9 ms·

Assuming you own your own home. If you live in an apartment complex or otherwise only have street parking, you likely don't have access to electricity. Or at t

by tjohns 8y ago

Assuming you own your own home. If you live in an apartment complex or otherwise only have street parking, you likely don't have access to electricity. Or at the very least, would need to negotiate with the landlord to have a new outlet installed -- which is going to depend on how much you get along with said landlord.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
There are solutions for street parking (both standalone and equipment that can piggyback off street lamp installs). In this case, you do need municipal buy in for the installation and maintenance of this infrastructure.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Yes the problem with that is you kind of need it everywhere all at once, whereas if you have a home with a drive you only need to install it when you buy an electric car and only in one place.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    You really don't. You just need to pace the installs to EV vehicle uptake (which you can monitor with vehicle registrations and the addresses vehicles are registered at). Install where cars are being bought and garaged (or in this case, street parked).
    - closeparen 8y ago
      What happens when someone else nabs that space?
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Laws are already on the books that penalize non-EVs for parking in EV charging spaces. My statement assumes you'd overbuild in order to ensure spots (one EV in neighborhood? build capacity for 3 to charge).
        closeparen 8y ago
        Street parking spaces aren’t reserved for individuals. Anyone else with an EV (visitor? neighbor who just bought one?) is equally entitled to those spots. You would own a car rather than rent or take public transit (esp. in an urban area) because you need it to be available and working every time, not just under ideal circumstances. Gambling your work attendance on getting a particular street parking spot the night before isn’t smart.
        mikeash 8y ago
        The better EVs available now will support a typical commute without charging for a week or more.
        perl4ever 8y ago
        There's a couple of spots by a charger in a plaza where I often go, posted as "reserved for hybrid/electric". Well, they didn't make it explicit enough, because someone with a non-plugin hybrid was using one of them, the last time I was there. It would suck if I had an electric car and someone like that was blocking me.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Minor logistics issue to be fixed.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
fpgaminer 8y ago
Not a problem in California at least: "Assembly Bill 2565 would give tenants the right to install an electric-car charging station at their residence, provided the tenant submits a written request to the landlord and pays for the installation costs." (Passed already)
- gav 8y ago
  At a cost of at least $1000 for a charging station and installation, I can’t see many people wanting to pay for this if they are renting.
  - fpgaminer 8y ago
    I'd be curious if there are loan options that would cover the cost. Then it's not such a crazy thing for renters to consider installing a charger. (I mean, they're already paying ~$30k for a car on loan; another $1k isn't much).
    - jschwartzi 8y ago
      I move every 3 or 4 years, so I'd basically be paying each landlord to make improvements to their place and then leaving those improvements behind.
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        If the landlord bought the charger station, they'd up your rent by what the market would bear for parking spots with EV-charging capacity. So you install it at your expense, sell it at the depreciated price when you move out, and the landlord recovers the cost by upping the rent for the next EV driver looking for a new apartment. Or they don't, and you remove it and take it with you when you leave, paying the electrician labor again on both ends.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    The demographic that would currently buy an electric car in California can easily pay for $1K for a changing station. If you're going to spend $30K on a Leaf or plug-in Prius or $50K on a Model 3 (vs. $18K for a Corolla or Fit), $1K is a drop in the bucket. It's also a tiny fraction of rent in Northern California, roughly 12 days worth.
reaperducer 8y ago
Assuming you own your own home Pretty much every significant apartment building built in Chicago in the last decade has had EV chargers in the garage. The problem is that there aren't enough EV spaces to go around for all the residents who have electric cars. If you're renting a stand-alone home, isn't there an EV station you can plug into a regular outlet? Naturally, the charging time would be slower than a 220V connection or whatever is needed, but if it's charing overnight, is that not an option? (Don't own an electric car yet, so I'm not up on chargers)
- outworlder 8y ago
  Pretty much every EV out there comes with a "granny cable" that you can use to very slowly charge. It won't fully charge overnight (works out to about 4 miles an hour), but if you are topping off it can be adequate. I have used it many times, including one time where I actually ran out and had the car towed. Towed the dead car home, plugged in. Went to work fine the next morning and plugged there. That's if you are in the US, actually, where most outlets are 110V. If you have access to 220V or you can rewire an outlet, then charging time should be similar to public level 2 charging stations. Beware that not all charges will support 220v and will blow up (but some can be modified). 110v is the biggest barrier for adoption everywhere, that and old electrical installations. As an EV owner, I'd say that you need either a place to charge at work, or at home (great if you have both). If you do, then it is more convenient than pulling up at gas stations (more so if you are trying to get the cheaper ones in the likes of CostCo). If you do not, then relying on the public infrastructure is stressful and time consuming.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Thanks for the detailed response. One of the cars in my family only drives eight miles a day, and never on weekends. So I'm thinking about replacing it with an EV. Sounds like a granny cable might be all I need.
    - outworlder 8y ago
      My commute today is exactly 8 miles (4 each way). With a 2015 Leaf, I could go for two weeks without even bothering to charge if I'm only commuting. Since I can charge at work for free, I do it every Friday. And it's fantastic. My previous commute was 50 miles a day. Using only a standard 110v, I would top off every day, and that worked just fine. I could even forget once (but not twice in a row!). It took about 12 hours to charge what I used up during the day. So yeah. Just grab an extension cord (make sure it is rated for the current), and plug into whatever outlet you can find.
rconti 8y ago
That's not going to be a serious obstacle to that 5 million figure, though. It obviously hurts individuals plenty, but in aggregate, enough people own their own homes that adoption can be orders of magnitude greater than it is now before the renter issue is figured out.
Johnny555 8y ago
Even if you down own your home, it's no guarantee. I live in a condo with a detached garage, which is on the far side of another row of condos. So getting power from my meter to the garage means trenching through a sidewalk, under a block of condos, then through about 20 feet of pavement. Alternatively, I could trench through 100 feet of pavement from the power vault where our complex's transformer is and have the power company install a new meter for me. The garage has a light bulb + garage door opener circuit, but the panel that feeds it wouldn't support a single charge station, let alone enough for the 8 garages that the panel serves. The HOA isn't interested in running enough power to let residents install an EV charge station in the garage, and I'm not interested in paying for it either. So unless I can get my neighbors to help share the cost, I'm not going to be able to install a charge station.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  Just a thought: a sufficiently smart EV and a sufficiently smart garage door could talk to each other to share a circuit. The car just stops charging when the door needs to move, which shouldn't add up to too much time. Not practical for an individual to develop to solve their individual problem, but maybe it could become a selling point for any particular EV.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    The problem isn't "sharing" the circuit, the problem is that the EV charger wants power, as much power as possible, and the circuit to that garage has been sized to allow for just enough to run a bulb and some trivial electrics like a door opener. Say 150W. If you divert that 150W to an EV charger, so little power will make no perceptible difference to the charge overnight. Maybe 3-4 miles per night. And in fact a smart charger might conclude the circuit is faulty and cease charging altogether at this very low input.

