4 ms·

It's a fair point, if overdone. My current employer has 16 EV chargers and they're all full by 8:45am. Even in just a few months here, I've noticed them becomi

by rconti 8y ago

It's a fair point, if overdone. My current employer has 16 EV chargers and they're all full by 8:45am. Even in just a few months here, I've noticed them becoming occupied more rapidly. People need to start rotating their cars off the charge mid-day to accommodate more cars. The 4 handicapped spots with chargers are often also poached with some regularity. (private garage, but still risky). At former employers, I saw chargers go from nonexistent, to installed, to saturated, in a matter of 6 or so months. In a given site, so far, construction isn't keeping pace. I own an EV and charge at home so it's not really an issue for me, but those with shorter range vehicles are more likely to have issues, and it is something that will have to be dealt with. It's not insurmountable, but it's an issue. The massive increase in electrical demand from EV charging when rates go off-peak but solar generation is nonexistent is definitely something that'll have to be dealt with. My house used to consume maybe 1500w at 9pm. Now, when the charger flips on, bam, 13kW. It's impressive how much more load a neighborhood with even just a few EVs can put on the grid.

jdavis703 8y ago
Same here, except it's the bike racks that fill up pretty early. Companies really should be doing more to encourage sustainable transportation.
- ComputerGuru 8y ago
  Except bike racks are pennies on the dollar compared to EV stations.
  - sundvor 8y ago
    Also: It's pretty remarkable how many bikes can fit in the size of say, 2 car park spaces.
    - tialaramex 8y ago
      However, some of your employees can't use bikes, so this isn't an entirely fair comparison. All the employees could arrive by car (not all of them might drive, but the nice thing about cars is that they take passengers). Thus it may make sense to have 10 parking spaces worth of bike racks, and 5 parking spaces, but it doesn't make sense to switch to 15 parking spaces worth of bike racks... and no parking.
      - jdavis703 8y ago
        If there's someone coming as a passenger why not have them arrive by public transportation or even pedi-cab?
      - Ntrails 8y ago
        Depends entirely where you live. If there are people commuting to work by car every day in Central London, they're too senior for me to have encountered them.
        tialaramex 8y ago
        That's fair, I have worked in a Central London building where the car park is so ludicrously expensive most people who have a space there don't actually have any time to drive places in their own car, so their cars just sit there getting dusty over years. There's some really nice motors down there (it's a basement obviously) from what you can see - but they have an actual layer of dust on them. Anybody with a normal job in that building can't afford to park there. Still, to make _that_ work London has a mandate for all its cabs and buses to carry wheelchairs, all new public transport infrastructure is step-free, at which point cycling is largely symbolic, I know people who do it but I also know people who live in the centre (yes in Central London, no they aren't wealthy enough to park in that car park) and walk to work and again, it's largely symbolic, like, I'm sure it makes some difference, but compared to the costs imposed by people driving to work in cities that don't have working public transit it's nothing.
- rconti 8y ago
  Our bike lockers are relatively underutilized, due to the unfortunate suburban location of our office. I used to bike commute and had to park next to my desk; we moved to a big fancy office with all of the perks, but it's a horrible miserable bike slog.
wereHamster 8y ago
Tesla charges you for time your car is at the charging station but full. They do it to encourage people to park their car elsewhere and make the charging station available to others.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  I think that's pretty standard. My office is $0.85/hr for the first 4 hours then $20/hr after that to encourage you to move. The security will ticket your car if you park in an EV spot without plugging in. We have 4 but only 2 chargers and had to explain that EVs will park in the extra spots to hold their place in line.
colordrops 8y ago
Employers don't have free gas stations. Having limited charging stations at work is a bonus, not a restriction, compared to the past. That being said, I'd love for all employers to subsidize clean energy as much as possible.
kwhitefoot 8y ago
Surely it would be enough in most cases to put an ordinary domestic single phase supply to each parking bay. No need to have big fast chargers. My Tesla S 70D gets about 1 km per hour per amp at 230 V. So if it sits there for an eight hour work day and can get 10 A (common for a domestic circuit in most of Europe) it would get 80 km or about 50 miles. Surely most people commute less than 50 miles each way?
- TomMarius 8y ago
  It's easy to commute more if you're on a highway, your range in Europe can be around 150 km given 1 hour commute. My father used to commute 120 km (less than 1 hour ride on a highway).
  - kwhitefoot 8y ago
    But nonetheless most people don't commute so far. The average commute time in the US is 26 minutes (https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10801 https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10801), so probably less than 30 miles (each way I presume). And that amount of charge is easily done in an eight hour working day on a normal domestic circuit, no special charging infrastructure is required just a pole with a normal socket on it at every parking bay.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      Yeah, but the average is most probably skewed by people who live next to their workplace. And still, even if it was just a fifth of people who commute from a larger distance, it's still a lot. Also, in the USA it probably works different than in the EU - the cities and rural areas look very different. Here it's extremely common to live in a village that's around 50km from the city where you're working.
- rconti 8y ago
  Sure, but in the US on 110v we'd get maybe 4 miles of range per hour of charge. But I agree, it seems to make a bit more sense to simply have an outlet, but then there's the billing issue...

