Tim Hortons announces EV charging station pilot

Now that's what i'm talking about

Nice to see some good news!

That's huge, especially since the story says TH is actually considering putting charging stations at every restaurant. Could you imagine the impact on EV charging infrastructure if every McDonald's in the U.S. had a couple of Level 2 charging slots? Not a bad idea for McD either, since the most obvious thing to do while waiting 30-40 minutes to add some miles to one's battery is sit down for a Big Mac and a Coke. Giving away electricity is cheaper than a coupon!

This kind of locating is a natural. Here in Albuquerque, aside from a curbside city-owned demo spot downtown, the only public charging station is a pair of complimentary Level 2 charging spots at Latitudes, a fancy gas station/cafe/convenience store (golatitudes.com) in next-door Rio Rancho on ABQ's west side. Again, if you need to charge a little to pad the comfort margin a bit, the most obvious thing to do is browse the store and take a seat in the cafe with a drink and a sandwich, worth a lot more to them than the paltry KWh your i's sipping out in the lot.

This is great news.

This is what I was hoping to Encourage by leaving a courtesy card, thanking any establishment for offering charging facilities and make it possible for me to charge up while I shop there.

Now if we could get McDonald to do the same

I seriously doubt that this will help to promote electric vehicles. Here, in Estonia we have decent network of public fast chargers (one public fast charger per each 4 EV-s; or 1 per 277 km2 = average distance between chargers is 16,7 km). According to the statistics the average usage is around 7 kWh (worth ~1€) per one fast charging. With a Nissan Leaf it takes 8 fast chargings to drive from Tallinn to Tartu and back (distance 2x185 km) at ambient temperature around zero degrees Celsius. Safe distance between chargings is ~65 km. 100 km is unreachable without topping up in between.
With level 2 charging it takes a lot more time for charging significant amount of battery capacity, than it can be normally spent at a burger restaurant. Besides, the share of electric vehicles is too small to increase number of the customers. I think it would be more effective if the restaurant offers free litre of gasoline for their customers.

See source (and video) [Google translated Estonian news]

Kuuuurija said:

With level 2 charging it takes a lot more time for charging significant amount of battery capacity, than it can be normally spent at a burger restaurant. Besides, the share of electric vehicles is too small to increase number of the customers. I think it would be more effective if the restaurant offers free litre of gasoline for their customers.

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Nope, no sale. Couple of problems with this "reasoning":

1. What I'm talking about is NOT "significant" charging, like highway travel plaza L3 charging to let you drive cross country (and yes, I do share the general skepticism about using an EV this way, stopping every hour for a 20-minute slam to the battery, so let's move on). I refer instead to opportunity L2 charging to let you run more errands around town, incrementally extending range (and as a practical matter, reducing range anxiety). A L3 charging facility is very expensive compared to L2, even with some of the recent reductions in the cost of the chargers themselves, mainly because the draw of a 50KW CHAdeMO or CCS box changes the very nature of the electrical service you need**. As to numbers of customers, you're just rehashing the whole chicken and egg problem, but I think PHEVs like the Prius PlugIn and C-Max Energi might combine with the Volt to start making this worthwhile in certain areas; BEVs would just be along for the ride (at least for now). But I guess we'll have to see.
**In fairness on that point, I should acknowledge I've read that 25KW quick-charge stations take a big bite out of that problem, and compared with 50KW would add less to charging time than one might expect. Fuji Electric makes their case in this slide presentation PDF:
http://www.americas.fujielectric.co... Comparison Study (25kW vs 50kW) 7-3-12.pdf

2. I realize you're trying to make some point about the futility of offering free charging as a promotional gimmick (and see point 1. above on that), but good Lord - you wanna compare it unfavorably with giving away gasoline? Kinda over-extending ourselves to reach that conclusion, huh? Even in the good ol' USA, home of stupid cheap gasoline, a litre's gonna cost about a buck - and LOTS of people would take you up on that. Given that setting up a gasoline tank and pump is stupid expensive (the environmental hazard liability alone, fer chrissake), much more so than a dinky little L2 charger or two, and there is zero green cred to be earned pumping gas, much less stinking up your fast food emporium with the stuff, that just makes no sense at all unless you're already in one of those combined gas/convenience/sandwich shops.