by tjohns 8y ago

toomuchtodo 8y ago

There are solutions for street parking (both standalone and equipment that can piggyback off street lamp installs). In this case, you do need municipal buy in for the installation and maintenance of this infrastructure.

IshKebab 8y ago
Yes the problem with that is you kind of need it everywhere all at once, whereas if you have a home with a drive you only need to install it when you buy an electric car and only in one place.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  You really don't. You just need to pace the installs to EV vehicle uptake (which you can monitor with vehicle registrations and the addresses vehicles are registered at). Install where cars are being bought and garaged (or in this case, street parked).
  - closeparen 8y ago
    What happens when someone else nabs that space?
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Laws are already on the books that penalize non-EVs for parking in EV charging spaces. My statement assumes you'd overbuild in order to ensure spots (one EV in neighborhood? build capacity for 3 to charge).
      - closeparen 8y ago
        Street parking spaces aren’t reserved for individuals. Anyone else with an EV (visitor? neighbor who just bought one?) is equally entitled to those spots. You would own a car rather than rent or take public transit (esp. in an urban area) because you need it to be available and working every time, not just under ideal circumstances. Gambling your work attendance on getting a particular street parking spot the night before isn’t smart.
        mikeash 8y ago
        The better EVs available now will support a typical commute without charging for a week or more.
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        There's a couple of spots by a charger in a plaza where I often go, posted as "reserved for hybrid/electric". Well, they didn't make it explicit enough, because someone with a non-plugin hybrid was using one of them, the last time I was there. It would suck if I had an electric car and someone like that was blocking me.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Minor logistics issue to be fixed.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]

fpgaminer 8y ago

Not a problem in California at least: "Assembly Bill 2565 would give tenants the right to install an electric-car charging station at their residence, provided the tenant submits a written request to the landlord and pays for the installation costs." (Passed already)