by rconti 8y ago

jdavis703 8y ago

Same here, except it's the bike racks that fill up pretty early. Companies really should be doing more to encourage sustainable transportation.

ComputerGuru 8y ago
Except bike racks are pennies on the dollar compared to EV stations.
- sundvor 8y ago
  Also: It's pretty remarkable how many bikes can fit in the size of say, 2 car park spaces.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    However, some of your employees can't use bikes, so this isn't an entirely fair comparison. All the employees could arrive by car (not all of them might drive, but the nice thing about cars is that they take passengers). Thus it may make sense to have 10 parking spaces worth of bike racks, and 5 parking spaces, but it doesn't make sense to switch to 15 parking spaces worth of bike racks... and no parking.
    - jdavis703 8y ago
      If there's someone coming as a passenger why not have them arrive by public transportation or even pedi-cab?
    - Ntrails 8y ago
      Depends entirely where you live. If there are people commuting to work by car every day in Central London, they're too senior for me to have encountered them.
      - tialaramex 8y ago
        That's fair, I have worked in a Central London building where the car park is so ludicrously expensive most people who have a space there don't actually have any time to drive places in their own car, so their cars just sit there getting dusty over years. There's some really nice motors down there (it's a basement obviously) from what you can see - but they have an actual layer of dust on them. Anybody with a normal job in that building can't afford to park there. Still, to make _that_ work London has a mandate for all its cabs and buses to carry wheelchairs, all new public transport infrastructure is step-free, at which point cycling is largely symbolic, I know people who do it but I also know people who live in the centre (yes in Central London, no they aren't wealthy enough to park in that car park) and walk to work and again, it's largely symbolic, like, I'm sure it makes some difference, but compared to the costs imposed by people driving to work in cities that don't have working public transit it's nothing.
rconti 8y ago
Our bike lockers are relatively underutilized, due to the unfortunate suburban location of our office. I used to bike commute and had to park next to my desk; we moved to a big fancy office with all of the perks, but it's a horrible miserable bike slog.

wereHamster 8y ago

Tesla charges you for time your car is at the charging station but full. They do it to encourage people to park their car elsewhere and make the charging station available to others.

cptskippy 8y ago
I think that's pretty standard. My office is $0.85/hr for the first 4 hours then $20/hr after that to encourage you to move. The security will ticket your car if you park in an EV spot without plugging in. We have 4 but only 2 chargers and had to explain that EVs will park in the extra spots to hold their place in line.

colordrops 8y ago

Employers don't have free gas stations. Having limited charging stations at work is a bonus, not a restriction, compared to the past. That being said, I'd love for all employers to subsidize clean energy as much as possible.

kwhitefoot 8y ago

Surely it would be enough in most cases to put an ordinary domestic single phase supply to each parking bay. No need to have big fast chargers. My Tesla S 70D gets about 1 km per hour per amp at 230 V. So if it sits there for an eight hour work day and can get 10 A (common for a domestic circuit in most of Europe) it would get 80 km or about 50 miles. Surely most people commute less than 50 miles each way?

TomMarius 8y ago
It's easy to commute more if you're on a highway, your range in Europe can be around 150 km given 1 hour commute. My father used to commute 120 km (less than 1 hour ride on a highway).
- kwhitefoot 8y ago
  But nonetheless most people don't commute so far. The average commute time in the US is 26 minutes (https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10801 https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10801), so probably less than 30 miles (each way I presume). And that amount of charge is easily done in an eight hour working day on a normal domestic circuit, no special charging infrastructure is required just a pole with a normal socket on it at every parking bay.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    Yeah, but the average is most probably skewed by people who live next to their workplace. And still, even if it was just a fifth of people who commute from a larger distance, it's still a lot. Also, in the USA it probably works different than in the EU - the cities and rural areas look very different. Here it's extremely common to live in a village that's around 50km from the city where you're working.
rconti 8y ago
Sure, but in the US on 110v we'd get maybe 4 miles of range per hour of charge. But I agree, it seems to make a bit more sense to simply have an outlet, but then there's the billing issue...