My California trip, EV observations from a Philly guy

[fjpod]

Quick chargers??? Here in NYC I would be thrilled to find even an L1 or 2 anywhere..., that is not part of a parking garage. There are none in malls, theaters, sports arenas, workplaces, etc. What's a public charger?

[HParkEV]

Quick chargers??? Here in NYC I would be thrilled to find even an L1 or 2 anywhere..., that is not part of a parking garage. There are none in malls, theaters, sports arenas, workplaces, etc. What's a public charger?

Just looking at plugshare.com shows lots of QC's in NY as well as PA. Most are reasonably spaced apart so that they are within i-MiEV range of each other.
By public L2, I mean ones that anyone can pull up to, and either pay to charge or get a free charge.
Up here at Richmond Hill town hall, there were two L2 Eaton EVSE's installed as part of the 'green image' that the town wanted to project. They were free to use, but had a space for a credit card slot that was blanked out, that I always assumed would be used in the future to charge people for the electricity. There were there for a couple of years, used very infrequently. As soon as they started to become used more, say about 50% or so usage rate during business hours earlier this year, they padlocked both of them. I have inquired about it to the town hall, after weeks of stalling they responded that 'they were never intended for public use'. Since they padlocked them, I have never seen them used at all, so I'm not sure why they were installed in the first place.
Effectively, they have made this formerly public charging station (built with taxpayer's money) a private one, that can only be used by whomever has the key to the padlock. That person seems not to have access to an EV, because the station is never used.

[JoeS]

Unlike the states of Washington and Oregon, California is still in the dark ages when it comes to a charging infrastructure along the state's main North-South travel routes, as well as going East out of the state. Tesla is the only one that's done it. Even if I had CHAdeMO, the only way I could get from the San Francisco Bay Area up to Oregon is using campgrounds with RV 240v outlets. OTOH, there are now at least 50 CHAdeMO stations within a radius of 50 miles from my house.

[danpatgal]

I used the Harrisburg QC again yesterday. Went from 5 bars to 14 in 20 minutes. I wanted a little more range, so I restarted the charge to see how much more I could get in another 10 minutes (while I was finishing my lunch). In another 10 minutes I got another bar, over 90% SOC (the QC said another 1.1kwh was added). So, that was really encouraging.

My wife is using the QC in Exton, PA today. I'm now beginning to wonder if I should be worried about long term capacity if I use the QC on a more regular basis. Of course, that's better than the problem of others who have little to no available QCs or other public charging to use.

[MLucas]

My wife is using the QC in Exton, PA today. I'm now beginning to wonder if I should be worried about long term capacity if I use the QC on a more regular basis. Of course, that's better than the problem of others who have little to no available QCs or other public charging to use.

You are in a very fortunate area to have so many QCs around. I did a search yesterday on PlugShare for these chargers and there are NONE in the Niagara area where I live. The closest is near Toronto. My QC port is as pure as the driven snow. Looking at the PlugShare map it looks like the east and west coast has an orange rash with a splotch in Pennsylvania.

[PV1]

Looking at the PlugShare map it looks like the east and west coast has an orange rash with a splotch in Pennsylvania.

The US still has nothing on Japan.

[saise1929]

Find the last holdout of genuine experience. Like our glorious mountains and transcending trees that characterize us, we stand gladly. And keeping in mind that we talk our psyche, we do everything from the heart. Absolute legit, rough and unadulterated, Discover Siskiyou Tourism is the place California's genuine north lives and untamed experience runs free.

[rmay635703]

“You'll notice one of the rare Saturn-type at the charging “

I don’t see any pics but also what is a Saturn type?

[JoeS]

Find the last holdout of genuine experience. Like our glorious mountains and transcending trees that characterize us, we stand gladly. And keeping in mind that we talk our psyche, we do everything from the heart. Absolute legit, rough and unadulterated, Discover Siskiyou Tourism is the place California's genuine north lives and untamed experience runs free.

I smiled when I read this, figuring it was written by a holdout from the 60's and which confirms the suspicions of much of the country about Californians. Perhaps written by the i-MiEV owner in the City of Mount Shasta that I had seen a couple of years ago? This post had been flagged, but since no direct advertising links are embedded, and the Siskiyou's are indeed beautiful, I elected to leave it be...

To bring this back a little onto topic, the Siskiyou's have been an EV challenge for years, but just recently a few DCFCs have sprung up which allowed my brother-in-law to drive his Bolt down to the Bay Area from Oregon.
Yak's Restaurant in Dunsmuir
https://www.plugshare.com/location/81745
just updated their DCQC to include CHAdeMO which means one can make it down to Redding in an i-MiEV (but probably not the other way around because of the altitude change), and heading south from Redding on Interstate 5 is a vast CHAdeMO wasteland.

Tesla opened up 20 more charging stations in Mount Shasta to supplement the four that have been there for a few years -
https://www.plugshare.com/location/139992
https://www.plugshare.com/location/20388
and ChargePoint recently put in a 50kW CHAdeMO/CCS and Level 2 setup a stone's throw from the new Superchargers,
https://www.plugshare.com/location/164743
with more J1772s available down the road at the medical center.
Snow-covered Mount Shasta provides a beautiful backdrop and this is my favorite stop during the very many trips to Medford we've taken in the Tesla. I'll be going through there in a couple of days.

Although massively developed in metropolitan areas, the EV DCFC infrastructure is still wanting in many areas of California, but that is now rapidly changing although the spacing is such that our i-MiEVs would still have a hard time doing it quickly, as seen when selecting CHAdeMO on PlugShare.