The "Electric Highway"

[Richard230]

According to an article by the AP in my newspaper, the "Electric Highway" is up and running - at least along 160 miles of I-5, between the northern CA border and the Oregon city of Cottage Grove (never heard of it). There are 8 re-charge stations along this route, located at gas stations, restaurants and motels. (I wonder how you find them?) One is at an inn that was once a stage coach stop. The stations are spaced about 25 miles apart and use of the chargers are free right now. I gather from the article that these are level 3, 480-volt fast chargers, so I guess if you are riding an electric motorcycle you are SOL. The article doesn't say how many charging stations are installed at each location.  If there is only one, you might have to get in line and wait a while, if another Leaf or Tesla got to the trough first.

The states of Oregon, California and Washington signed an agreement in 2009 to turn I-5 into an "Electric Highway".  Oregon made a deal with Nissan in 2010 to start aggressively installing charging stations if Nissan focused sales of the Leaf in the state, according to Art James, project leader for O-DOT.  The latest chargers are financed by $915,000 in federal stimulus grants. James says "that is why Oregon is a leader, with some 1,100 plug-in electric vehicles sold in the state to date".

The article says that by the end of the year, DC fast-chargers will be installed along I-5, from Canada to the CA border, a distance of about 550 miles. Another 22 are being installed in locations as far away (it didn't say in what direction) as 120 miles from Portland, OR.

[Deadly Silent Ninja]

This is great news! Thank you for posting, Richard!

Now, they need at least one that covers the East Coast and another that links the East Coast to the West Coast. It would be the best thing ever if I could ride my Empulse from Va. to California for free in a few years... 

[Richard230]

All they need is another government "stimulus" grant.   

In the meantime, PlugShare seems to be the ticket for electric motorcycles that are stuck charging at Level 1.

[protomech]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/17/electric-highway_n_1355779.html

He expects the trip to Portland to take perhaps three hours longer than in a gas car, because the only chargers available for the last 100 miles are slower, level 2 chargers.

The eight new charging stations each have a level 3 charger, and a level 2 charger for backup.

Empulse should be able to charge from the level 2 plugs no problem. I would expect there to be 110v level 1 sockets around as well, though of course those will be emergency charging only.

Level 1 charging for an e-moto is about 7 miles per hour (700w), maybe 4 miles per hour for a car (1200w).
Level 2 charging @ 3kW is about 30 miles per hour for an emoto, about 10 miles per hour for a car.
Level 2 charging @ 6kW is about 60 miles per hour for an emoto, about 20 miles per hour for a car.
Level 3 charging @ ~40kW is about 100 miles per hour for a car.
Level 3 charging @ ~100kW is about 250 miles per hour for a car (Tesla supercharger).

I would consider range recovery around 200+ miles per hour to be the bare minimum for a longer trip - but in all honesty, the longest trip I've ever taken on my gas bike is 80 miles one way.

50 mpg bike is about 2400 miles per hour, considering a 4 gallon fillup in about 5 minutes.

Something else to consider.. I think in AL commercial utility rates are around $0.05/kWh. A very busy 480V level 3 station might fill up 10 cars up per day, total operating costs around $12/day. Installation and servicing are substantially more expensive than the fuel they're dispensing.

[Richard230]

It looks like the "Electric Highway" is going to be greatly expanded, at least in California, thanks to a settlement announced yesterday reached with NRG Energy. As part of a $120 million settlement with the State PUC, NRG will spend $100 million to build 200 440-V fast chargers along California freeways and "will install wiring for 10,000 conventional recharging units at 1,000 colleges, hospitals, apartments and large work sites around the state", according to an article in my newspaper today, written by Mike Taugher of the bayareanewsgroup.com.  The other $20 million of the settlement will go towards to the PUC to reduce customers electric utility bills (that won't go very far).  It could take up to four years for NRG to install the 440-volt fast charge stations, which will be built along highway arteries in the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and in Southern California.

Once the wiring for the more conventional 240-V recharging stations is installed, customers can pay a vendor to install charging equipment. NRG will have exclusive access to those customers for 18 months, but after that interval, customers can switch to another vendor.

The agreement with NRG claims that Dynegy Energy overcharged California in a power contract signed in 2001, during the height of a costly electricity crisis that drove PG&E into bankruptcy. NRG acquired Dynegy's California assets in 2006, according to the article.

[protomech]

First I think: wow, 200 fast chargers. That's a nice bump in infrastructure.

