Charging Stations coming to New York

[elmobob]

Awesome! Would you be willing to post those pics on PlugShare?

done..

NYLEAF.
I was just looking at the picture of your leaf on the earlier post and I remember I tried to get the same custom license plate combination you have. Small world.. If you ever need a lvl 2 charge near the yonkers raceway, I'm about 2 miles from there, listed on plugshare between Ashburton and Nepperhan ave.

 

[NYLEAF]

Awesome! Would you be willing to post those pics on PlugShare?

done..

NYLEAF.
I was just looking at the picture of your leaf on the earlier post and I remember I tried to get the same custom license plate combination you have. Small world.. If you ever need a lvl 2 charge near the yonkers raceway, I'm about 2 miles from there, listed on plugshare between Ashburton and Nepperhan ave.

Thanks for the offer! Very generous.

I'm curious, what was the parking situation like at Seward Park? Was there any EV-only signage? How likely is it to be ICEd? To be honest, that location is much more useful to me than the one at 7-11 in Flushing. Seward Park would allow me to do a round-trip to Newark Airport, for example.

 

[elmobob]

Awesome! Would you be willing to post those pics on PlugShare?

done..

NYLEAF.
I was just looking at the picture of your leaf on the earlier post and I remember I tried to get the same custom license plate combination you have. Small world.. If you ever need a lvl 2 charge near the yonkers raceway, I'm about 2 miles from there, listed on plugshare between Ashburton and Nepperhan ave.

Thanks for the offer! Very generous.

I'm curious, what was the parking situation like at Seward Park? Was there any EV-only signage? How likely is it to be ICEd? To be honest, that location is much more useful to me than the one at 7-11 in Flushing. Seward Park would allow me to do a round-trip to Newark Airport, for example.

On the opposite side there is ev-only signage for the lvl2 chargers but on the QC there isn't, the spot where I was charging doesn't look like a parking spot either, has no markings. But it looks like besides hertz marked rental spots and the ev only spots, Sewart park city vehicles park in the small lot making it unlikely for someone to randomly ICE it.

 

[elmobob]

Update - QC station in seward park now requires the aeroviroment key fob , I requested one online and got a reply that there is no aeroviroment network in the east coast so they could not provide me with one. I replied to them that there is an qc station in NYC. Waiting for their reply back.

 

[NYLEAF]

Update - QC station in seward park now requires the aeroviroment key fob , I requested one online and got a reply that there is no aeroviroment network in the east coast so they could not provide me with one. I replied to them that there is an qc station in NYC. Waiting for their reply back.

I sent an e-mail to my contact at the city and at Seward Park asking for clarification. I will post what I find out.

 

[Bateman]

Update - QC station in seward park now requires the aeroviroment key fob , I requested one online and got a reply that there is no aeroviroment network in the east coast so they could not provide me with one. I replied to them that there is an qc station in NYC. Waiting for their reply back.

I sent an e-mail to my contact at the city and at Seward Park asking for clarification. I will post what I find out.

Thanks for sending the email! I found that a fob was now required when I tried to use this L3 charger Sunday night. I had been excited to try it based on elmobob's plugshare photos.

 

[Bateman]

Update. Last night I used the L2 charges at the clinton location again. Just for grins, before I left, I tried the L3 charger. This time it didn't ask for a key fob and let me unhook the charger 'nozzle' from the Aerovironment machine by just pressing the button. It took a few tries to unhook it, but it worked. (You need to press the button on the pad, followed by the button on top of the nozzle, and then again with the nozzle lever.) Since my car was at 100% charge, I couldn't actually charge my vehicle with it, but this is an improvement from last time. Hopefully someone else can confirm that L3 charger is now working!

 

[elmobob]

Update. Last night I used the L2 charges at the clinton location again. Just for grins, before I left, I tried the L3 charger. This time it didn't ask for a key fob and let me unhook the charger 'nozzle' from the Aerovironment machine by just pressing the button. It took a few tries to unhook it, but it worked. (You need to press the button on the pad, followed by the button on top of the nozzle, and then again with the nozzle lever.) Since my car was at 100% charge, I couldn't actually charge my vehicle with it, but this is an improvement from last time. Hopefully someone else can confirm that L3 charger is now working!

I'm here right now charging L3 no problems this time

 

[NYLEAF]

I think (or hope) that my e-mailing helped, at least temporarily. I have had a few back and forth e-mails with my contact from the City that is responsible for the QCs being installed, and I had the people at Seward Park CC'd on each e-mail as well. Basically, they had hoped that an AV keyfob would be required to use the station. They were under the assumption that we (private Leaf drivers) could order keyfobs from AV. I attempted to get an AV keyfob by saying that I'm taking a trip to Oregon later this year (a little while lie, since I have no plans on driving a Leaf while there). They agreed to send me one, but assured me that it will not work on any AV QC outside of OR and WA. Once I forwarded my back-and-forth with AV to my contact at the City, he got in touch with AV to find out what's up. From what I can tell, it seems as though the people from Seward Park went ahead and disabled the keyfob requirement, at least temporarily, while AV gets their act together. My guess is that the City will eventually have to be the ones distributing the keyfobs they get from AV, because AV doesn't seem to be interested in running any sort of "network" outside of the Pacific NW.

Glad we can at least use it temporarily, but I hope a long-term solution is found soon.

 

[Bateman]

Thanks for fighting the good fight, NYLEAF!

