What do you think about DC charging stations?

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ElectricLianna

New member
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
3
Hey everyone! I am a researcher at UC Berkeley and an electric vehicle enthusiast. I wanted to let you know that:

UC Berkeley is conducting a study to explore how current and potential electric vehicle drivers may benefit from the introduction of fast charging infrastructure.

To help UC Berkeley and automakers understand how fast chargers may be used, please take this survey and send the survey to friends!

You are eligible to complete this survey if you are over 21 years of age. Those who complete the survey will have a chance to receive an iPod Nano! This survey should take no longer than 8 minutes!

If you do not drive a plug in electric vehicle, take this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NonEVDriver

If you drive a plug in electric vehicle, take this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/EVDriver

Let's keep expanding the EV community! We really appreciate your help!
 
no consideration to multiple ev's on the survey
what if someone doesn't want to disclose income range?
 
I just completed the survey. From the OP's posting, to me it sounds like its for EV owners that HAVE access to Fast Chargers but its for everyone with or without access to Fast Chargers. What a dream to be able to use one of those.
 
I was left a little perplexed by the survey, as I found it difficult to get my point across:

Fast charging's utility is for the longer-distance traveller and NOT for use by locals at the supermarket or mall. A side-benefit of QC is that it will reduce the probability of being locked-out of charging by a PHEV or another EV.

Sounded as though they were trying to make a case for fast charging to be as ubiquitous as gas stations.

The number one question I hear is "range" and "range anxiety". I deal with this topic by educating the questioner and not pandering to their ignorance.
 
I also found it hard to convey in the Survey what I want in terms of Fast Charge Locations.
One of the things I remember vividly from my trip back East was the Turnpikes.
They had locations all along the Turnpike where you could get off the Turnpike without exiting the system.
These locations had gas stations, shops, food, restrooms, parks, etc. all very convenient right off the road.

Here on the West Coast, especially on I-5, we have Rest Areas too. But all they have on the exit is a restroom and picnic tables. Great place to put some quick charge stations, but with nothing to do. :(

I don't expect to charge up at the Grocery Store or Library or anywhere local - unless it is completely free to do so.
I'd want to charge up when I need to go further than my range limit. Otherwise, I'd just charge up at home.
I suppose if I lived further from work, charging at work would be important. But then I'd just choose to move closer to work. Never could understand wasting long hours in traffic.

So, to be useful for me. Need to be along main routes of travel, easy to find, with something to do while I wait. I really don't mind taking a 20 min break from driving every hr or so. I actually do that already on trips longer than an hour.
 
I'm personally all for any extra opportunity to use my "I" I live in a rural area and wish I could eliminate any unnecessary use of my ICE truck, if there were dc charging stations at all fuel stops that would cut my use of the truck by 2/3, for example tonight I'm heading to the cottage and other than a chainsaw and a few tools I hate to admit that I don't need the bed, with one QC I could make it and charge from my solar and one more QC on the way home, plus think of the popularity EVs would gain if all the sudden long distance trips became attainable for everyone, nobody would need dead dinosaurs!
 
Thank you all for taking this survey--I am still collecting survey results up through this week.

I will take all of the concerns and comments that you posted here and incorporate them into the results. Everything that you have said is very valid! Feel free to write comments such as these in the 'do you have anything else to share' section. These comments are very important!
 
My own perspective is a bit different from the ones I've seen expressed here so far. I think quick charging (QC) is more about extending local and near regional travel, not long distance driving. Long distance driving requires really big batteries, and so far that means Tesla. Batteries capable of driving 200 miles or more at a go don't need to interrupt the journey as often for lengthy charging sessions. That said, those charging sessions would get REALLY long with conventional level 2 charging, hence Tesla's emphasis on building out a SuperCharger infrastructure for their customers to support coast-to-coast travel. While QC (or SC) is a big help for Teslas, it only makes long distance travel marginally possible for BEVs of conventional capacity, not truly feasible. Especially at freeway speeds, a LEAF would have to take a half hour break every hour (roughly speaking) to take on the required energy at QC stations. Even if such a pace were acceptable, the Li-ion chemistries used in BEVs for the North American market are none too happy with frequent QC sessions - several "slams" in a single day would not be recommended because of the harm it would do battery longevity and long-term capacity (Japanese market i-MiEVs have the option of using slightly lower-capacity Toshiba SCiBs that are more tolerant of frequent QC).

