Electric Avenue

[Richard230]

That is the title of an article in the business section of my newspaper today written by Johathan J. Cooper of the AP.  He writes that a block-long stretch of a downtown Portland, OR, street will have seven free electric charging stations from six different manufactures installed as part of a Portland State University two-year study. This study will examine which chargers get the most use, who is plugging in and what they do while their car soaks up the charge. The charging stations were unveiled last Tuesday. Drivers who can snag a parking space in front of one of these charging stations can charge for free but they will have to pay the normal parking meter fee.

Better understanding of driver habits will help engineers tailor the next-generation electric car to those needs, eliminating unneeded features and lowering the price, says GM's Shad Balch. Electric Avenue has one quick-charge station that can juice-up an EV in about 30 minutes. The other six stations are Level 2 chargers and can replenish most battery packs in 4 to 6 hours. All very interesting and no doubt will produce some useful information for Portland State's study.

The article mentioned that there are only 400 EV's registered in Oregon, so this study may be a little light on EV individual owner numbers as I'll bet that a relatively few people will make the most use of the charging stations and they will be getting the same few local EV owners charging away over and over during the two years of the study.

However, what caught my eye in the article was the mention that Oregon and Washington are working on an initiative to install charging stations along I-5, so that an electric vehicle will be able to travel the 580 miles on I-5 from the southern border of Oregon all the way to Canada. Nothing was mentioned about California planning to do the same thing, although "planners" were quoted as "hoping" to eventually extend the proposed West Coast Green Highway south to the Mexican border.

[FreepZ]

Since I intend on being one of the EV crowd some time next year (hope, hope!), I figured that it would be a good idea to start scoping out some places where I could charge up.

I located a charging station (see below) and went on a little trip to see if I could actually find it. Well, I found it. There was only one station. And, of course, there was a non EV car parked in front of it. Also, the station only works if you have a special card, or a "contactless credit card", since it does not have the more common magnetic strip reader.

The Brammo survey had one question that really got me thinking: Where are you going to charge your bike? One of the options was: "Guerrilla (anywhere I can!)"
I take it that means looking for unattended sockets and plugging in there - but isn't that stealing? I'm not sure how comfortable I would be walking up to some building and plugging in (although these days, I see a lot of people are doing that in airports for their laptops/phones).

I am curious to know what you would do to get charged up. Would you go Guerrilla? Or only plug in where it's clearly marked as a charging station?

How to find a charging station:
Coulomb Technologies has a nice little map to location charging stations, and you can also find them with Google maps by searching for "EV Charging".

[Richard230]

I had a friend at my former workplace that told me that he had an electrical outlet in front of his home in San Francisco and I was welcome to use it to charge up my electric motorcycle (that was when it was running) if I was ever in the neighborhood, even if he wasn't home. I appreciated the thought, but that would make me a little uneasy (especially as recharging would have taken about 6 hours) and going "guerrilla" by charging up without the property owners permission sure sounds like stealing to me. I don't think it would be something that I would do. And that is how I answered that question.

[skuzzle]

Arrg!  I live in Portland, but I don't have anything to charge up yet 
The company where I work went to the effort to get the Empulse dimensions to size the concrete pad behind the new charging station so I could park there if cars are taking up the spots in front of the station.  So far I haven't seen a car or motorcycle at the stations (even though one Leaf owner works there).

[HighlanderMWC]

I just charge up at home...it's at full every time I start out for the day. I did check with building management at my office building and I can either charge down in the garage (paying for parking, about $30) and that it would be ok for me to charge from the lobby if the need arose (definitely not a regular thing though).

If it was needed I wouldn't have any issue plugging in at many businesses (after getting permission from the employee/manager on premises). I doubt I would need to charge for more than an hour in any of those situations.

[FreepZ]

My company is nice.

They said that if anybody at the office gets an electric vehicle, they are going to set up a charging station for it. Now all I need is my Empulse and I will get a prime parking spot at work.

[WanderLust]

Freepz, you lucky son of a gun!!!
I'll be lucky if I get to park in the shade...