ICEless in Seattle : Official Pacific NorthWest thread

[GaslessInSeattle]

40.7 miles should be a very doable. I'm 66 miles from the pass and it's tempting but will require topping off in Issaquah both ways, until there is a fast charger at the summit (maybe this summer, fingers crossed). With patients, elevation is not a deal breaker, but it requires going as slow as you need to maintain 2-3 bubbles which should get you about 80 miles of range to VLBW with no CC and 5 temp bars, about as fast as a slow semi in the right lane, wouldn't be surprised if you had to stay in the 40's on the steepest parts on the way up. the best way to do it is to virtually ignore the speedometer and focus on the power consumption/MPKW/Bars, keeping trip + GOM always adding up to more than the destination distance... a zen trip for sure. If there were even a single quick charger along the way, it would be a piece of cake from shoreline.

Not a problem - you got me thinking that maybe I can do it. I'm in Issaquah behind Tiger Mountain - 40.7 miles from the pass. I have Tiger Pass on SR-18 to go over before I get to I-90 and there would be several (but spread out) opportunities to abort the trip. I might try it early Sunday morning to avoid traffic and allow me to stay between 50 - 55mph. Will keep you posted if I make the attempt. :mrgreen:

Geoff

Sorry, not quite over the pass, from shoreline to Z-homes/Issaquah to charge then on to to Mt Si trailhead and back home with 1 bar remaining. thanks for catching that, I corrected the post to make it more clear.
g

 

[Luft]

I thought there was suppose to be a charging station in Blaine but I don't see it on any of my station finder apps. Does anyone know if it exists and is operational?

 

[UhClem]

I thought there was suppose to be a charging station in Blaine but I don't see it on any of my station finder apps. Does anyone know if it exists and is operational?

My understanding is that there will be an L2 station at the rest area on I5 just south of Blaine. It's listed in the "coming soon" column here: http://westcoastgreenhighway.com/electrichighways.htm

 

[Luft]

I thought there was suppose to be a charging station in Blaine but I don't see it on any of my station finder apps. Does anyone know if it exists and is operational?

My understanding is that there will be an L2 station at the rest area on I5 just south of Blaine. It's listed in the "coming soon" column here: http://westcoastgreenhighway.com/electrichighways.htm

For some reason I though that I had read that the L2 station in Blaine was already installed and operational. Oh well.

I see from the list that they are going to put one in Tumwater but I don't see anything for Tacoma. From Tumwater to Seattle is over 60 miles. That seems a bit too far between stations. And to top it off the one in Seattle is going to be put in by ECOtality. I don't have much confidence that company or their hardware.

Then from Seattle to Burlington its about 65 miles. What are these people thinking?? They need to put a charger in Tacoma and another in Everett and maybe a couple more in Seattle (Not from ECOtality!)

 

[saywatt]

Yes, I feel your pain, Luft. I have known for some time that Washington State's " Electric Hwy" was not very well thought out. I for one, living in the Issaquah - Maple Valley area will not be able to get to Bellingham because the first misplaced L3 between here and there was put in Burlington, 80 miles away, with the next one only 22 miles away in Bellingham - wasn't that short sighted???

My thought has always been, and was even asked at one point by BLINK, that the first L3 north of Saettle should have been in Marysville or Stanwood. Oh well

I see from the list that they are going to put one in Tumwater but I don't see anything for Tacoma. From Tumwater to Seattle is over 60 miles. That seems a bit too far between stations. And to top it off the one in Seattle is going to be put in by ECOtality. I don't have much confidence that company or their hardware.

Then from Seattle to Burlington its about 65 miles. What are these people thinking?? They need to put a charger in Tacoma and another in Everett and maybe a couple more in Seattle (Not from ECOtality!)

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I thought there was suppose to be a charging station in Blaine but I don't see it on any of my station finder apps. Does anyone know if it exists and is operational?

My understanding is that there will be an L2 station at the rest area on I5 just south of Blaine. It's listed in the "coming soon" column here: http://westcoastgreenhighway.com/electrichighways.htm

For some reason I though that I had read that the L2 station in Blaine was already installed and operational. Oh well.

I see from the list that they are going to put one in Tumwater but I don't see anything for Tacoma. From Tumwater to Seattle is over 60 miles. That seems a bit too far between stations. And to top it off the one in Seattle is going to be put in by ECOtality. I don't have much confidence that company or their hardware.

