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I just bought a PHEV from Volvo and I love it. It gives me the flexibility to roam around town on pure electric while also providing the range I need to go hiki

I just bought a PHEV from Volvo and I love it. It gives me the flexibility to roam around town on pure electric while also providing the range I need to go hiking in remote areas. A lot of the Seattle area only has street parking on residential streets. I'm curious how these folks are ever going to go full EV.

e40 6y ago
I live in a similar place to Seattle, and I see people laying charge cords across the sidewalk all the time. With nothing covering them, making them a tripping hazard. Just blows me away. This is ripe for insurance scams, but it is a genuine problem, for pushing strollers, wheelchairs, and pedestrians!
Maarten88 6y ago
> A lot of the Seattle area only has street parking on residential streets. I'm curious how these folks are ever going to go full EV. It is funny how people in the US expect exactly nothing from their government/city. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there?
- aaronbrethorst 6y ago
  I take it you have not experienced the consistent lack of vision or competence from the last several Seattle city mayors[1]. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there? I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive: no, no one here thinks that the mayor of Seattle would be able to do this. We have a mayoral election coming up in November. There's an outside chance that things might change for the better, but I'm not really holding my breath. --- [1] Excepting McGinn, who I thought got a really raw deal.
  - posguy 6y ago
    McGinn made a few cushy positions for his friends and did not get much done. Very similar to Greg Nickels IMO, who was only ousted after his cronies that ran SDOT totally bodged Snowpocalypse, followed by him coming out and saying he thought they did a B- job despite most of the city being trapped in snow for a week...
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  American here. We expect to be milked like dairy cows.
- dpoochieni 6y ago
  Nah, too busy inefficiently and ineffectually spending on the homeless to care about actual tax payers.
  - thomasedwards 6y ago
    From the photos and reports I’ve seen, they’re not giving a dime to anybody that needs a dime.
- klyrs 6y ago
  As I understand it, level 3 chargers need quite a lot of infrastructure, and maintenance ain't free. Putting one on, say, every residential block would be a huge expense, and there's a chicken/egg problem where the demand doesn't justify such a step yet... but if everybody gets on board, one per block wouldn't be enough. And right now, folks get tax breaks for their EVs instead of getting taxed for necessary infrastructure improvements. This is the sort of infrastructure work that a Green New Deal should support. But that's a political poison pill, as supporting energy sector jobs is "patriotic" if it's carbon based and "communism" otherwise.
  - scythe 6y ago
    If the vehicles are parked overnight and mostly driven to work, you don't need anything like a level 3 charger. A 220V/12A outlet is probably enough. That won't give you a full charge, but it's enough for most urban commutes. (And making this infrastructure available should make PHEV owners buy less gasoline, which is good!)
    - klyrs 6y ago
      Yeah, that's a good point. I can only imagine fighting with neighbors over access to that one charger.... maybe banks of L1 would suffice for most daily drivers.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      Excellent reminder/point. Thanks!
    - aerostable_slug 6y ago
      And with current technology (pun intended), your battery will last significantly longer.
  - perardi 6y ago
    Yeah, building out high-speed chargers on every block cannot possibly be cheap. You could have an extra fee on top of vehicle stickers for EVs…and even as I type that, I can imagine the pitched screaming, from both sides of the aisle. “Why are you suppressing clean vehicles?!” “More big city taxes?!”
- sloreti 6y ago
  Or you take the view that if a city is investing in transportation infrastructure, it should focus on public transportation instead of building infrastructure for private vehicles that degrade the urban experience.
  - scotth 6y ago
    Or maybe do both? I don't see Americans getting rid of their cars, so look at it as harm reduction.
    - jniedrauer 6y ago
      I would. And if I would, so would others.
      - kempbellt 6y ago
        I wouldn't. And I'm sure many others wouldn't either for similar reasons. Public transportation is great and I love using it when it makes sense, but in many cities it does not compete with the convenience and security of having a reliable personal vehicle. The only place I felt public transportation was good enough to go without my own car was NYC - but I lived on a great train line that ran every few minutes reliably. I also didn't have any dependents that I was responsible for. Many people who lived nearby used the train but still had their own cars as a backup. Even with how convenient it was for shuttling myself around, using it when needing to carry anything like groceries becomes difficult, and made me wish I had a car. Especially during rush hour where sitting is almost impossible. I'm all for improving public transportation, but I do not see it being a replacement for personal vehicles in every way.
  - criddell 6y ago
    Maybe the street chargers could be run for profit with the proceeds used to subsidize public transportation?
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    The issue is that public transit generally optimizes for throughput, and latency suffers. The wealthier people are, the more latency sensitive they become.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  > It is funny how people in the US expect exactly nothing from their government/city. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there? We expect them to propose charging infrastructure, think they have a consensus, and then get sued by someone for some stupid reason, and then 10-15 years later break ground on something 1/3 of what people need. California is much worse than the east-coast in this regard, but there's a 12 lane freeway bridge in the DC area that is a draw-bridge because the original plan of a suspension bridge was fought by people who complained that it would be an eyesore.
  - VintageCool 6y ago
    For anyone else who didn't believe aidenn0, this is the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. It carries 250,000 cars a day (or it did, pre-pandemic). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge
- jedberg 6y ago
  This is the United States. The best we expect is that the city will contract with an exclusive provider who will be the only ones that can install chargers on every street and then charge us to use them.
  - notJim 6y ago
    Also, the provider will collect the money, but not actually install many chargers.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      Or maintain them.
  - dexterdog 6y ago
    They should charge you to use them. The problem is they will charge you way more than they should because of the exclusive deal they have based on the bribes they paid to the city.
- numpad0 6y ago
  Bit tangential but I’ve been wondering how street parking thing works, because in my country you can’t register a car without a “declaration of storage space” form and storage address in it has to be a non-bogus private property no more than 2km(1.2mi) away from your home address. To me it’s a no-brainer to have such a regulation, but how do other people/cities/country cope without it? You apply for parking permission for “1234 Hacker Rd. space 3A” or do you just find an open spot and consider it yours, like you do for a chair in a cafe?
  - na85 6y ago