Nissan wants $18k for its old, bulkier level 3 charger. $10k for its newer, slim level 3 charger.
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41703

Let's say installation is $5k, and we use the old $18k costs. $23k per charger - that's $4.6M for 200 chargers. Residential wiring installation for a level 2 charger varies, but generally runs around $1k. Let's say installation is much higher for the colleges, hospitals, apartments, large work sites etc - $5k apiece. 10k x $5k = $50M.

It seems like the level 3 chargers are by far the smaller chunk of the payment. And even assuming exhorbitant pricing for the level 2 charging wiring, I still don't get $100M.

Anyhow, nice news.

[Richard230]

Don't forget the cost of the salaries for the bureaucrats to administer the program.   

[Richard230]

And now my newspaper reports that the EV community are in "an uproar" over the deal for NRG to build, own and manage these charging facilities. The story is that NRG's EV charging subsidiary, eVgo, operates 11 EV charging stations in Houston and one in Dallas, will try to monopolize the charging station industry in California. Chelsea Sexton, an EV marketing expert and consumer advocate says that "This is simply a privatized network that, with the blessing of the state, will likely cause more harm that good in the long run". 

The claim is that NRG's business model requires consumers to sign up for a subscription plan and pay a fixed monthly rate to charge their electric vehicle. Many members of the Bay Area EV Strategic Council, formed a year ago to accelerate the mass adoption of electric vehicles in the region, believe that charging stations should be open to any electric vehicle driver, in the same way that drivers of gasoline-powered cars can refuel at any gas station.  NRG has agreed to let the 200 fast chargers be "pay for use" and open to anyone for the first 5 years of their operation. After that it is not clear what their model will be, when the agreement sunsets.

Some supporters of the deal say that the concerns are just "sour grapes" from NRG's competitors, but even they agree that many details remain unknown and they are eager for more information about the agreement, which is still being worked out in private with the Governor's staff.

[protomech]

I've seen a couple of places where charging is prohibitively expensive. Rates something like 10x the actual cost of the electricity.

Granted, if I've pulled off the interstate somewhere with 3 miles of range, there's exactly one level 3 charger within 10 miles .. then I don't have many options. Predatory infrastructure is better than no infrastructure, but it's far far FAR from ideal.

[Richard230]

Someone is trying to put a bump in the Electric Highway.  According to the business section of my newspaper, in an article written by Dana Hull of Mecurynews.com, the State is being sued by Ecotality, a San Francicso-based maker of electric car charging stations to overturn the agreement with NRG Energy to build thousands of charging stations in CA.  In their suit, Ecotality contends that the State's settlement agreement was illegal and hurts consumers. The claim is that requiring NRG to build $100 million in charging station infrastructure gives them too much of a head start on other companies and will create a charging station monopoly for NRG in California.  The lawsuit asks the state Court of Appeals to block the agreement and direct the PUC to cease and desist any efforts to implement it.

Apparently, no charging stations is better than lots of charging stations, if only one company gets to build them. Those grapes sure are getting sour.    Naturally, NRG says that nothing in the agreement prevents Ecotality, or any other company, from building all the charging stations that they want.     

[protomech]

It does seem like that's not much of a penalty, TBH.

Went up to Tennessee for the Renaissance Festival this weekend. I'm really jealous, they have a pretty good network of J1772 stations along the main corridors.

[Car Loss]

Just spent some free time, scrolling around one of those map apps.

I-5 has a whole bunch of stations through Oregon, both "official" (level 3, CHADeMo) and others (lots of level 2, and some level 1).  They seem to be spaced nicely, even in the "green squares" (no offense).  Of course, it helps that Oregon has good-sized towns all along I-5, so you don't get that green-square effect all that much.  But still, there are points of some sort on the rural stretches, and it looks deliberate. Walgreens's company-wide rollout policy helps a good amount; after that are chargers at maybe every Nissan Dealer.  Overall, towns seem to have enough stations that you'll find a level 1 or 2 somewhere, though the level 3s are few enough that you may be in contention with someone else.  Haven't checked to see how many points per station.  Strangely, Ashland has stations, but none appear related to the Brammo HQ.  California and Washington don't look bad, either, but there are huge gaps in the Central Valley, surprise.  Vancouver seems nicely represented.

