jlsoaz
Well-known member
Hi -
If establishing a couple of good partially-crowd-sourced maps such as carstations.com and plugshare.com seems like a very good idea (and I think it was) then I also think establishing a map that allows drivers in effect to "vote" on where they'd like to see new stations would also be a good idea.
I like using carstations.com and plugshare.com/recargo.com, especially on my phone, to supplement the chargepoint and blink network maps of what's coming up on my trip. I also like using the government map on afdc (which seems well-kept-up), every once in awhile, for general perspective and for research.
An advantage of the network maps is that they in theory would have accurate upcoming status information (whether the station is being used, or is down, etc.) though I'm not sure that the Chargepoint map is fully functioning on that point, these days.
Advantages of the crowdsourced map sites is that they combine information from various networks into one big picture, and in some cases they allow for reviews so that we drivers can communicate with other drivers to impart important information (eg: "don't count on that station being up and running, it has been down 50% of the time I have tried it lately....")
I've had a bit of an uphill climb where I live trying to communicate to the powers that be where I'd like to see a charge station and why. I've tried various approaches, including a county board meeting and contributing money to putting in a public charge station. (Putting a cost on time, I think a point should perhaps be made that it is costly to some degree to spend time networking and lobbying for a station .... in some extreme cases, I wonder if it may even be more costly than the cost of putting in a station).
However, there's one measure that I think would be almost a no-brainer and perhaps would enhance the usefulness and popularity of someone's web business, which would be to establish a map website where EV drivers could go and vote, in visual/map form, as to where they'd like to request or suggest charge stations. Each driver could be limited to say requesting 2 L1s, 2 L2s, 2 DCQCs, maybe 2 L2.5s (or whatever we're calling them). The net results might be cool to overlay on a map of existing stations. The results might be valuable to EVSE deploying organizations to get a sense of where there might be business (and they could use it as a sales pitch.... ".... see how many people have requested a charge station right here in the parking lot of the store you manage?....").
As I think about it, in addition to allowing for reviews of existing stations, another feature of this might be to allow for voting on the popularity and usefulness of existing stations and this might be an additional useful visual display for an EVSE map-oriented website. (i.e.: each driver is allowed to identify x number of stations that are particularly important to them).
[edit add: As I think about it, another nearby concept here would be to allow each driver to identify where their residential garage and charger are, thus allowing for the mapping website to use these locations as a proxy for hard-to-gather vehicle-deployment density data, and so an overlay could be done of:
Existing stations
Existing stations identified by users as important
Desired Stations
Existing vehicle home-bases.
end edit addition.]
I question if one of the results of finally making a crowd-sourced ongoing vote public and visually clear might perhaps be shifting the perception partially toward inter-city and city-periphery chargers, as well as showing that outlier locations are not that outlier if you live there and need a charger, or if you are considering traveling there but can't readily consider doing so until they install better refueling for your transportation.
If establishing a couple of good partially-crowd-sourced maps such as carstations.com and plugshare.com seems like a very good idea (and I think it was) then I also think establishing a map that allows drivers in effect to "vote" on where they'd like to see new stations would also be a good idea.
I like using carstations.com and plugshare.com/recargo.com, especially on my phone, to supplement the chargepoint and blink network maps of what's coming up on my trip. I also like using the government map on afdc (which seems well-kept-up), every once in awhile, for general perspective and for research.
An advantage of the network maps is that they in theory would have accurate upcoming status information (whether the station is being used, or is down, etc.) though I'm not sure that the Chargepoint map is fully functioning on that point, these days.
Advantages of the crowdsourced map sites is that they combine information from various networks into one big picture, and in some cases they allow for reviews so that we drivers can communicate with other drivers to impart important information (eg: "don't count on that station being up and running, it has been down 50% of the time I have tried it lately....")
I've had a bit of an uphill climb where I live trying to communicate to the powers that be where I'd like to see a charge station and why. I've tried various approaches, including a county board meeting and contributing money to putting in a public charge station. (Putting a cost on time, I think a point should perhaps be made that it is costly to some degree to spend time networking and lobbying for a station .... in some extreme cases, I wonder if it may even be more costly than the cost of putting in a station).
However, there's one measure that I think would be almost a no-brainer and perhaps would enhance the usefulness and popularity of someone's web business, which would be to establish a map website where EV drivers could go and vote, in visual/map form, as to where they'd like to request or suggest charge stations. Each driver could be limited to say requesting 2 L1s, 2 L2s, 2 DCQCs, maybe 2 L2.5s (or whatever we're calling them). The net results might be cool to overlay on a map of existing stations. The results might be valuable to EVSE deploying organizations to get a sense of where there might be business (and they could use it as a sales pitch.... ".... see how many people have requested a charge station right here in the parking lot of the store you manage?....").
As I think about it, in addition to allowing for reviews of existing stations, another feature of this might be to allow for voting on the popularity and usefulness of existing stations and this might be an additional useful visual display for an EVSE map-oriented website. (i.e.: each driver is allowed to identify x number of stations that are particularly important to them).
[edit add: As I think about it, another nearby concept here would be to allow each driver to identify where their residential garage and charger are, thus allowing for the mapping website to use these locations as a proxy for hard-to-gather vehicle-deployment density data, and so an overlay could be done of:
Existing stations
Existing stations identified by users as important
Desired Stations
Existing vehicle home-bases.
end edit addition.]
I question if one of the results of finally making a crowd-sourced ongoing vote public and visually clear might perhaps be shifting the perception partially toward inter-city and city-periphery chargers, as well as showing that outlier locations are not that outlier if you live there and need a charger, or if you are considering traveling there but can't readily consider doing so until they install better refueling for your transportation.