gav 8y ago
At a cost of at least $1000 for a charging station and installation, I can’t see many people wanting to pay for this if they are renting.
- fpgaminer 8y ago
  I'd be curious if there are loan options that would cover the cost. Then it's not such a crazy thing for renters to consider installing a charger. (I mean, they're already paying ~$30k for a car on loan; another $1k isn't much).
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    I move every 3 or 4 years, so I'd basically be paying each landlord to make improvements to their place and then leaving those improvements behind.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      If the landlord bought the charger station, they'd up your rent by what the market would bear for parking spots with EV-charging capacity. So you install it at your expense, sell it at the depreciated price when you move out, and the landlord recovers the cost by upping the rent for the next EV driver looking for a new apartment. Or they don't, and you remove it and take it with you when you leave, paying the electrician labor again on both ends.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  The demographic that would currently buy an electric car in California can easily pay for $1K for a changing station. If you're going to spend $30K on a Leaf or plug-in Prius or $50K on a Model 3 (vs. $18K for a Corolla or Fit), $1K is a drop in the bucket. It's also a tiny fraction of rent in Northern California, roughly 12 days worth.

reaperducer 8y ago

Assuming you own your own home Pretty much every significant apartment building built in Chicago in the last decade has had EV chargers in the garage. The problem is that there aren't enough EV spaces to go around for all the residents who have electric cars. If you're renting a stand-alone home, isn't there an EV station you can plug into a regular outlet? Naturally, the charging time would be slower than a 220V connection or whatever is needed, but if it's charing overnight, is that not an option? (Don't own an electric car yet, so I'm not up on chargers)

outworlder 8y ago
Pretty much every EV out there comes with a "granny cable" that you can use to very slowly charge. It won't fully charge overnight (works out to about 4 miles an hour), but if you are topping off it can be adequate. I have used it many times, including one time where I actually ran out and had the car towed. Towed the dead car home, plugged in. Went to work fine the next morning and plugged there. That's if you are in the US, actually, where most outlets are 110V. If you have access to 220V or you can rewire an outlet, then charging time should be similar to public level 2 charging stations. Beware that not all charges will support 220v and will blow up (but some can be modified). 110v is the biggest barrier for adoption everywhere, that and old electrical installations. As an EV owner, I'd say that you need either a place to charge at work, or at home (great if you have both). If you do, then it is more convenient than pulling up at gas stations (more so if you are trying to get the cheaper ones in the likes of CostCo). If you do not, then relying on the public infrastructure is stressful and time consuming.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Thanks for the detailed response. One of the cars in my family only drives eight miles a day, and never on weekends. So I'm thinking about replacing it with an EV. Sounds like a granny cable might be all I need.
  - outworlder 8y ago
    My commute today is exactly 8 miles (4 each way). With a 2015 Leaf, I could go for two weeks without even bothering to charge if I'm only commuting. Since I can charge at work for free, I do it every Friday. And it's fantastic. My previous commute was 50 miles a day. Using only a standard 110v, I would top off every day, and that worked just fine. I could even forget once (but not twice in a row!). It took about 12 hours to charge what I used up during the day. So yeah. Just grab an extension cord (make sure it is rated for the current), and plug into whatever outlet you can find.

rconti 8y ago

That's not going to be a serious obstacle to that 5 million figure, though. It obviously hurts individuals plenty, but in aggregate, enough people own their own homes that adoption can be orders of magnitude greater than it is now before the renter issue is figured out.

Johnny555 8y ago

Even if you down own your home, it's no guarantee. I live in a condo with a detached garage, which is on the far side of another row of condos. So getting power from my meter to the garage means trenching through a sidewalk, under a block of condos, then through about 20 feet of pavement. Alternatively, I could trench through 100 feet of pavement from the power vault where our complex's transformer is and have the power company install a new meter for me. The garage has a light bulb + garage door opener circuit, but the panel that feeds it wouldn't support a single charge station, let alone enough for the 8 garages that the panel serves. The HOA isn't interested in running enough power to let residents install an EV charge station in the garage, and I'm not interested in paying for it either. So unless I can get my neighbors to help share the cost, I'm not going to be able to install a charge station.

emiliobumachar 8y ago
Just a thought: a sufficiently smart EV and a sufficiently smart garage door could talk to each other to share a circuit. The car just stops charging when the door needs to move, which shouldn't add up to too much time. Not practical for an individual to develop to solve their individual problem, but maybe it could become a selling point for any particular EV.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  The problem isn't "sharing" the circuit, the problem is that the EV charger wants power, as much power as possible, and the circuit to that garage has been sized to allow for just enough to run a bulb and some trivial electrics like a door opener. Say 150W. If you divert that 150W to an EV charger, so little power will make no perceptible difference to the charge overnight. Maybe 3-4 miles per night. And in fact a smart charger might conclude the circuit is faulty and cease charging altogether at this very low input.