    In Vancouver BC for example it's common for residential streets to be "parking for residents only" and bylaw officers will ticket/tow any vehicle that is lacking a pass. The pass comes with your house/apartment.
  - ativzzz 6y ago
    In the US, depends on the city and probably on the neighborhood. A lot of my friends in NYC for example don't even have cars. I've lived in Texas a long time and parking space in residential areas was never a problem. Nearly every apartment complex comes with a giant parking lot and private houses either have a garage/driveway or the street is isolated enough to where on street parking isn't an issue, but it's practically impossible or at least extremely inconvenient to live in Texas without a car. There are a few places where parking is tight, like for instance at a university living space,so you either have to pay for a space somewhere or get a house/apt with dedicated parking (a lot of students don't really need cars though) or take the chance that you will have to play the street parking lottery.
    - sithadmin 6y ago
      >I've lived in Texas a long time and parking space in residential areas was never a problem. Nearly every apartment complex comes with a giant parking lot So prevalent in Texas that a now-popular building architype in North American real estate is known as the 'Texas Donut', whereby a midrise apartment building 'wraps' around a parking structure in the middle of the plot.
- technofiend 6y ago
  I mean on a serious note, yes I personally think it's possible to do. But heavy charging cables have enough copper you're basically leaving a few dollars for every person with a pair of bolt cutters and a shopping cart. Not to mention vandalism or ICEing due to someone wanting to protest electric cars. I'm not saying it's impossible; just you need to design in making them robust and vandalism, theft and denial-of-service resistant. On a more humorous note my first mental image had a cyberpunk vibe: someone walking around the city with an unregulated nuke generator (stolen recycled waste or maybe a stolen weapon) selling electricity by the watt from a repurposed hot dog cart. Or maybe WattWallahs if it turns into a semi informal business. I believe EVs will come into their own as battery technology improves to the point that charging is no longer a multi hour affair. Whether that's the Bill Gates battery, super capacitors, hot swap battery clubs or some combination thereof remains to be seen.
  - dontyouknow 6y ago
    Please see this https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/wcs.html https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/wcs.htm...
  - jiofih 6y ago
    Charging is already not a multi-hour affair. 30m-45m with current fast chargers. But you don’t need fast charging on public streets, you charge while parked.
    - technofiend 6y ago
      You do if the only place to park is on public streets.
      - Symbiote 6y ago
        I think the discussion is about people who park on the street outside their house or apartment. This is very common in some cities. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/oct/05/electric-car-ways-to-charge https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/oct/05/electric-car-w...
- slg 6y ago
  The funniest part is that this is paired with a lack of belief in the free market. Think of all the real estate that is taken up with gas stations. Do we think those are all going to exist forever despite a shrinking customer base? As society transfers to more EVs, gas stations can transition to EV charging stations. Those stations can be denser too since a charger doesn't require much more room than a parking space. Combine that with the trend of faster and faster charging and the need for a dedicated home charger will decrease over time.
  - cardiffspaceman 6y ago
    I keep hearing that gas stations aren't great businesses as they are, and if they do make money it is not on fuel. I found one article that is particularly negative, but not necessarily objective [1]. The closest gas station to me, on foot, has converted its mechanics bays to a great taco shop, its "office" to a liquor store with a great selection of spirits, and it has a full-size car wash operation wrapped around it. So it seems like the most likely conversion would be that the gas station would swap gas pumps for chargers, in phases. Of course the best layout for chargers where charging takes the time it currently does is not the same as the best layout for fuel pumps, so it will be interesting to see how the transition goes. So at present all the gas stations that I know of that seem viable are embedded in businesses that take up even more space, and the retail fuel business is just a part of it. [1] https://www.franchise.city/buy-a-gas-station https://www.franchise.city/buy-a-gas-station
    - slg 6y ago
      Many of those side businesses might be even more profitable with EV chargers as the main attraction rather than gas stations. EV charging doesn't require you to stay by the vehicle like gas fueling does (or at least is supposed to). Having a property with a constant flow of people who have 5-15 minutes of free time sounds like a great way to make money for a taco shop, liquor store, general convenience store, or any number of businesses.
      - randcraw 6y ago
- cbhl 6y ago
  $dayjob does provide shared charging infrastructure, and discovered there wasn't enough amperage going to the office park to run all of the chargers it does have at full speed. (Each charger can charge one car at full speed, but if both cables are plugged in, it will charge each at a reduced speed.) They currently have ~60 chargers on a 5-building campus. Given the square footage of the campus and the parking minimums set by the city, they'd need 25x that in order to convert every single parking spot with a charger. We'd need some pretty serious upgrades to our electrical transmission infrastructure to get L2 charging speeds from "every lamppost" as some would propose.
  - adolph 6y ago
    Is there a way of overprovisioning the physical car endpoints compared to the resources available to the group? Within a parking garage is there a method of metering/constraining individual charging nodes so that the overall consumption does not exceed the amps available to the garage? Say for example, all my neighborhood household electric meters have some zigbee coms that allow the electric co to snoop on individual usage closer to realtime. Do EVs not have a method for the charger to understand the EV's % of full charge?
    - cbhl 6y ago
      To an extent, yes -- the current infrastructure is already over-provisioned by a factor of 2. (Each charger has two ports; if one car is plugged in it goes at full speed, if both are plugged in they get half. Each station has 4 parking spots, so that you can move the charging cord over to the next car when you're done charging your car.) But when we start talking about "every parking spot" scale, then two constraints come to mind: (1) the charging rate is too low to be effective (L1 charging over "regular" 110V wall outlets gets you only a few miles of charge an hour), and (2) if you have too much current going through some common section of cable, it will blow a circuit breaker, or worse, overheat and cause an electrical fire (same as if you plug too many things into an extension cord at home or work). Edit: I think the current state of the art for sharing is "push notification to tell the driver to move their car" because there is a non-trivial capital outlay for chargers even if you have enough electricity. So any scheme that involves all the cars being plugged in and some intelligent switching of who should go first still requires considerable capital costs, even before you get to upgrading the big transmission wires.
- adolph 6y ago