On the East Coast, it looks like you could do DC-NY on a Zero ZF9, or an Empulse later.  There are gaps around east Maryland/Delaware, mid-Jersey, and east Connecticut/Rhode Island, though.  Don't know if you'd make it in an Enertia or Zero ZF6, especially in that NY-Boston stretch.  Most are J1772- there are pretty much no CHADeMo, despite the Nissan dealers.  Tesla might as well not have chargers, if this database is accurate.

Some of these station listings include rates, and a couple are ridiculous- one was maybe a dollar a minute.  Hopefully that's the exception, not the rule.

Doesn't look like you could do cross-country, but if you tried, yeah, Tennessee would probably be involved.

Carlos

[FreepZ]

The problem that I see with corporate run charging stations is that corporation has to charge quite a lot for the electricity they sell (or the time they sell, since only the utility company is allowed to sell electricity) if they want to recover the cost of installing the station in any reasonable time frame.

For example (pulling some of the numbers for this out of the air):
It takes the Empulse 3.5 hours to use 9.3 kWh of electricity. If a bike is using the station all the time, the station would be dispensing (24/3.5 * 9.3 = ) 63.8 kWh per day. At $0.12 per kWh (average nation wide price per kWh), that results in a minimum revenue of $7.65 per day if the corporation made no money at all. Even if the corporation quadrupled the price of the electricity ($0.48 per kWh), they could only make a maximum income of $22.95 per day. In fact, the charger would probably spend a lot of time idle, so the actual income would be a lot less. Let's say it made $10 per day. Add to that the cost of maintenance and perhaps insurance, and the income might be $9 per day. I don't have much idea of what it would cost to purchase and install a robust public charging station that has the required technology to dispense electricity and get a customer to pay for it, but I let's say it's $3000 per station. With those numbers, it would take a year before the station paid for itself, and then the station would only generate $3000 per year after that. That seems kind if low to me. I would expect a soda machine to bring in more revenue.

I suspect that charging stations make more sense right now to:

• Give a company some green credentials.
• Get EV users to their location. (Given the small number of EVs out there, this is probably less important.)

[Car Loss]

I suspect that charging stations make more sense right now to:

• Give a company some green credentials.
• Get EV users to their location. (Given the small number of EVs out there, this is probably less important.)

Two words: Free Wi-Fi.  Okay, two and a half. 

When Wi-Fi laptops were new, you could safely assume anyone who bought one had disposable income.  This is shorthand for Good Customer and Target Demographic.  People were afraid laptop owners would camp out and not buy stuff, while hogging up tables and chairs.  Maybe a few did, but apparently not enough to ruin the model.  That, and wi-fi routers got cheap, so why not add one to your place? 

The same could happen to outlets.  Level 1 is no big deal- you might have one outside anyway, for groundskeeping.  Level 2 isn't bad electrically; it's the same circuit as an electric dryer (for a residence) or industrial equipment (for a retail business or light industry).  The issue with Level 2 is the new plug design and heavy cable (which should come down with volume sales), the control box, and the card reader/meter display.  Frankly, I'd just as soon see the card unit/display disappear, and the owners just put a heavy door and padlock on the thing.  Then, it would be like a wi-fi hotspot: the manager assumes you're not charging without buying something, and in return the retail infrastructure would be cheap and their electric bill still reasonable.  Also helping would be that a place would only have one (or just maybe two) J1772s, so anyone behind you would bug you not to hog the spot.  Of course, the manager would reserve the right to keep a close tab, and would lock up the gear when the place closes. 

This would only be good for daylight top-ups, not bulk charging, but people would bulk charge at home at night, just like cafe wifi isn't supposed to be for bittorrent files and shows in HD.  Similarly, you wouldn't get fast charging like CHADeMo under this model, since it would be too easy to run up a big total and leave without buying stuff.  Fine; the fast-charging model would be more like internet kiosks/FPS gaming centers.  And someone else suggested chargers at movie theaters; how about barbers/beauty salons?  Anything else?

This model also needs vandal-proof equipment, since that was a huge advantage of wi-fi over cafe terminals.  We pretty much have this for level 1 (bring your own cord), but at a minimum, a J1772 setup would have to be near the door, the clerk's window, or a security camera.  It would have been smart for J1772 to specify only a short, durable length, and the operator was responsible for bridging the last few feet with their own conduit.  Then, stationary cord would store into an armored box easily, and never get run over.  Motorcyclists would carry less than car owners, who would carry less than trucks.  People doing errands would carry light cable, while people on road trips would bring monster coil.

Carlos

[protomech]

This model also needs vandal-proof equipment

Wireless charging will be vandal-proof (or near enough).