 

[elmobob]

Yes thank you NYLEAF, thanks to your actions and connections me and my family (3 adults and a baby)where able to run around all day from Westchester to Brooklyn then to downtown for dinner and qc then back home with a/c on the whole time keeping up with traffic with range to spare.

 

[elmobob]

I was at the QC station tonight and there was a NYC leaf yellow taxi charging! The taxi driver and I where chatting while waiting to finish charging.. I forgot to ask him if he had a key fob..he told me he has been using the leaf as a taxi for 9 days now and is loving it but he was concerned about the winter range, he also mentioned there is another charger in a parking lot in 42nd street.. 20 minutes later after the taxi left I tried to charge, and again and it asked for the key fob :x , I called aeroviroment gave the operator the serial number of the charge station and asked if I could pay for a charge since I did not have a key fob - - I was in VLBL and 30 miles from home :shock: . The operator, very nicely was able to remotely activate the charger. He said the charger does not belong to their network of fast charging stations for them to send me a key fob but he took down my email address an he said he will do his best to get back to me and find out how I can get one.
It got me thinking that the city might be blocking the public from charging on purpose and only giving the key fobs to the electric taxi fleet. I thought these stations where installed using public city funds so technically they should be open to the public even if not free of charge. I am willing to pay for the convenience of the fast charge, I have no choice since the leaf is my only car. I would've been home at 4am waiting on a 220 charger had I not been able to quick charge.

 

[NYLEAF]

Glad to know it can be remotely activated.

I will e-mail again and find out what's up with it asking for a key fob again. My impression from the previous responses I got was that their goal was for the QC to require a key fob, but that they wanted the public to have access to those key fobs. They weren't, as far as I can tell, intending on making the stations taxi-only. They already have 2 taxi-only stations (one at the ConEd building on 14th St, I don't know where the second one is), the Seward Park one is supposed to be for the public as well as the taxis.

 

[DaveEV]

Interesting that the LEAF taxi does not appear to be a 2013. The heat-pump heater will be much appreciated in the winter...

 

[lion]

Yea, and I asked Nissan if these cars were modified in any way for Taxi duty, and they insisted it's just an OEM vehicle, no mods. So only thing I can think of is that they painted/wrapped them before the 2013s were readily available.

 

[NYLEAF]

I finally heard back. AV says they "have started the process to move to public access." I guess they're going to have to figure out a way to make a publicly available keyfob. For now I guess we just have to call AV and have it remotely activated.

 

[elmobob]

I had the chance to use the QC in flushing queens a few weeks ago,I went into the 7-11 and bought something from the store as a courtesy, I asked the cashier if i'ts ok for me to use the charger and he said he I had speak to his manager. Manager/ owner came out and said it was ok but as long as I always ask for permission,, he said that a with a bit of arrogance. It only allowed 10 minutes of charge for that session and the power output was limited to only charge 1.5 KW for those 10 minutes making this very expensive DC charger pretty useless.. the manager was watching like a hawk probably waiting to see if I would restart the session.. It would be nice if this charger was available to be used to it's full capacity without the need to feel you're being given some sort of handout. I would not mind paying 5-6 bucks for a full charge.

 

[LeftieBiker]

NYC hates electric bicycles, and I'm guessing that the feeling carries over, at least a bit, to electric cars.

 

[Bateman]

I had the chance to use the QC in flushing queens a few weeks ago,I went into the 7-11 and bought something from the store as a courtesy, I asked the cashier if i'ts ok for me to use the charger and he said he I had speak to his manager. Manager/ owner came out and said it was ok but as long as I always ask for permission,, he said that a with a bit of arrogance. It only allowed 10 minutes of charge for that session and the power output was limited to only charge 1.5 KW for those 10 minutes making this very expensive DC charger pretty useless.. the manager was watching like a hawk probably waiting to see if I would restart the session.. It would be nice if this charger was available to be used to it's full capacity without the need to feel you're being given some sort of handout. I would not mind paying 5-6 bucks for a full charge.

Elmobob, any idea who owns that charger? Why does some 7-11 guy get to control access?

 

[elmobob]

I had the chance to use the QC in flushing queens a few weeks ago,I went into the 7-11 and bought something from the store as a courtesy, I asked the cashier if i'ts ok for me to use the charger and he said he I had speak to his manager. Manager/ owner came out and said it was ok but as long as I always ask for permission,, he said that a with a bit of arrogance. It only allowed 10 minutes of charge for that session and the power output was limited to only charge 1.5 KW for those 10 minutes making this very expensive DC charger pretty useless.. the manager was watching like a hawk probably waiting to see if I would restart the session.. It would be nice if this charger was available to be used to it's full capacity without the need to feel you're being given some sort of handout. I would not mind paying 5-6 bucks for a full charge.

Elmobob, any idea who owns that charger? Why does some 7-11 guy get to control access?

http://www.plugshare.com/?latitude=40.744743&longitude=-73.777465&spanLat=0.007454&spanLng=0.022885#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The quick charger is listed in plug share and description says "The system is operated and maintained by Green Charge Networks and installed as part of an ARRA grant in cooperation with the US DOE and Con Edison." Looking at the pictures this might have been posted by NYLEAF. The manager does not really control access to it you can just drive up and plug in but looking at the comments listed by previous users on plugshare it seems like they mind if you don't ask for permission. There is a main breaker next to the quick charger I had to turn on after the 7-11 guy gave me the ok.