Then from Seattle to Burlington its about 65 miles. What are these people thinking?? They need to put a charger in Tacoma and another in Everett and maybe a couple more in Seattle (Not from ECOtality!)

you are looking at the "West Coast Green Highway" Project which is a complement to the "EV Highway" Project.

there were supposed to be approx 40 DCFC's installed to cover the area from Everett to Tacoma. that is why there is such a large gap. Unfortunately that is Blinks job and as we all know, they are not doing a great job of it right now

 

[saywatt]

It was my understanding that the EV Project's scope was to build infrastructure in the various test markets as clusters within those areas which they seem to have done in the Puget Sound area. In fact, it seems the number of BLINK chargers, in locations that I frequent anyway, is tied or exceeds the number of ChargePoint locations. So in that respect I think BLINK is doing their job.

That said, I have not seen, nor do I find on the EV Project website, any reference to being part of a program to connect these test market areas, i.e., the I-5 corridor or add to the West Coast Green Hwy.

At this link, I only see AeroVironment's name listed as a participant in the WCGH. http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News/2011/12/28_BellinghamEVcharging.htm

At this link, It appears that AV was chosen by winning in a competitive bidding process.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News/2011/07/13_ElectricHighways.htm

The latter article also quotes

While AeroVironment helps power the electric-vehicle charging network in Washington, the company will simultaneously electrify I-5 in Oregon through a similar project managed by the Oregon Department of Transportation. Both states’ projects will complement The EV Project, which will install thousands of home and public electric-vehicle charging stations in six states, including Washington, Oregon and California.

So, it seems to me that what we got is what we got—and not much.
Geoff

you are looking at the "West Coast Green Highway" Project which is a complement to the "EV Highway" Project.

there were supposed to be approx 40 DCFC's installed to cover the area from Everett to Tacoma. that is why there is such a large gap. Unfortunately that is Blinks job and as we all know, they are not doing a great job of it right now

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

what we have is a whole bunch of slow chargers that are marginally useful compared to the projected 50 or so DCQC's that Ecotality was supposed to install. I'd trade most of the L2's for even a handful of QC's along the main arterioles. L2 is great for home and work and other longish term parking. I hate to sound pesimistic, but once we do have a QC network, I predict there will be very little L2 happening out in the wild at places like Walgreens and PCC. Aside from Ecotality not delivering on the promised QC's, their L2 network is unreliable at best, even still after all the promises that things are being fixed... it's really a travesty. If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

It was my understanding that the EV Project's scope was to build infrastructure in the various test markets as clusters within those areas which they seem to have done in the Puget Sound area. In fact, it seems the number of BLINK chargers, in locations that I frequent anyway, is tied or exceeds the number of ChargePoint locations. So in that respect I think BLINK is doing their job.

That said, I have not seen, nor do I find on the EV Project website, any reference to being part of a program to connect these test market areas, i.e., the I-5 corridor or add to the West Coast Green Hwy.

At this link, I only see AeroVironment's name listed as a participant in the WCGH. http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News/2011/12/28_BellinghamEVcharging.htm

At this link, It appears that AV was chosen by winning in a competitive bidding process.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/News/2011/07/13_ElectricHighways.htm

The latter article also quotes

While AeroVironment helps power the electric-vehicle charging network in Washington, the company will simultaneously electrify I-5 in Oregon through a similar project managed by the Oregon Department of Transportation. Both states’ projects will complement The EV Project, which will install thousands of home and public electric-vehicle charging stations in six states, including Washington, Oregon and California.

So, it seems to me that what we got is what we got—and not much.
Geoff

you are looking at the "West Coast Green Highway" Project which is a complement to the "EV Highway" Project.

there were supposed to be approx 40 DCFC's installed to cover the area from Everett to Tacoma. that is why there is such a large gap. Unfortunately that is Blinks job and as we all know, they are not doing a great job of it right now

 

[ebill3]

......................If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

Guess I am naive, but I don't see the connection between pulling the plug on Ecotality and an election year. :?:

Bill

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

My thinking is that Ecotality would simply be added to the list of Solyndras as Obama failed policy... cannon fodder for the elephant, that could be bad for EV's.

......................If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

Guess I am naive, but I don't see the connection between pulling the plug on Ecotality and an election year. :?:

Bill

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

......................If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

Guess I am naive, but I don't see the connection between pulling the plug on Ecotality and an election year. :?:

Bill

i agree and wondering why that has not happened? is it that Eco is about to get "something" together or do the powers that be simply feel its too late to change course now or are they simply planning to take back the money unspent and call it a night?

would be nice if we could have some idea of what is going on instead of dead silence. dead silence usually means bad news to the point of being so bad that rationalization is not possible

 

[ebill3]

Yep, after I thought about it, that came to mind. But, being a Pierce County conservative who does not watch Fox, it didn't leap out at me.