  Given the economics of personal EV cars (they are expensive), wouldn't it be difficult to justify the investment (spending) given a growing wealth divide (spending everybody's money on rich folks to enable buying expensive things)? I acknowledge that EV transport has a chicken/egg problem of standing up a support infrastructure as adoption grows and that there are collective interests in decreasing point of service emissions and shifting energy generation away from sources with harmful emissions. However, the problem can be viewed from perspectives outside the personal car paradigm. Why would a rationally goal-oriented city or similar organization spend money/effort on supporting the personal ownership model instead of improving transportation for all people? For example, the same decrease in emissions might be achieved by improved bus/tram service, or public/private partnership to provide EV charging for car sharing services. What are the cities that have provided street-side charging, what were their goals and by what criteria did they decide to do street-side charging instead of choosing other methods to achieve their goals?
  - throw1234651234 6y ago
    Heh, writing about "EV cars* on your personal PC computer". *vehicle cars
    - minhaz23 6y ago
      hi! i hope you dont mind the random solicitation but intense searching for answers led to a comment of yours in a very old thread that struck a chord with me, i hoped to find an email or way to contact you but only found that you are using a throwaway to remain anonymous and that your tone/language/interests/concerns (from the little ive seen) are more relatable than i expected is there a way we can chat today without me imposing on your privacy/anonimity? a secure way to chat for you? if you didnt mind me picking your brain of course. thank you!
  - bogidon 6y ago
    EVs are projected to get cheaper than internal combustion by mid-decade [0]. There are lots of American city neighborhoods where EVs will be inaccessible without street-side charging. In response to GP, I definitely expect the US government to take a lead on building charging infrastructure (especially with a federal administration that doesn't actively dismiss climate change). A failure to demonstrate competence building green infrastructure in the next few years will quite possibly lead me to seek greener pastures elsewhere (EU). Thankfully San Francisco included charging infrastructure and street-side charging in its 2019 EV roadmap [1]. That said, public transit is by far the better green tech. But since private vehicles won't be going away overnight, might as well transition them to something cleaner. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric-vehicles-close-to-tipping-point-of-mass-adoption https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric... [1] https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2019/07/evroadmap_final_june2019.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...
gambiting 6y ago
Yep, I've had the XC60 T8 for a year now and I love it. Either I'm not burning any petrol whatsoever or averaging 100-150mpg in my daily driving. I fill up once every 3-4 months so far. And I did a 1500 mile trip around Europe last summer too, like in any normal car. Absolutely fantastic.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chris11 6y ago
  The 2021 Rav4 prime also looks really. It has an estimated 40+ mile EV range. That should take care of most of your daily trips. But at 50k Toyota has a lot of competition with EVs and other hybrids.
fredophile 6y ago
Probably the same thing people do in winter in cold climates. Get an outdoor extension cord and plug the car in.
PascLeRasc 6y ago
One of my recurring daydreams is that 10 years from now we'll have mini charging stations on city streets by default. It'd really make EVs so much more accessible to the masses.
- matsemann 6y ago
  It's the norm in Oslo (Norway). Lots of public/street parking have had chargers installed the last years.
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  Some company was going to put chargers to lamp posts. What happened?
perardi 6y ago
You can go full Toronto on it and string an extension cord out your window. https://imgur.com/a/w3y7ow5 https://imgur.com/a/w3y7ow5 (Not a meme. This is down the street from me.)
- aidenn0 6y ago
  That chain doesn't look nearly heavy enough to secure something two people could lift into a flatbed truck. Is theft just less of an issue in Toronto than other cities?
  - perardi 6y ago
    Pfff, no, not judging from the number of bicycles I know have been stolen. This is a slightly decrepit stretch of the east side of the city, so, don’t assume “trust” when you can assume “too high to think this through”.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    You'd be more worried about the open window.
- notJim 6y ago
  There are people doing this in my neighborhood in Portland as well, including with very fancy cars.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  I have a neighbour who is charging his Nissan Leaf living on 2 floor of 15 storey building.
detaro 6y ago
That's where the fast-charge options, ideally in places people go anyways, become important. You also don't have a petrol pump on the street and have to go out of your way for one, but doing that for electric isn't that feasible if it takes hours. 30 min quick-charge near somewhere you want to go anyways (shop, park, ...) makes it more viable.
- wrycoder 6y ago
  Thirty minutes is too long. We need ten minutes. Once a battery has sufficient capacity for the intended use, it’s charging time that counts. For example, the battery capacity on my Apple watch is more than adequate. I’d like to see the charging time cut in half. Then it would charge enough while I’m shaving each morning.
  - clintonb 6y ago
    > Thirty minutes is too long. We need ten minutes. How is 30 minutes too long? If you plan your charging around the time you go to run errands, 30 minutes is probably adequate. This is especially true in pandemic times where a trip to get groceries is may be preceded by a 5-10 minute wait in line.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      Other people will be ahead of you for a turn at the charger.
    - wrycoder 6y ago
      That’s like leaving your car at the gas pump while you go shopping. It takes five minutes to fill at a gas pump. Then you move on, and the next person fills up. Until there’s a charge station at every parking spot, it’s not going to work. You have to stay close to the car while it’s charging. Works for the 7-11, but not for regular shopping.
      - clintonb 6y ago
        > You have to stay close to the car while it’s charging. Works for the 7-11, but not for regular shopping. What? No. I plug in my car. The charger locks so no one can disturb it. I do my shopping, and I come back, unplug, and move on. Not everyone needs to charge all the time, so there doesn’t need to be one charger for every parking spot. Many people seem to think about EV charging as analogous to refueling an ICE vehicle. They differ in the sense that EV charging today requires planning. Tesla’s navigation system makes this convenient for SuperChargers by showing the number of available spots at each charger. I use the PlugShare app to look at non-Tesla chargers when I want a little more charge but don’t need the speed of a SuperCharger/want to pay the premium. I’ve owned a Model 3 for seven months now. I’ve only encountered one SuperCharger in 11K miles of travel (including a round trip from the Bay Area to Dallas, TX) that was completely busy. I drove to another one that was a little under 10 minutes away. It’s also worth nothing that many folks charge at home. My apartment building has two chargers shared by about 12 EV drivers. Other apartment buildings have more chargers. Not everyone needs public chargers the same way nearly everyone needs a fuel station.
namdnay 6y ago