For real world purposes, the major value of QC is for occasionally extending the range of our BEVs for a particularly challenging day of activity, perhaps to take an infrequent trip to the other side of town or a nearby neighboring city. Without QC, such a day's itinerary would have to include charging sessions at every stop (described with the cheerful euphemism "opportunity charging" by EV fans), or be broken into smaller segments separated by lengthy home stays to get charged back up (so possibly over a couple of days). Providing a rationally distributed, rationally priced network of QC stations could move a lot of potential buyers from the "BEV meets 90% of my needs" column to the "BEV meets 100% of my needs" column. That's the real significance of the issue, something I'm not sure this survey captures.
 
Vike said:
For real world purposes, the major value of QC is for occasionally extending the range of our BEVs for a particularly challenging day of activity, perhaps to take an infrequent trip to the other side of town or a nearby neighboring city. Without QC, such a day's itinerary would have to include charging sessions at every stop (described with the cheerful euphemism "opportunity charging" by EV fans), or be broken into smaller segments separated by lengthy home stays to get charged back up (so possibly over a couple of days). Providing a rationally distributed, rationally priced network of QC stations could move a lot of potential buyers from the "BEV meets 90% of my needs" column to the "BEV meets 100% of my needs" column. That's the real significance of the issue, something I'm not sure this survey captures.


I agree with this at this time with today's battery limitations for small vehicles but it all changes ( soon I hope) with new Battery developments that could double or more than double the range of these smaller vehicles.
 
I'll give Vike a hearty second and differ a bit with Joe. I use DCFC close to home a couple of times per week, enabling most Saturdays with the Family Circus to exceed 100 miles, and a double-dip commute twice per week, when my wife heads out for the graveyard shift after i arrive home. That's a minimum 87 mile day.

However, I've only made two i-road trips outside a 100 mile radius, and won't do so often until my pusher trailer is practical. Having to hit EVery DCFC along the west coast electric highway (35-40 mile spacing) and waiting behind a LEAF at least once or twice pretty much doubles the duration of the driving.

Plus, I've pushed back against Aerovironment's pricing plan, quoted below. The $20/mo unlimited subscription is a bad deal for occasional users, and the $7.50 single charge fee is way too hi for an i. They could've fixed it with pay-by-the-minute DCFC (which costa about 8 cents for a minute at 50 kW around here, but I'd gladly pay 25 cents). Instead, they're gaming the situation. Since the Aerovironment networks skips over metro areas, it forces us to subscribe both to AVI and Blink.


We are proud to provide drivers with an expanding network of charging stations. Subscribe to our network and get access with your personal AV keyfob to the most advanced charging stations in the country.

If you are a current subscriber there is no activation fee. If you are a new subscriber, there will be a one-time activation fee of $15 and you will receive your AV keyfob to access the stations.

There is also the option of paying per session:
$7.50/Session – DC Fast Charger
$4.00/Session – Level 2 Charging Station
(Per session payment is only available by calling our Customer Service Support Line at 888-833-2148).

The Electric Highway gives electric vehicle drivers “range confidence” that recharging is available should they want to travel between communities or make long distance road trips. Knowing that charging is easy and convenient helps encourage residents and businesses to buy and drive plug-in electric vehicles. Increasing the market demand for electric vehicles helps reduce the transportation sector’s impact upon the environment and dependency on foreign oil.
(Per session payment is only available by calling our Customer Service Support Line at 888-833-2148)
.
 
