Author Topic: AAA to provide on-road EV charging  (Read 968 times)

Richard230

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AAA to provide on-road EV charging
« on: June 22, 2011, 07:26:28 PM »
According to a recent news report on the radio, AAA will be providing emergency charging for EVs that run out of juice on the highway. This service will start in August in 6 states, including California, Oregon, Washington, Florida and two others.
current bikes: 2018 16.6 kWh Zero S, 2011 Royal Enfield Bullet 500 Classic, 2009 BMW F650GS, 2007 BMW R1200R, 2005 Triumph T-100 Bonneville, 2002 Yamaha FZ1 and a 1978 Honda Kick 'N Go Senior.

FreepZ

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Re: AAA to provide on-road EV charging
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2011, 10:55:22 PM »
That could be fine for something that can take a level 2 charge. I'm a bit more skeptical about the usefulness for something that can only charge at 10 miles per hour. (I.e. the Empulse)
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protomech

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Re: AAA to provide on-road EV charging
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2011, 08:59:55 AM »
The Nissan Leaf has a 3.3 kw 240v charger, and uses about 300 wh/mile. So it also charges at 10 miles/hour.

I really, really hope Brammo adds a J1772 connector and a 2-3 kw charger while they're adding IET. Along those lines, I also wish they would be more communicative with their would-be customers. I think most of us would be fine with waiting another year if they're adding IET and J1772 .. but we'd like to know what's going on!

J1772 was not a sure thing 2-3 years ago when they were designing the Empulse, but it has since become the dominant standard in the US. Packaging aside, there's no strategic reason to not support J1772. Even if they only can fit a 2-3 kw charger in the Empulse, that would still allow a fairly gentle 0.2C-0.5C charge while giving a substantially faster (in mph) charge rate than allowed by cars.
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WanderLust

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Re: AAA to provide on-road EV charging
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2011, 12:48:39 PM »
The Nissan Leaf has a 3.3 kw 240v charger, and uses about 300 wh/mile. So it also charges at 10 miles/hour.

I really, really hope Brammo adds a J1772 connector and a 2-3 kw charger while they're adding IET. Along those lines, I also wish they would be more communicative with their would-be customers. I think most of us would be fine with waiting another year if they're adding IET and J1772 .. but we'd like to know what's going on!

J1772 was not a sure thing 2-3 years ago when they were designing the Empulse, but it has since become the dominant standard in the US. Packaging aside, there's no strategic reason to not support J1772. Even if they only can fit a 2-3 kw charger in the Empulse, that would still allow a fairly gentle 0.2C-0.5C charge while giving a substantially faster (in mph) charge rate than allowed by cars.

I for one wouldn't mind waiting a little more to get the J1772 on the empulse, gives me time to build up my savings again after spending a small fortune remodeling my house...
That being said, does anyone here know how effective that could be compared to a regular charger @ 110?
if 110 gives us 10 miles an hour, how much could one potentially get @ 220?
come to think of it, 10 miles would be more than enough to get off the road and plug into a wall, at least for me...
But as the guy from Renault said in a press conference a while ago, we just have to be aware of how far we can go...
How often do you guys really run out of gas in your regular vehicles?
I have NEVER run out of gas on the roads. Sure that's prolly because I've found the closest gas station when I was low...
We'd just have to charge every night and we should be fine on most days...

The other thing is, if it takes them an hour to charge your bike to give you 10 miles of juice, they might as well tow you a few miles, so you're off the road and near a charge... probably be quicker that way wouldn't it? I'm sure AAA would rather have their trucks doing something else in the time they saved...

Gavin

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Re: AAA to provide on-road EV charging
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2011, 12:57:38 PM »
the thing is this: will you ever "tow" your out of fuel motorcycle?

gas motorcycle...push to gas station

electric...push to any electric outlet.

now that still might be a gas station...or just about any house if you are social enough...


me? mine will be a commuter....running out of fuel hasn't happen yet on any of my current gas rides...don't see that it will be a problem on my Plus.

they all do come with fuel gauges...just different fuel....and the one upside of electric is that it can be re-filling as i sit at work...hard to do that with gas (though obviously gas is much faster to do a fill up on the way to or from work...but my plus will be filling every night at home)...

don't use your electric, yet, on your long distance rides and everything will be fine :)

Gavin

WanderLust

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Re: AAA to provide on-road EV charging
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2011, 11:55:04 AM »
the thing is this: will you ever "tow" your out of fuel motorcycle?

gas motorcycle...push to gas station

electric...push to any electric outlet.

now that still might be a gas station...or just about any house if you are social enough...


me? mine will be a commuter....running out of fuel hasn't happen yet on any of my current gas rides...don't see that it will be a problem on my Plus.

they all do come with fuel gauges...just different fuel....and the one upside of electric is that it can be re-filling as i sit at work...hard to do that with gas (though obviously gas is much faster to do a fill up on the way to or from work...but my plus will be filling every night at home)...

don't use your electric, yet, on your long distance rides and everything will be fine :)

Gavin

I've actually had to push both cars and motorcycles to gas stations/mechanics etc when I was in India...
We didn't really tow vehicles that much there, unless it was 'unfix-able', we typically got the mechanic to the vehicle :)
In India we call fixing things that would typically be unfix-able here "Jugad", it's not a real word, it just means to tweak things I think...

Anyway, wired just wrote about this...

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/07/aaa-quick-charge-trucks/