The problem with me for PHEVs is that you have all the mechanical problems of an ICE. The main attraction of EVs is no longer having gearboxes, engines, turbos, cambelts etc
- detaro 6y ago
  The serial-hybrid kind (drive is electric, additional ICE drives a generator that charges a battery) can avoid at least some of that complexity. I'm curious to see if that's going to be a somewhat common thing, or if it's just too much extra stuff and weight compared to just packing in more batteries instead.
  - Forbo 6y ago
    Since Chevy killed the Volt, it looks like they're focusing on just going straight electric. Which I find unfortunate, I was hoping more manufacturers would take the series hybrid approach.
    - thesmok 6y ago
      Honda makes series hybrid now: CR-V, Accord, Jazz. Accoring to reviews, they are more efficient than Toyotas.
- nradov 6y ago
  Well that's the theory. In practice the Toyota Prius with its highly complex hybrid drivetrain is far more reliable and durable than any Tesla. Proper engineering and build quality counts for a lot.
  - namdnay 6y ago
    Yes that's a very good point
  - Gregoriy 6y ago
    The other side of the story when it breaks it's really hard to find a specialist ;(
mdasen 6y ago
As someone who lives with street parking in a city, I've found that I actually tend to drive less than 300 miles in a month. There's 7.2 amp charging at the grocery store that I go to so I can top-up there while shopping. There's also charging stations in a bunch of the public parking places around town. It wouldn't be carefree to go all-electric, but it also doesn't seem like it would be too much of an imposition on my life. Likewise, high-speed charging from Tesla Superchargers, Electrify America, and certainly others by 2030 can give an 80% charge in around half an hour. Again, it certainly isn't perfect, but it feels like I could work with it. However, the big thing is that we're going to need to see a change in our cities that will kinda render a lot of this moot. Street parking, parking in general, and car ownership/use in cities is going to have to decline. Our cities are drowning under parking infrastructure. Everyone is afraid of new housing because new housing brings competition for parking spaces and increased traffic. If we're going to actually make cities a sustainable place to live, it's going to need to mean a lot fewer cars. Housing prices in cities like Seattle, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, NYC, Boston, and DC are already sky-high. I know that a lot of techies can afford to live there, but raising a family becomes expensive when 1,200 square feet starts above a million. If we add new housing, we realistically can't add a lot of new parking to accommodate an influx of people with cars. Even if we mandate parking minimums for new housing (which is bad), that still means less parking available per car at everywhere you're driving to; it still means increased traffic that the roads can't accommodate (and there isn't space to just expand the roads). Plus, as cities try to reduce traffic deaths and accommodate more road users, even fewer cars can be accommodated. A lot of cities are reducing the speed limit to 25 MPH, introducing protected bike lanes, adding traffic calming devices, removing parking spaces that would block drivers from seeing pedestrians, etc. Cities are taking back some car infrastructure and returning it to use for people. Likewise, businesses that are now sitting on incredibly valuable land that is being under-used as parking are likely going to pressure local governments to let them turn those parking lots into better uses of that land. I remember the white-flight and the jobs that followed out into the suburbs. For those that remained in a city, they might have to commute out of the city to Redmond for their job and so parking was essential. Today, Amazon and others are setting up shop in Seattle. For hiking, maybe it's reasonable to just rent a car for the day/weekend. I know that makes it seems like you're having to pay for the trip, but you were always having to pay. Cars will generally be $500/mo all-in on the cheap side of things, never mind an Audi or Volvo. Ultimately, dealing with global warming and other challenges will require a certain amount of change in the way we set things up and live our lives. I think this is the reality that people often don't want to acknowledge - that what currently exists can't really continue existing for the kind of world we want and need to be. Electric cars lower emissions a good bit, but there's still a lot of emissions in manufacturing, a lot of particulate matter from tires and brakes, a lot of emissions from road-building and repair, a huge amount of emissions from concrete for parking garages, a large death toll from traffic fatalities, emissions from the fact that many trees that won't exist to accommodate car infrastructure, emissions from air conditioning as more car infrastructure means making cities greater heat islands... Plus, how do we accommodate the growth of our cities? I think the answer to your question is that we're likely going to have to make changes to our cities and how we live in them rather than figuring out how street-parkers go full EV.
eulers_secret 6y ago
Another adoption hurdle: A lot of folks live in apartments as well. I've accepted I won't be going electric until I buy a house. There is no way my complex will install chargers, until it's required somehow. No garages here. House prices are hovering around $500,000 in my area. With a traditional mortgage, 20% down is a lot to save up (100K). -- This has made electric cars a unique form of social signaling: It basically states "I'm a homeowner!" (or can afford house rental, which is also very expensive... or went with an FHA loan/can afford that mortgage payment) There are some apartments that have charging ports, but they're very high-end, with rents comparable to a single-family detached house anyways. They're also very rare in my area. Sure you can charge at whatever ports are available (not many here), but (IMO) it just doesn't make much sense to go electric and not have the ability to charge your car at home.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ip26 6y ago
  You could look at home chargers around you and strike up a friendship. Although, certainly if you rack up hundreds of miles every day it won’t work that well. That said, isn’t part of the allure of apartments being close to your destinations? Walking to the park, a 1-mile trip to the grocery, etc.
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    Don’t know where OP is located but there are plenty of apartments located in low density areas where that’s impractical.
  - eulers_secret 6y ago
    > That said, isn’t part of the allure of apartments being close to your destinations? Walking to the park, a 1-mile trip to the grocery, etc. It can be, but there is another reason to chose living in an apartment: It's cheap. I live here because it's inexpensive (< $1000/mo) and I can save that large down payment quicker. My apartment is not convenient: 45 minutes from my work, 15 minutes from an affordable grocery store. But there is a very nice park within walking distance. > You could look at home chargers around you and strike up a friendship. This is true, I could. But that's a lot less convenient than buying another hybrid when the time comes. Gasoline is 5 minutes away, refueling is fast, and I only need to do it every other week.
cameldrv 6y ago
I know that there are a number of projects to put charging stations in streetlight poles. Even if, for cost reasons, this is just L1 charging, this can accommodate many people's needs, particularly in Europe, where due to the higher voltage, L1 is 3.6kW.
jackdeansmith 6y ago
I've seen a decent amount of extension cord -> street parking rigs in the Seattle area. Seems fine for trickle charging but I sure as hell wouldn't use a no-name generic extension cord from amazon.