Vike, as always, you've expressed your ideas very well and I agree with you wholeheartedly.

When I said "Fast charging's utility is for the longer-distance traveller…" I should have quantified this as I had in mind round trips of 100-150 miles. I've done a number of (pre-planned) 200-mile day trips without QC; however, even when one has the luxury of dawdling, then, even with QC, trips of that length or longer allow us to stop and smell the roses a bit too often.

jray3, agree with you about pushback of Aerovironment - the cost should be a function of energy delivered. I'm not clear about the recurring costs incurred by the QC suppliers tied into the grid and needing to have significant kW available when needed - I understand there's a significant cost associated with such standby capability.

I read recently that it's the job of marketing to pander to people's perceptions - something Tesla has done admirably, taking away every single EV negative one can think of (even price at the luxury-car level). Their SuperCharger implementation has given them a wonderful multi-year lead as the only viable long-distance BEV, with no competition in sight.

For myself and the foreseeable future, even if I upgrade to a non-Tesla BEV with QC, it will still not meet the long-distance needs that my 77mpg (lifetime) Gen1 Honda Insight satisfies so admirably.
 
jray3 said:
I'll give Vike a hearty second and differ a bit with Joe. I use DCFC close to home a couple of times per week, enabling most Saturdays with the Family Circus to exceed 100 miles, and a double-dip commute twice per week, when my wife heads out for the graveyard shift after i arrive home. That's a minimum 87 mile day.
Thanks jray! Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about - upgrading your 85% solution to a 99% solution.
jray3 said:
I've pushed back against Aerovironment's pricing plan, quoted below. The $20/mo unlimited subscription is a bad deal for occasional users, and the $7.50 single charge fee is way too hi for an i. They could've fixed it with pay-by-the-minute DCFC (which costa about 8 cents for a minute at 50 kW around here, but I'd gladly pay 25 cents). Instead, they're gaming the situation....

There is also the option of paying per session:
$7.50/Session – DC Fast Charger
$4.00/Session – Level 2 Charging Station
(Per session payment is only available by calling our Customer Service Support Line at 888-833-2148).
.
I'm not inclined to be overly generous in my interpretation of corporate motives, but I'm not really troubled by $7.50/session for QC. I'd love to have that option at that price in northern New Mexico, even if I'd rarely use it. A reasonable QC network between Albuquerque and Santa Fe would greatly increase the utility of EVs for potential buyers in both cities, which are inconveniently slightly more than EV range apart, but are each otherwise quite compact and EV friendly. Quite seriously, just half a dozen strategically located stations would make a world of difference to the area.

Thing is, if these stations aren't profitable they won't be built, and straight $/kWh isn't at all a fair measure of value, not least because that would be "reselling electricity", a practice that's somehow earned the status of a Crime Against Nature in most states. But even ignoring such idiocy, there's a world of difference to the grid operator between 15kWh drawn over 5 hours and 15kWh drawn over 20 minutes, and you can bet they're going to make you feel their pain with standby fees and the like. I don't know what the fix for this is, but we need to be reasonable in understanding what it means for an appliance to show up on the grid and demand 25-50kW for 15-30 minutes right now.

"Fine for you," one might say, "but I'd actually use this often enough that $7.50/session would get kinda silly - I'd be spending more per mile than I would have on gasoline!" But then (and again, I'm no Aerovironment fan here, just sayin') if that's your situation and you'd be averaging more than 3 sessions per month (you mention using QC a couple of times a week), why wouldn't $20/mo. "all you can eat" work for you? It is indeed a bad deal for occasional/infrequent users (like me :) ), but they can pay for the convenience of having QC available when they need it with that $7.50 charge, which helps pay the freight for having that standby capacity available for random non-subscribers.