As I mentioned, here in Estonia the average consumption per charging from public fast charger is 7 kWh. At current electricity price level, this amount costs about 1...1.1 € (if charged at home or at work) or 1.2...5 € (if charged at public fast charger). 1 litre of gasoline costs 1.35 €. Not so much different, than you seem to think. If some restaurants seek for some promotion, then giving away one free litre of gasoline/diesel fuel per visit has 700000 potential targets and should have much more effect than giving away one free fast charging per visit, that has only 600 potential targets.

I have a problem with having to be stuck in one location waiting on a charge .
Having free or many charging locations available, frees me up from this situation.


Possibly this scenario would eventually be an option

Charging companies offer many locations through out the greater Montreal area-
usually unlimited time for a flat fee - 2.50

On some days I would be interested in a Day Pass
allowing me to use any station on their network,
freeing me to travel to more destinations and
still opportunity charge up.

1 hour here, 1/2 there, 15 minutes over there
lunch, shopping, meetings, banking, etc

Kuuuurija said:

I seriously doubt that this will help to promote electric vehicles. Here, in Estonia we have decent network of public fast chargers . . . .

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Here in the USA it would be a HUGE boost to EV sales, without a doubt

Most cities and towns here have zero public charging options and that alone makes most people think an EV is next to useless. If they knew that even a few of the places they liked to shop, eat or recreate at had charging stations which could give them a few miles of juice, many more folks would start to think of EV's as a 'real car'

Even though we've had our car for 8 months now, it has still never received ANY charge anywhere except for in our garage, so we're still looking for the first public charging station to be installed - Whatever store finally does it, we'll patronize them even if we don't need any juice just as a way of saying thanks for doing this . . . . the charging spaces will probably all be taken up by people driving Chevy Volts anyway :roll:

If every McDonalds worldwide was to install just one charging space, it would be a real game changer - If WalMart was to do it, they would see lots of folks change their buying habits I'm sure

Don

Estonian network of public fast chargers is not motivating enough to change car buyers preferences towards EV-s. I think it is just an illusion, that some level2 chargers available at burger restaurants can change anything.

If you look at the map, the yellow markings are for chargers currently in use. Red ones are chargers under construction.
What an overkill!

Don said:

If every McDonalds worldwide was to install just one charging space, it would be a real game changer - If WalMart was to do it, they would see lots of folks change their buying habits I'm sure
Don

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It's starting to happen up here in the Northwest, Don. There's a beloved merchant called Fred Meyer (originally local, now owned by Kroger) that is basically a Super Wal-Mart with union labor, so all the lefties shop there while sneering at Wal-Mart. :mrgreen: Freddy's has installed J1772 at a number of locations, and EV drivers are making a point to point out their patronage to the managers. Being a superstore, one can often exceed an hour inside, so it meets my rule-of-thumb for practical Level 2 opportunity charging.
Wal-Mart and similar stores could easily justify onsite charging under their unofficial motto of "If we ain't got it, you don't need it!".

The Walmart down the street from us had two EV chargers in the first two spaces and someone knocked the first one down (It hasn't been replaced yet). There are signs that say electric car parking only and as we walked away from the working space a huge Suburban SUV with a cow catcher bumper pulled in and my wife let him have it saying those spaces are for EV's only to which he replied "Someone knocked the other charger down so it's an "open" space now"... I've been waiting to see when the remaining one ends up missing ...

That sounds pretty good. In addition to that, I also wanna say that New York City's Mayor Bloomberg has called for incorporating 10,000 new EV charging stations in the city before 2020. The effort was only one of the clean technology actions suggested in the mayor's 12th and final State of the city address. Get more info here: New EV Charging Stations by 2020.