e40 6y ago

I live in a similar place to Seattle, and I see people laying charge cords across the sidewalk all the time. With nothing covering them, making them a tripping hazard. Just blows me away. This is ripe for insurance scams, but it is a genuine problem, for pushing strollers, wheelchairs, and pedestrians!

Maarten88 6y ago

> A lot of the Seattle area only has street parking on residential streets. I'm curious how these folks are ever going to go full EV. It is funny how people in the US expect exactly nothing from their government/city. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there?

aaronbrethorst 6y ago
I take it you have not experienced the consistent lack of vision or competence from the last several Seattle city mayors[1]. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there? I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive: no, no one here thinks that the mayor of Seattle would be able to do this. We have a mayoral election coming up in November. There's an outside chance that things might change for the better, but I'm not really holding my breath. --- [1] Excepting McGinn, who I thought got a really raw deal.
- posguy 6y ago
  McGinn made a few cushy positions for his friends and did not get much done. Very similar to Greg Nickels IMO, who was only ousted after his cronies that ran SDOT totally bodged Snowpocalypse, followed by him coming out and saying he thought they did a B- job despite most of the city being trapped in snow for a week...
devoutsalsa 6y ago
American here. We expect to be milked like dairy cows.
dpoochieni 6y ago
Nah, too busy inefficiently and ineffectually spending on the homeless to care about actual tax payers.
- thomasedwards 6y ago
  From the photos and reports I’ve seen, they’re not giving a dime to anybody that needs a dime.
klyrs 6y ago
As I understand it, level 3 chargers need quite a lot of infrastructure, and maintenance ain't free. Putting one on, say, every residential block would be a huge expense, and there's a chicken/egg problem where the demand doesn't justify such a step yet... but if everybody gets on board, one per block wouldn't be enough. And right now, folks get tax breaks for their EVs instead of getting taxed for necessary infrastructure improvements. This is the sort of infrastructure work that a Green New Deal should support. But that's a political poison pill, as supporting energy sector jobs is "patriotic" if it's carbon based and "communism" otherwise.
- scythe 6y ago
  If the vehicles are parked overnight and mostly driven to work, you don't need anything like a level 3 charger. A 220V/12A outlet is probably enough. That won't give you a full charge, but it's enough for most urban commutes. (And making this infrastructure available should make PHEV owners buy less gasoline, which is good!)
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Yeah, that's a good point. I can only imagine fighting with neighbors over access to that one charger.... maybe banks of L1 would suffice for most daily drivers.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    Excellent reminder/point. Thanks!
  - aerostable_slug 6y ago
    And with current technology (pun intended), your battery will last significantly longer.
- perardi 6y ago
  Yeah, building out high-speed chargers on every block cannot possibly be cheap. You could have an extra fee on top of vehicle stickers for EVs…and even as I type that, I can imagine the pitched screaming, from both sides of the aisle. “Why are you suppressing clean vehicles?!” “More big city taxes?!”
sloreti 6y ago
Or you take the view that if a city is investing in transportation infrastructure, it should focus on public transportation instead of building infrastructure for private vehicles that degrade the urban experience.
- scotth 6y ago
  Or maybe do both? I don't see Americans getting rid of their cars, so look at it as harm reduction.
  - jniedrauer 6y ago
    I would. And if I would, so would others.
    - kempbellt 6y ago
      I wouldn't. And I'm sure many others wouldn't either for similar reasons. Public transportation is great and I love using it when it makes sense, but in many cities it does not compete with the convenience and security of having a reliable personal vehicle. The only place I felt public transportation was good enough to go without my own car was NYC - but I lived on a great train line that ran every few minutes reliably. I also didn't have any dependents that I was responsible for. Many people who lived nearby used the train but still had their own cars as a backup. Even with how convenient it was for shuttling myself around, using it when needing to carry anything like groceries becomes difficult, and made me wish I had a car. Especially during rush hour where sitting is almost impossible. I'm all for improving public transportation, but I do not see it being a replacement for personal vehicles in every way.
- criddell 6y ago
  Maybe the street chargers could be run for profit with the proceeds used to subsidize public transportation?
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  The issue is that public transit generally optimizes for throughput, and latency suffers. The wealthier people are, the more latency sensitive they become.
aidenn0 6y ago
> It is funny how people in the US expect exactly nothing from their government/city. Does nobody think they could provide shared charging infrastructure for people who live there? We expect them to propose charging infrastructure, think they have a consensus, and then get sued by someone for some stupid reason, and then 10-15 years later break ground on something 1/3 of what people need. California is much worse than the east-coast in this regard, but there's a 12 lane freeway bridge in the DC area that is a draw-bridge because the original plan of a suspension bridge was fought by people who complained that it would be an eyesore.
- VintageCool 6y ago
  For anyone else who didn't believe aidenn0, this is the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. It carries 250,000 cars a day (or it did, pre-pandemic). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_Bridge
jedberg 6y ago
This is the United States. The best we expect is that the city will contract with an exclusive provider who will be the only ones that can install chargers on every street and then charge us to use them.
- notJim 6y ago
  Also, the provider will collect the money, but not actually install many chargers.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    Or maintain them.
- dexterdog 6y ago
  They should charge you to use them. The problem is they will charge you way more than they should because of the exclusive deal they have based on the bribes they paid to the city.
numpad0 6y ago
Bit tangential but I’ve been wondering how street parking thing works, because in my country you can’t register a car without a “declaration of storage space” form and storage address in it has to be a non-bogus private property no more than 2km(1.2mi) away from your home address. To me it’s a no-brainer to have such a regulation, but how do other people/cities/country cope without it? You apply for parking permission for “1234 Hacker Rd. space 3A” or do you just find an open spot and consider it yours, like you do for a chair in a cafe?
- na85 6y ago
  In Vancouver BC for example it's common for residential streets to be "parking for residents only" and bylaw officers will ticket/tow any vehicle that is lacking a pass. The pass comes with your house/apartment.
- ativzzz 6y ago
  In the US, depends on the city and probably on the neighborhood. A lot of my friends in NYC for example don't even have cars. I've lived in Texas a long time and parking space in residential areas was never a problem. Nearly every apartment complex comes with a giant parking lot and private houses either have a garage/driveway or the street is isolated enough to where on street parking isn't an issue, but it's practically impossible or at least extremely inconvenient to live in Texas without a car. There are a few places where parking is tight, like for instance at a university living space,so you either have to pay for a space somewhere or get a house/apt with dedicated parking (a lot of students don't really need cars though) or take the chance that you will have to play the street parking lottery.
  - sithadmin 6y ago
    >I've lived in Texas a long time and parking space in residential areas was never a problem. Nearly every apartment complex comes with a giant parking lot So prevalent in Texas that a now-popular building architype in North American real estate is known as the 'Texas Donut', whereby a midrise apartment building 'wraps' around a parking structure in the middle of the plot.
technofiend 6y ago