What troubles me a lot more than the $7.50 charge is the need to call an operator and have them remotely enable the QC for my use. This strikes me as highly unreliable, not to mention moronically inconvenient, since I'm sure this means I'll have to read my credit card over the phone (hey Aerovironment, the 1980s just called your 800 number to say they want their customer interface back!). At the very least, they should allow for non-subscribing "registered users" who are willing to pay the $15 service fee for an AV keyfob, then have their registered credit card billed on a per-use basis. It would be better still if they'd just process credit card transactions at the charger like a gas pump, but due to the current confusion following the Target CC debacle, I'd be willing to give 'em a pass on that until our antiquated mag-strip cards are phased out in favor of true smart cards over the next couple of years.
 
I'm one of those people who rarely uses a credit card, and thus prefer to use a charging network's card at public EVSEs. In addition to the Mitsu Roadside Assistance card, I carry four charging network cards in my i-MiEV: ChargePoint, Blink, SemaCharge, and NRG eVgo. I didn't mind paying the small up-front fee for some of these cards simply to have them available in the car, and they're all on zero-monthly-cost plans.

I had considered trailering my iMiEV (or maybe even making a two-day driving trip using RV campsite outlets) the 400+ miles up to Medford OR (wife has family up there and I thought of simply leaving our Mitsi with them for a few weeks so they could get comfortable driving an EV). AV is popular up there, so I applied for an AeroVironment card, to which AV responded: "Thank you for your interest in joining the AV Charging Network. At this time, the network is only available in the Northwest (Oregon and Washington). Once the network becomes available in your area, we will let you know." I didn't bother following-up yet.

Vike said:
Thing is, if these stations aren't profitable they won't be built, and straight $/kWh isn't at all a fair measure of value, not least because that would be "reselling electricity", a practice that's somehow earned the status of a Crime Against Nature in most states. But even ignoring such idiocy, there's a world of difference to the grid operator between 15kWh drawn over 5 hours and 15kWh drawn over 20 minutes, and you can bet they're going to make you feel their pain with standby fees and the like. I don't know what the fix for this is, but we need to be reasonable in understanding what it means for an appliance to show up on the grid and demand 25-50kW for 15-30 minutes right now.
Perhaps one of the answers is to use batteries/inverters to buffer the peak loads? After Tesla builds their gigafactory, can you imagine what a great market that would be for factory "seconds" that don't quite meet full EV specs?
 
JoeS said:
Perhaps one of the answers is to use batteries/inverters to buffer the peak loads? After Tesla builds their gigafactory, can you imagine what a great market that would be for factory "seconds" that don't quite meet full EV specs?
Or batteries that no longer provide adequate range in mobile use, but still have years of useful life at reduced capacity - it doesn't really matter how much space low-capacity batteries take up for a stationary application. In any case, as I understand it this sort of buffering is pretty much what Tesla does, usually in combination with a solar array to build up energy on the cheap in local batteries or capacitors or whatever (perhaps a Tesla fan could educate us on the details).

Buffering has its limitations, obviously. Having too many visitors in close succession might drain the buffer, and then what? "Sorry, come back tomorrow"? So I think you're left with a requirement to have a capability for backup on-demand draws from the grid to keep the facility reliably available - and you're back to paying for standby.

Given this and other problems, I don't think multiple competing networks of charging stations makes any sense at all at this stage of the game. I'd rather a single network be managed by the grid operators, since they're pretty good at managing and modeling demand and locating facilities, and let them figure out the optimal configuration to meet demand while not frying the grid. They might not like it, but they're regulated utilities, so screw what they like - just suck it up and do some good for a change, guys. This doesn't seem out of the question for somewhere like California or Oregon, and a functional proof of concept network would make a good talking point for advocates in other states.

Then again, it could just be I'm hopelessly naive :lol:
 
Another point became very clear for those of us who charge and work is that you need a backup plan in case of an emergency. For example last week the city of Sunnyvale had a water main burst during the early morning. So those of us who usually charge at work were out of luck when we got to work we were not allowed on the property (@ 6AM) due to the burst water main. So without a sufficient charge to get home the only good solution was a Fast Charger at another company nearby.

