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Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

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Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#11

Post by tdiggity »

stcredzero wrote: post #5
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Several states have laws that require apartment building and condo managers to allow tenants/owners to install EV chargers (at their own cost). I expect this trend to continue slowly across the US. If you can't charge at home, public charging is going to continue to expand rapidly (as electricity is everywhere). It'll just take some time, and effort on the part of local citizens and policy makers. If you own an EV, g…

Several states have laws that require apartment building and condo managers to allow tenants/owners to install EV chargers (at their own cost). Which states?

California for Condo/Townhome owners. However, in my experience, it didn't help. I had a condo with a shared garage, and the HOA said I had to pay for not just a line from the electrical room to my parking spot, but also the equipment/piping to scale it to any of the other parking spots. What would have been a $2000 installation turned into much more. My point being, even though there are laws that allow you to do this, there are ways they can make it out of reach if they want to.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#12

Post by rubidium »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Several states have laws that require apartment building and condo managers to allow tenants/owners to install EV chargers (at their own cost). I expect this trend to continue slowly across the US. If you can't charge at home, public charging is going to continue to expand rapidly (as electricity is everywhere). It'll just take some time, and effort on the part of local citizens and policy makers. If you own an EV, g…

There are quite a few single family homes that just have on-street parking with no dedicated parking spots (myself included). EV isn't an option for my unless my workplace had charging for nearly every vehicle. The current 2 charging stations are already taken most days.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#13

Post by Pfhreak »

Where will garage orphans add gasoline to their cars if they must park on the street?

If only there was a way to add energy to a vehicle outside of the home. Cars park all over the place. Distributed charging infrastructure doesn't sound too impossible -- parking meters probably already need electricity. Park and rides or business parking lots incentivize people to shop or commute in certain ways for a relatively modest investment.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#14

Post by toomuchtodo »

rubidium wrote: post #12
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Several states have laws that require apartment building and condo managers to allow tenants/owners to install EV chargers (at their own cost). I expect this trend to continue slowly across the US. If you can't charge at home, public charging is going to continue to expand rapidly (as electricity is everywhere). It'll just take some time, and effort on the part of local citizens and policy makers. If you own an EV, g…

There are quite a few single family homes that just have on-street parking with no dedicated parking spots (myself included). EV isn't an option for my unless my workplace had charging for nearly every vehicle. The current 2 charging stations are already taken most days.

Have you spoken to your local city about getting charging pedestals installed? Or having chargers added to street lights? Have you spoken to your workplace about having any amount of chargers installed? Progress is not a function of time.

The transition to electric mobility will require effort, but is not impossible. I am happy to speak to whomever is required to work towards having chargers installed near your home or workplace.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#15

Post by Excel_Wizard »

rootusrootus wrote: post #6

Why does everyone need a place to charge at home? Sure, it is one of the big advantages of an EV, but not everyone can take advantage of it. If the car has a 300-400 mile range, then charge it like you fuel up a gas-powered car. Takes a little bit longer, but that will improve over time.

The inconvenience of charging away from home is much bigger than you make it out to be.

Other posters here are mentioning ~40 miles of charging in an 18 hour period. That's pretty dang restrictive.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#16

Post by ecpottinger »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #9
rootusrootus wrote: post #6

Why does everyone need a place to charge at home? Sure, it is one of the big advantages of an EV, but not everyone can take advantage of it. If the car has a 300-400 mile range, then charge it like you fuel up a gas-powered car. Takes a little bit longer, but that will improve over time.

I imagine the same people who are garage orphans are probably also those who haven't got time to charge their machines for an hour or two. That's already a concern for road trips, but day to day that'll be a nightmare. Just hang around the charging station for an hour while your car recharges.

Since it does not take an hour to charge for a normal drive, maybe you are the one with bad timing.

If a person is driving 30 miles or less a day they only need less than 10 minutes charging to get by.

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#17

Post by bkohlmann »

Not exactly pertinent to "garage orphans," but i was struck by the picture featured in the article and the design choice of how electric chargers look.

They seem to be an exact replica of a traditional gas nozzle. Striking to me how initial conditions matter for human perception and adoption. While EV is an entirely new technology and thus could be built from a cleanslate, the easiest way to drive adoption was to shape it as close to the existing solution as possible - which was specifically designed to transmit a liquid. Clearly it works - but an important design lesson for me!

Re: Where will ‘garage orphans’ charge electric cars?

#19

Post by Finnucane »

stcredzero wrote: post #4

I used to run an extension cord out of my 2nd floor window, but I wasn't parking on the street. My space was off the driveway, behind a fence and a gate, but only about 12 feet from the curb. More recently, I had been parking an electric car in my apartment's lot, and running an extension cord from the exercise room, out to the car. Then the apartment decided to close off those outlets. In both cases, the car's batte…

There's a guy with a Tesla around the corner from me, who does this (cable out the 2nd floor window), and he does park on the street. Not sure what he does if he can't get a space close enough. (A neighborhood of row houses with little off-street parking)

I think the car makers have to accelerate integrating solar charging into their cars. You probably wouldn't get 100% of your charge that way, but you could get enough to substantially reduce dependence on the grid.

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