I mean on a serious note, yes I personally think it's possible to do. But heavy charging cables have enough copper you're basically leaving a few dollars for every person with a pair of bolt cutters and a shopping cart. Not to mention vandalism or ICEing due to someone wanting to protest electric cars. I'm not saying it's impossible; just you need to design in making them robust and vandalism, theft and denial-of-service resistant. On a more humorous note my first mental image had a cyberpunk vibe: someone walking around the city with an unregulated nuke generator (stolen recycled waste or maybe a stolen weapon) selling electricity by the watt from a repurposed hot dog cart. Or maybe WattWallahs if it turns into a semi informal business. I believe EVs will come into their own as battery technology improves to the point that charging is no longer a multi hour affair. Whether that's the Bill Gates battery, super capacitors, hot swap battery clubs or some combination thereof remains to be seen.
- dontyouknow 6y ago
  Please see this https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/wcs.html https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/OVERVIEW/wcs.htm...
- jiofih 6y ago
  Charging is already not a multi-hour affair. 30m-45m with current fast chargers. But you don’t need fast charging on public streets, you charge while parked.
  - technofiend 6y ago
    You do if the only place to park is on public streets.
    - Symbiote 6y ago
      I think the discussion is about people who park on the street outside their house or apartment. This is very common in some cities. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/oct/05/electric-car-ways-to-charge https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/oct/05/electric-car-w...
slg 6y ago
The funniest part is that this is paired with a lack of belief in the free market. Think of all the real estate that is taken up with gas stations. Do we think those are all going to exist forever despite a shrinking customer base? As society transfers to more EVs, gas stations can transition to EV charging stations. Those stations can be denser too since a charger doesn't require much more room than a parking space. Combine that with the trend of faster and faster charging and the need for a dedicated home charger will decrease over time.
- cardiffspaceman 6y ago
  I keep hearing that gas stations aren't great businesses as they are, and if they do make money it is not on fuel. I found one article that is particularly negative, but not necessarily objective [1]. The closest gas station to me, on foot, has converted its mechanics bays to a great taco shop, its "office" to a liquor store with a great selection of spirits, and it has a full-size car wash operation wrapped around it. So it seems like the most likely conversion would be that the gas station would swap gas pumps for chargers, in phases. Of course the best layout for chargers where charging takes the time it currently does is not the same as the best layout for fuel pumps, so it will be interesting to see how the transition goes. So at present all the gas stations that I know of that seem viable are embedded in businesses that take up even more space, and the retail fuel business is just a part of it. [1] https://www.franchise.city/buy-a-gas-station https://www.franchise.city/buy-a-gas-station
  - slg 6y ago
    Many of those side businesses might be even more profitable with EV chargers as the main attraction rather than gas stations. EV charging doesn't require you to stay by the vehicle like gas fueling does (or at least is supposed to). Having a property with a constant flow of people who have 5-15 minutes of free time sounds like a great way to make money for a taco shop, liquor store, general convenience store, or any number of businesses.
    - randcraw 6y ago
cbhl 6y ago
$dayjob does provide shared charging infrastructure, and discovered there wasn't enough amperage going to the office park to run all of the chargers it does have at full speed. (Each charger can charge one car at full speed, but if both cables are plugged in, it will charge each at a reduced speed.) They currently have ~60 chargers on a 5-building campus. Given the square footage of the campus and the parking minimums set by the city, they'd need 25x that in order to convert every single parking spot with a charger. We'd need some pretty serious upgrades to our electrical transmission infrastructure to get L2 charging speeds from "every lamppost" as some would propose.
- adolph 6y ago
  Is there a way of overprovisioning the physical car endpoints compared to the resources available to the group? Within a parking garage is there a method of metering/constraining individual charging nodes so that the overall consumption does not exceed the amps available to the garage? Say for example, all my neighborhood household electric meters have some zigbee coms that allow the electric co to snoop on individual usage closer to realtime. Do EVs not have a method for the charger to understand the EV's % of full charge?
  - cbhl 6y ago
    To an extent, yes -- the current infrastructure is already over-provisioned by a factor of 2. (Each charger has two ports; if one car is plugged in it goes at full speed, if both are plugged in they get half. Each station has 4 parking spots, so that you can move the charging cord over to the next car when you're done charging your car.) But when we start talking about "every parking spot" scale, then two constraints come to mind: (1) the charging rate is too low to be effective (L1 charging over "regular" 110V wall outlets gets you only a few miles of charge an hour), and (2) if you have too much current going through some common section of cable, it will blow a circuit breaker, or worse, overheat and cause an electrical fire (same as if you plug too many things into an extension cord at home or work). Edit: I think the current state of the art for sharing is "push notification to tell the driver to move their car" because there is a non-trivial capital outlay for chargers even if you have enough electricity. So any scheme that involves all the cars being plugged in and some intelligent switching of who should go first still requires considerable capital costs, even before you get to upgrading the big transmission wires.
adolph 6y ago
Given the economics of personal EV cars (they are expensive), wouldn't it be difficult to justify the investment (spending) given a growing wealth divide (spending everybody's money on rich folks to enable buying expensive things)? I acknowledge that EV transport has a chicken/egg problem of standing up a support infrastructure as adoption grows and that there are collective interests in decreasing point of service emissions and shifting energy generation away from sources with harmful emissions. However, the problem can be viewed from perspectives outside the personal car paradigm. Why would a rationally goal-oriented city or similar organization spend money/effort on supporting the personal ownership model instead of improving transportation for all people? For example, the same decrease in emissions might be achieved by improved bus/tram service, or public/private partnership to provide EV charging for car sharing services. What are the cities that have provided street-side charging, what were their goals and by what criteria did they decide to do street-side charging instead of choosing other methods to achieve their goals?
- throw1234651234 6y ago
  Heh, writing about "EV cars* on your personal PC computer". *vehicle cars
  - minhaz23 6y ago
    hi! i hope you dont mind the random solicitation but intense searching for answers led to a comment of yours in a very old thread that struck a chord with me, i hoped to find an email or way to contact you but only found that you are using a throwaway to remain anonymous and that your tone/language/interests/concerns (from the little ive seen) are more relatable than i expected is there a way we can chat today without me imposing on your privacy/anonimity? a secure way to chat for you? if you didnt mind me picking your brain of course. thank you!
- bogidon 6y ago
  EVs are projected to get cheaper than internal combustion by mid-decade [0]. There are lots of American city neighborhoods where EVs will be inaccessible without street-side charging. In response to GP, I definitely expect the US government to take a lead on building charging infrastructure (especially with a federal administration that doesn't actively dismiss climate change). A failure to demonstrate competence building green infrastructure in the next few years will quite possibly lead me to seek greener pastures elsewhere (EU). Thankfully San Francisco included charging infrastructure and street-side charging in its 2019 EV roadmap [1]. That said, public transit is by far the better green tech. But since private vehicles won't be going away overnight, might as well transition them to something cleaner. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric-vehicles-close-to-tipping-point-of-mass-adoption https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/22/electric... [1] https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2019/07/evroadmap_final_june2019.pdf https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...