Also another situation along the same lines would be if I had to unexpectedly leave work early before getting enough charge to get home; again the only good solution would be a nearby Quick Charger.

Otherwise I would not normally use a quick charger due to the higher cost.
 
It appears we have a 'Catch 22' here - To (quickly) recover the cost of installing Quick Chargers, builders seem to need to charge you $7.50 for a buck's worth of electricity, which makes people only use them in true emergencies, which makes the recovery of their investment drag out for months or years . . . . and that makes few want to make the investment

If not the utilities, them maybe state/local governments need to get into the game and bring the price down - They probably wouldn't be so quite so eager to see their 'investment' be making a profit as quickly as private investors need it to be

Me? I'd be tickled just to see an L2 public charger installed somewhere . . . . just ONE! . . . . anywhere! :lol:

Don
 
Vike said:
Thing is, if these stations aren't profitable they won't be built, and straight $/kWh isn't at all a fair measure of value, not least because that would be "reselling electricity", a practice that's somehow earned the status of a Crime Against Nature in most states. But even ignoring such idiocy, there's a world of difference to the grid operator between 15kWh drawn over 5 hours and 15kWh drawn over 20 minutes, and you can bet they're going to make you feel their pain with standby fees and the like. I don't know what the fix for this is, but we need to be reasonable in understanding what it means for an appliance to show up on the grid and demand 25-50kW for 15-30 minutes right now.

Indeed. Excess demand charges range from approx $5.60 to $9.80 per peak kW in Puget Sound Energy territory. That means a 50 kW fast charger could cost up to $490 per month in demand charges above and beyond the per kWh cost. And odds are, peak demand for DC charging station hosts (car dealers, malls, restaurants) will coincide with DCFC usage. I'm not sure which tariff applies to the 'standalone' dc fast chargers, as AeroVironment's West Coast Electric Highway stations are not tied to major hosts. Proximity to exit ramps was the priority there.

(hey Aerovironment, the 1980s just called your 800 number to say they want their customer interface back!)
Soo true! I'd bet they're trying to push customers into the $20 buffet line by raising the a' la carte pain threshold. It worked on me! :shock:
 
Don said:
It appears we have a 'Catch 22' here - To (quickly) recover the cost of installing Quick Chargers, builders seem to need to charge you $7.50 for a buck's worth of electricity, which makes people only use them in true emergencies, which makes the recovery of their investment drag out for months or years . . . . and that makes few want to make the investment
Bingo. I've been wondering about exactly this problem - price charging sessions too low, and you can't cover the demand charges and amortized fixed costs - and there's no guarantee whatever you'll make it up in volume. Price them too high and you scare off so much business you still can't cover your costs.

$7.50 may well be a sweet spot. $5 is probably too little, and I think there's a real psychological negative to $10 (a "double digit" price). Again, I'll remind you we're not paying $7.50 for "a buck's worth of electricity", but rather for the charger itself, the real estate, the excess demand charges, etc.
 
Don said:
Me? I'd be tickled just to see an L2 public charger installed somewhere . . . . just ONE! . . . . anywhere! :lol:

Don
Ever go by Estabrook Motor Company or Pat Peck Nissan? They each have one listed on Plugshare.

Sheetz gas stations towards central PA are installing quick chargers. There's one open in Blairsville that charges $1 per 5 minutes of charging, which would work out to be $4 or $5 total for a charge, not bad. More coming in Altoona, State College, and Harrisburg right now.
 
Does anyone think it would be useful to have 16 kW chademo charger ?

This would require about 75 amps at 240 volts nothing too demanding in terms of infrastructure. You could top up an imiev in about an hour and a leaf in 1.5 hours. It seems like a good middle ground. Would probably work well in the cold with no slowdown of charge. Less costly also. You could charge 3 cars at the same time as one normal chademo charger also.

Don
 
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