According to an article in my newspaper, the town of Los Gatos, CA, has been having problems with non-Ev's hogging public charging stations in their downtown. The city has been receiving complaints that IC cars have been parking in front of EV charging stations and the increasing number of EV's in the town have been left hanging out in the electrical cold when shopping. So this week, the city council voted unanimously to convert the parking spaces in front of charging stations into exclusive EV use while they are charging. Signs will be posted when the new policy takes effect. At one public lot that was mentioned, parking in front of a charging station will be limited to 3 hours. (It is estimated that most vehicles that use charging stations do so for an average of 3.5 to 3.75 hours at a time.)
According to the article, written by Judy Peterson of the Bay Area News Group, recent data indicated that charging station usage in the town of Los Gatos is increasing each month. Combining figures for all of the stations in town shows that between Jan. 22 and Feb. 18, 23 to 42 cars were using the stations daily. From April 1 to April 30, the usage was between 40 and 61 vehicles per day. The article notes that the number of electric vehicles is predicted to hit the 1 million mark nationwide by 2015.