gambiting 6y ago

Yep, I've had the XC60 T8 for a year now and I love it. Either I'm not burning any petrol whatsoever or averaging 100-150mpg in my daily driving. I fill up once every 3-4 months so far. And I did a 1500 mile trip around Europe last summer too, like in any normal car. Absolutely fantastic.

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chris11 6y ago
The 2021 Rav4 prime also looks really. It has an estimated 40+ mile EV range. That should take care of most of your daily trips. But at 50k Toyota has a lot of competition with EVs and other hybrids.

fredophile 6y ago

Probably the same thing people do in winter in cold climates. Get an outdoor extension cord and plug the car in.

PascLeRasc 6y ago

One of my recurring daydreams is that 10 years from now we'll have mini charging stations on city streets by default. It'd really make EVs so much more accessible to the masses.

matsemann 6y ago
It's the norm in Oslo (Norway). Lots of public/street parking have had chargers installed the last years.
Gravityloss 6y ago
Some company was going to put chargers to lamp posts. What happened?

perardi 6y ago

You can go full Toronto on it and string an extension cord out your window. https://imgur.com/a/w3y7ow5 https://imgur.com/a/w3y7ow5 (Not a meme. This is down the street from me.)

aidenn0 6y ago
That chain doesn't look nearly heavy enough to secure something two people could lift into a flatbed truck. Is theft just less of an issue in Toronto than other cities?
- perardi 6y ago
  Pfff, no, not judging from the number of bicycles I know have been stolen. This is a slightly decrepit stretch of the east side of the city, so, don’t assume “trust” when you can assume “too high to think this through”.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  You'd be more worried about the open window.
notJim 6y ago
There are people doing this in my neighborhood in Portland as well, including with very fancy cars.
sergeykish 6y ago
I have a neighbour who is charging his Nissan Leaf living on 2 floor of 15 storey building.

detaro 6y ago

That's where the fast-charge options, ideally in places people go anyways, become important. You also don't have a petrol pump on the street and have to go out of your way for one, but doing that for electric isn't that feasible if it takes hours. 30 min quick-charge near somewhere you want to go anyways (shop, park, ...) makes it more viable.

wrycoder 6y ago
Thirty minutes is too long. We need ten minutes. Once a battery has sufficient capacity for the intended use, it’s charging time that counts. For example, the battery capacity on my Apple watch is more than adequate. I’d like to see the charging time cut in half. Then it would charge enough while I’m shaving each morning.
- clintonb 6y ago
  > Thirty minutes is too long. We need ten minutes. How is 30 minutes too long? If you plan your charging around the time you go to run errands, 30 minutes is probably adequate. This is especially true in pandemic times where a trip to get groceries is may be preceded by a 5-10 minute wait in line.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Other people will be ahead of you for a turn at the charger.
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    That’s like leaving your car at the gas pump while you go shopping. It takes five minutes to fill at a gas pump. Then you move on, and the next person fills up. Until there’s a charge station at every parking spot, it’s not going to work. You have to stay close to the car while it’s charging. Works for the 7-11, but not for regular shopping.
    - clintonb 6y ago
      > You have to stay close to the car while it’s charging. Works for the 7-11, but not for regular shopping. What? No. I plug in my car. The charger locks so no one can disturb it. I do my shopping, and I come back, unplug, and move on. Not everyone needs to charge all the time, so there doesn’t need to be one charger for every parking spot. Many people seem to think about EV charging as analogous to refueling an ICE vehicle. They differ in the sense that EV charging today requires planning. Tesla’s navigation system makes this convenient for SuperChargers by showing the number of available spots at each charger. I use the PlugShare app to look at non-Tesla chargers when I want a little more charge but don’t need the speed of a SuperCharger/want to pay the premium. I’ve owned a Model 3 for seven months now. I’ve only encountered one SuperCharger in 11K miles of travel (including a round trip from the Bay Area to Dallas, TX) that was completely busy. I drove to another one that was a little under 10 minutes away. It’s also worth nothing that many folks charge at home. My apartment building has two chargers shared by about 12 EV drivers. Other apartment buildings have more chargers. Not everyone needs public chargers the same way nearly everyone needs a fuel station.