I think I'm turning into an independent, whatever that is.

My thinking is that Ecotality would simply be added to the list of Solyndras as Obama failed policy... cannon fodder for the elephant, that could be bad for EV's.

......................If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

Guess I am naive, but I don't see the connection between pulling the plug on Ecotality and an election year. :?:

Bill

 

[Luft]

......................If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

Guess I am naive, but I don't see the connection between pulling the plug on Ecotality and an election year. :?:

Bill

Everything is political in an election year. Well, it seems like for the past four years everything is political and the good of the people be damned. Every time a publicly funded business fails the Republicans scream about government waste and the evils of bail outs and on and on... So the Democrats don't want businesses that took stimulus money to fail. Politics from both sides instead of focusing on fixing problems and helping the people who took it in the shorts thanks to Wall Street gaming the system.

What I'm worried about is with charging stations going in with 60 mile gaps, this winter we won't be able to go between them if we run our heaters. Let's run a scenario: It's February 20th 2013 and 28 F. We plug in at Seattle for 30 minutes and get an 80% charge before heading out to Burlington. Burlington is about 65 miles away so it will take slightly more than an hour at 60 mph. We plan on running our heater because 28 degrees is just way too cold not to.

So we head out with 17 kWh of usable power but we will lose some because of the cold. (70 - 28)/2 = 21% loss due to cold. Now we're down to 13.43 kWh of usable power. Our heater is drawing about 3 kilowatts. If it does that the entire distance we will lose 3kWh of power to our heater. That means that we only have about 10.43 kWh of power that we can use to push our car. if we travel 60 mph we will get about 3.9 miles per kWh if there were no hills. That would put us just outside of Mt Vernon when we call for the flatbed.

All I can say is wear long underwear and bring a cell phone 'cause you're going to need them.

 

[klapauzius]

what we have is a whole bunch of slow chargers that are marginally useful compared to the projected 50 or so DCQC's that Ecotality was supposed to install. I'd trade most of the L2's for even a handful of QC's along the main arterioles. L2 is great for home and work and other longish term parking. I hate to sound pesimistic, but once we do have a QC network, I predict there will be very little L2 happening out in the wild at places like Walgreens and PCC. Aside from Ecotality not delivering on the promised QC's, their L2 network is unreliable at best, even still after all the promises that things are being fixed... it's really a travesty. If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

+1

p.s.:
one blink down at the Ballard Fred Meyer (the "cannot read RFID card" crash)...

 

[Luft]

what we have is a whole bunch of slow chargers that are marginally useful compared to the projected 50 or so DCQC's that Ecotality was supposed to install. I'd trade most of the L2's for even a handful of QC's along the main arterioles. L2 is great for home and work and other longish term parking. I hate to sound pesimistic, but once we do have a QC network, I predict there will be very little L2 happening out in the wild at places like Walgreens and PCC. Aside from Ecotality not delivering on the promised QC's, their L2 network is unreliable at best, even still after all the promises that things are being fixed... it's really a travesty. If it weren't an election year I'd say it's time to "pull the plug on Ecotality" and complain en mass and get their funding yanked. They have failed to deliver a reliable product!

+1

I have the feeling that Ecotality has always been more focused on delivery of a "billable" product rather than a reliable one.

 

[QueenBee]

what we have is a whole bunch of slow chargers that are marginally useful compared to the projected 50 or so DCQC's that Ecotality was supposed to install. I'd trade most of the L2's for even a handful of QC's along the main arterioles. L2 is great for home and work and other longish term parking. I hate to sound pesimistic, but once we do have a QC network, I predict there will be very little L2 happening out in the wild at places like Walgreens and PCC.

I agree with you completely in the context of our Nissan LEAFs but I think it's a little short sighted. Once there are more cars with 6.6kw+ chargers on board Level2 becomes a lot more interesting. Being able to full charge a LEAF in 3-4 hour is a whole lot more useful than 7-8 hours. Then if you start considering plugin hybrids, level 2 would at least help them stay on electric longer. The smaller EVs might also benefit from L2 more than we can.

But in any case I'd personally trade all the government money spent on L2 for some real DCQCs!

