That's hard to say. Many businesses install Free ones to encourage park-and-shop behavior. Others charge, but there is no industry standard. Some charge by the hour (say, $2 per hour), while others charge per Kilowatt/Hour (perhaps $2 per kw/h). Some have time limits, while others have minimum purchase amounts.

You don't often see a station charging more than $2 per unit-of-measurement, but there are so many free stations around that you really only need pay-stations for an emergency. In all the time we've owned our Leaf (almost exactly a year now!) we've used public stations less than 10 times, and paid only once. Nightly trickle-charging is by far the easiest and most convenient for us.

Once (and only once) my wife accidentally over-extended her range, and had to plug the trickle-charger into an exterior power outlet at a local gas station for a couple hours

 

[Jambe]

Sorry, bit I don't have this figured out yet...
Which vehicles can use these charging stations shown on Plugshare.com? Can a Volt use a Leaf or Prius charging station? Tesla can only use proprietary Tesla charging stations--right?

 

[Sethodine]

Sorry, bit I don't have this figured out yet...
Which vehicles can use these charging stations shown on Plugshare.com? Can a Volt use a Leaf or Prius charging station? Tesla can only use proprietary Tesla charging stations--right?

All commercially-available EVs sold in North America are equipped with an SAE J1772 socket, which is what most charging stations use. Most also come with either a plug or a charge adapter that lets them connect to a standard household 110v outlet. I mention this, because every public charge station I have ever seen also has a 110v socket in case the J1772 sockets are all being used. (also handy for charging up, say, an electric bicycle).

Only the DC fast-charging stations are proprietary (orange stations on PlugShare). These are the stations that can get your battery up to 80% in 30-45 min. There are three kinds of DC fast-charge connectors:

• Tesla Supercharger: for Teslas Only (universally free, and all Teslas have the connector as standard equipment)
• CHAdeMO: the protocal used by most Japanese cars (if equipped)
• Combined Charging System: the protocal used by most American and European cars (if equipped)

 

[Coss]

I was just browsing and found Home Depot will sell you the equipment for setting up a private or public charging station


Electric Car Chargers - Alternative Energy Solutions - The Home Depot

 

[Smitty]

Irony?

 

[W. WIllie]

Road Call!

 

[WilliamH]

Irony?

Classic!

 

[Thomas Maule]

I just want my old truck to keep working till I get my elio.... I want to store the vehicle as an emergency backup while its still hard/impossible to get a quick insurance replacement, then sell it...