namdnay 6y ago

The problem with me for PHEVs is that you have all the mechanical problems of an ICE. The main attraction of EVs is no longer having gearboxes, engines, turbos, cambelts etc

detaro 6y ago
The serial-hybrid kind (drive is electric, additional ICE drives a generator that charges a battery) can avoid at least some of that complexity. I'm curious to see if that's going to be a somewhat common thing, or if it's just too much extra stuff and weight compared to just packing in more batteries instead.
- Forbo 6y ago
  Since Chevy killed the Volt, it looks like they're focusing on just going straight electric. Which I find unfortunate, I was hoping more manufacturers would take the series hybrid approach.
  - thesmok 6y ago
    Honda makes series hybrid now: CR-V, Accord, Jazz. Accoring to reviews, they are more efficient than Toyotas.
nradov 6y ago
Well that's the theory. In practice the Toyota Prius with its highly complex hybrid drivetrain is far more reliable and durable than any Tesla. Proper engineering and build quality counts for a lot.
- namdnay 6y ago
  Yes that's a very good point
- Gregoriy 6y ago
  The other side of the story when it breaks it's really hard to find a specialist ;(

mdasen 6y ago

As someone who lives with street parking in a city, I've found that I actually tend to drive less than 300 miles in a month. There's 7.2 amp charging at the grocery store that I go to so I can top-up there while shopping. There's also charging stations in a bunch of the public parking places around town. It wouldn't be carefree to go all-electric, but it also doesn't seem like it would be too much of an imposition on my life. Likewise, high-speed charging from Tesla Superchargers, Electrify America, and certainly others by 2030 can give an 80% charge in around half an hour. Again, it certainly isn't perfect, but it feels like I could work with it. However, the big thing is that we're going to need to see a change in our cities that will kinda render a lot of this moot. Street parking, parking in general, and car ownership/use in cities is going to have to decline. Our cities are drowning under parking infrastructure. Everyone is afraid of new housing because new housing brings competition for parking spaces and increased traffic. If we're going to actually make cities a sustainable place to live, it's going to need to mean a lot fewer cars. Housing prices in cities like Seattle, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, NYC, Boston, and DC are already sky-high. I know that a lot of techies can afford to live there, but raising a family becomes expensive when 1,200 square feet starts above a million. If we add new housing, we realistically can't add a lot of new parking to accommodate an influx of people with cars. Even if we mandate parking minimums for new housing (which is bad), that still means less parking available per car at everywhere you're driving to; it still means increased traffic that the roads can't accommodate (and there isn't space to just expand the roads). Plus, as cities try to reduce traffic deaths and accommodate more road users, even fewer cars can be accommodated. A lot of cities are reducing the speed limit to 25 MPH, introducing protected bike lanes, adding traffic calming devices, removing parking spaces that would block drivers from seeing pedestrians, etc. Cities are taking back some car infrastructure and returning it to use for people. Likewise, businesses that are now sitting on incredibly valuable land that is being under-used as parking are likely going to pressure local governments to let them turn those parking lots into better uses of that land. I remember the white-flight and the jobs that followed out into the suburbs. For those that remained in a city, they might have to commute out of the city to Redmond for their job and so parking was essential. Today, Amazon and others are setting up shop in Seattle. For hiking, maybe it's reasonable to just rent a car for the day/weekend. I know that makes it seems like you're having to pay for the trip, but you were always having to pay. Cars will generally be $500/mo all-in on the cheap side of things, never mind an Audi or Volvo. Ultimately, dealing with global warming and other challenges will require a certain amount of change in the way we set things up and live our lives. I think this is the reality that people often don't want to acknowledge - that what currently exists can't really continue existing for the kind of world we want and need to be. Electric cars lower emissions a good bit, but there's still a lot of emissions in manufacturing, a lot of particulate matter from tires and brakes, a lot of emissions from road-building and repair, a huge amount of emissions from concrete for parking garages, a large death toll from traffic fatalities, emissions from the fact that many trees that won't exist to accommodate car infrastructure, emissions from air conditioning as more car infrastructure means making cities greater heat islands... Plus, how do we accommodate the growth of our cities? I think the answer to your question is that we're likely going to have to make changes to our cities and how we live in them rather than figuring out how street-parkers go full EV.

eulers_secret 6y ago

Another adoption hurdle: A lot of folks live in apartments as well. I've accepted I won't be going electric until I buy a house. There is no way my complex will install chargers, until it's required somehow. No garages here. House prices are hovering around $500,000 in my area. With a traditional mortgage, 20% down is a lot to save up (100K). -- This has made electric cars a unique form of social signaling: It basically states "I'm a homeowner!" (or can afford house rental, which is also very expensive... or went with an FHA loan/can afford that mortgage payment) There are some apartments that have charging ports, but they're very high-end, with rents comparable to a single-family detached house anyways. They're also very rare in my area. Sure you can charge at whatever ports are available (not many here), but (IMO) it just doesn't make much sense to go electric and not have the ability to charge your car at home.

deleted 6y ago
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ip26 6y ago
You could look at home chargers around you and strike up a friendship. Although, certainly if you rack up hundreds of miles every day it won’t work that well. That said, isn’t part of the allure of apartments being close to your destinations? Walking to the park, a 1-mile trip to the grocery, etc.
- the_only_law 6y ago
  Don’t know where OP is located but there are plenty of apartments located in low density areas where that’s impractical.
- eulers_secret 6y ago
  > That said, isn’t part of the allure of apartments being close to your destinations? Walking to the park, a 1-mile trip to the grocery, etc. It can be, but there is another reason to chose living in an apartment: It's cheap. I live here because it's inexpensive (< $1000/mo) and I can save that large down payment quicker. My apartment is not convenient: 45 minutes from my work, 15 minutes from an affordable grocery store. But there is a very nice park within walking distance. > You could look at home chargers around you and strike up a friendship. This is true, I could. But that's a lot less convenient than buying another hybrid when the time comes. Gasoline is 5 minutes away, refueling is fast, and I only need to do it every other week.

cameldrv 6y ago

I know that there are a number of projects to put charging stations in streetlight poles. Even if, for cost reasons, this is just L1 charging, this can accommodate many people's needs, particularly in Europe, where due to the higher voltage, L1 is 3.6kW.

jackdeansmith 6y ago

I've seen a decent amount of extension cord -> street parking rigs in the Seattle area. Seems fine for trickle charging but I sure as hell wouldn't use a no-name generic extension cord from amazon.