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

I can see your point but I have to say that I've had several opportunities to use QC's and it really puts things in perspective. Waiting around for hours, whether it's 3-4 hours or 4-6 hours is just a serious buzz kill, a no go for the masses, especially with a wife and two kids huddled in the car. It's fun plugging in here and there as more chargers are getting put in, but it's hard to get much of a charge doing multiple errands that do not require long stops so the vast majority of L2 public charging I do is essentially demonstration charging, showing support for the network, especially since I don't plan on being able to rely on Blinks, it's hit or miss. It would be nice if the 6.6 really changed the dynamic, but I'm not holding my breath. I can get into a zen state and tell myself it's really better for me to get into a slower lifestyle and cultivate a state of unattachement but that gets old REAL fast!

Recently I made special arrangements and "visited" the DOT in Olympia. I did 160 mile round trip in about 3.5 hrs including the QC. Once large numbers of people get a taste of that, it's going to be another conversation.

what we have is a whole bunch of slow chargers that are marginally useful compared to the projected 50 or so DCQC's that Ecotality was supposed to install. I'd trade most of the L2's for even a handful of QC's along the main arterioles. L2 is great for home and work and other longish term parking. I hate to sound pesimistic, but once we do have a QC network, I predict there will be very little L2 happening out in the wild at places like Walgreens and PCC.

I agree with you completely in the context of our Nissan LEAFs but I think it's a little short sighted. Once there are more cars with 6.6kw+ chargers on board Level2 becomes a lot more interesting. Being able to full charge a LEAF in 3-4 hour is a whole lot more useful than 7-8 hours. Then if you start considering plugin hybrids, level 2 would at least help them stay on electric longer. The smaller EVs might also benefit from L2 more than we can.

But in any case I'd personally trade all the government money spent on L2 for some real DCQCs!

 

[saywatt]

This string is missing the point I was trying to make a few posts back. Hey, I'm no fan of Ecotality, I signed up just to get the free charger, but Ecotality is not responsible for the ill planned and executed L3's on the West Coast Green Hwy. Ecotality's EV Project is a totally different program.

If we want to rant about the lousy system of QC chargers that we are going to get with the WCGH, lets at least put blame in the right place, Washington State. They are the ones who signed a contract with Aerovironment. :x

 

[saywatt]

I sent this to BLINK this morning:

Hello, In anticipation of the network of DCQC's along the I-5 corridor I, and I'm sure others, are monitoring the progress­ of the so called "West Coast Green Highway". However, it seems that there will be large gaps in the locations of the initial QC stations. So much so that many EV owners in the Puget Sound area, I being one, will not be able to travel the long distance between some of the stations. My question to you is that in addition to building what I see as cluster infrastructure in our area, does the EV Project's plans include filling in some of the large gaps with QC stations in the West Coast Green Highway? If yes, do you have tentative locations for the stations that you can share? Thanks in advance for your time and consideration of my questions.

I got this for an answer:

Thank you for your interest in the growing blink network. Unfortunately at this time we do not have a list of tentative locations or installation dates for the further chargers that will be installed along the I-5 corridor. I would like to point you to our website http://www.blinknetwork.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Our website has a live blink map that will show the current status of the blink chargers. As the DC quick chargers are installed they will be visible on our map. Please be patient as this process rolls out.

 

[Luft]

This string is missing the point I was trying to make a few posts back. Hey, I'm no fan of Ecotality, I signed up just to get the free charger, but Ecotality is not responsible for the ill planned and executed L3's on the West Coast Green Hwy. Ecotality's EV Project is a totally different program.

If we want to rant about the lousy system of QC chargers that we are going to get with the WCGH, lets at least put blame in the right place, Washington State. They are the ones who signed a contract with Aerovironment. :x

You are correct that since ECOtality is not responsible for the I-5 corridor they cannot be held responsible for this except that they have failed to put in QC stations in the Seattle and Tacoma areas.

I wouldn't hold Aerovironment responsible either. They appear to be doing an excellent job in Oregon so far. This "feels" to me like a screw up at the state government level. I wonder if someone who heard Nissan's "The LEAF will go 100 miles on a charge" claim didn't bother to do their homework (Like reading this forum) and just decided that 40 - 60 miles between charging stations was adequate.

If I know how the higher up state officials work they are too entrenched in their own egos to admit that they were wrong and just fix the problem. And this problem can be fixed. They just need to authorise Aerovironment to add more DC QC Stations so that the distance between any two is never greater than about 30 miles. This would require additional contracts and all of the hoop jumping that it takes. They shouldn't count ECOtality's DC QC stations as part of that. Let Aerovironment be responsible to ensure that we can travel the entire distance of I-5 and ECOtality can ensure that the high population density areas have sufficient QC stations. That will help promote price competition and be good for EV owners.

I think we need names and numbers so we can put pressure on the right individuals so that this thing gets done right.