Update on EV Project, Leaf orders CA :3,000, WA:750, OR:375

A scathing report on the slow rollout of Ecotality's public charging infrastructure in Oregon (but applies everywhere).

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/05/oregons_electric_vehicle_goals.html

Apparently some changes are being made in DOE's contract with Ecotality to push out the deadlines and reduce numbers.

A U.S. Department of Energy official said last week that the department is modifying its contract with Ecotality, pushing back the deadline for the six-state public charging infrastructure to the end of the year. The official said the changes were being made to pace the charging station rollout with the arrival of the vehicles and better match the overall deployment with consumer demand across the six states.

Under the modified contract terms, the official said, the deployment targets in Oregon also have been reduced to 750 residential and 850 public charging stations by the end of the year, about 25 percent less than original earlier goals.

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Also, some numbers from Nissan's Katherine Zachary about the orders they have now.

Zachary said Nissan had some production slowdowns due to the Japanese tsunami, but things are back on track. The company has 375 orders for Nissan Leafs in Oregon, the third highest of the six states in the EV Project. California has 3,000 orders and Washington 750.

All those orders, Zachary said, will be filled this summer. "We have no doubts on the power of the market," she said.

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ps : This means in the top 3 states, the total orders is about 4,125. Assuming the other states (OR, TN, TX & HI) together are 500 to 1000, we get a total of some 4,600 to 5,000 orders. Nissan has delivered about 1,000 cars already. They will have to deliver 1,000 more each month to complete all the orders by the end of summer (Aug).

The EV Project was supposed to have Metro DC in their project area but believe me, they've not lifted a finger for either public or residential charging stations here. :roll:

DOE official said:

The official said the changes were being made to pace the charging station rollout with the arrival of the vehicles and better match the overall deployment with consumer demand across the six states.

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I hate to be defending the EV Project, but pacing the infrastructure to the arrival of the vehicles makes a lot of sense, notwithstanding that the pace has not been set by "consumer demand" but by Nissan and GM supply.

Oil interests really want the EV narrative to be that the government wastes billions of dollars on handouts to a few wild eyed long haired sandal wearing latte sipping rich liberal environmental wackos. Good honest hard working beer drinking right thinking Americans want nothing to do with those dinky little toy cars. Nothing would serve Fox "News" promotion of that narrative better than videos of row after row of charging stations standing empty. "See," the Fox commentator would intone, "despite billions of your tax dollars spent to build these charging stations, Americans aren't using them because they don't want these cars."

However if Ecotality had been doing its job I would have expected by now there would at least be detailed maps of planned locations, and business owners talking about how they were going to increase their business, etc.

walterbays said:

DOE official said:

The official said the changes were being made to pace the charging station rollout with the arrival of the vehicles and better match the overall deployment with consumer demand across the six states.

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I hate to be defending the EV Project, but pacing the infrastructure to the arrival of the vehicles makes a lot of sense, notwithstanding that the pace has not been set by "consumer demand" but by Nissan and GM supply.

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You can't

Only two EVs were able to charge at this location in Roseville (NorCal) in February2011. Of course one of the BEVs has sufficient range to not need it, and the other two have a generator as a backup

DoE should hire Tesla;

http://www.thechargingpoint.com/2011/05/19/government-funded-charging-networks-well-do-it-ourselves-says-tesla/

Well KeiJidosha and LEAFer, if a picture is worth a thousand words you've just written a two thousand word essay refuting my contention that EV Project may be waiting on Nissan and GM to deliver a significant number of cars.

walterbays said:

Oil interests really want the EV narrative to be that the government wastes billions of dollars on handouts to a few wild eyed long haired sandal wearing latte sipping rich liberal environmental wackos. Good honest hard working beer drinking right thinking Americans want nothing to do with those dinky little toy cars. Nothing would serve Fox "News" promotion of that narrative better than videos of row after row of charging stations standing empty. "See," the Fox commentator would intone, "despite billions of your tax dollars spent to build these charging stations, Americans aren't using them because they don't want these cars."

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Could you please go peddle your conspiracy theories somewhere else, they are rather worn out and cliche. Also, we aren't all on your side of the political fence, and if you want EVs to succeed you might want to be a bit more open minded as to who supports them.

KeiJidosha said:

DoE should hire Tesla;

http://www.thechargingpoint.com/2011/05/19/government-funded-charging-networks-well-do-it-ourselves-says-tesla/

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Don't see what Tesla did there - though ChargePoint has done very well compared to Ecotality. But they haven't tried to interface with govt officials and get the rules etc changed, like Ecotality has done.

evnow said:

KeiJidosha said:

DoE should hire Tesla;

http://www.thechargingpoint.com/2011/05/19/government-funded-charging-networks-well-do-it-ourselves-says-tesla/

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Don't see what Tesla did there - though ChargePoint has done very well compared to Ecotality. But they haven't tried to interface with govt officials and get the rules etc changed, like Ecotality has done.

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Well, as for rules changed, it worked in Virginia. This year we passed a law that would allow per-outlet charging so the argument that the SCC doesn't allow a provider to charge at the plug is moot here. He can and will and if they're allowed to charge at the plug, it means there can be profit and thus in the long run is better for EVs, even if in the short term may eliminate the possibility of a free ride.

TimeHorse said:

Well, as for rules changed, it worked in Virginia. This year we passed a law that would allow per-outlet charging so the argument that the SCC doesn't allow a provider to charge at the plug is moot here. He can and will and if they're allowed to charge at the plug, it means there can be profit and thus in the long run is better for EVs, even if in the short term may eliminate the possibility of a free ride.

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Yes - they have managed to change this in several states, including WA.

BTW, when I say rules & regulations, that includes at county & utility district levels. Those are tricky since there are so many of them.

evnow said:

TimeHorse said:

Well, as for rules changed, it worked in Virginia. This year we passed a law that would allow per-outlet charging so the argument that the SCC doesn't allow a provider to charge at the plug is moot here. He can and will and if they're allowed to charge at the plug, it means there can be profit and thus in the long run is better for EVs, even if in the short term may eliminate the possibility of a free ride.

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Yes - they have managed to change this in several states, including WA.

BTW, when I say rules & regulations, that includes at county & utility district levels. Those are tricky since there are so many of them.

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Well, Fairfax Co., one of the most populous of the Commonwealth and suburb to D.C., went by the NEC 2005 last I checked, but I believe 2008 has already been approved. So there's nothing unusual to stand in the way at the county level since they're just going by NEC. I would expect most counties would follow the same but keep an eye on Alexandria City and Arlington, both D.C. Suburbs (Arlington Co. is the home of the Pentagon). So I doubt there'll be much to stand in the way throughout the Commonwealth at this point and in fact, I know that 2 public EVSE have been installed just south of Richmond on I95 and ChargePoint is making end-roads in DC and Sema Connect in Maryland. And of course the Nissan Dealerships I checked in VA have at least 2 if not 3 of their AeroEnvironment units installed; all of the ones in Maryland I checked had all 3. But nothing from the EV Project, alas.

TimeHorse said:

Well, Fairfax Co., one of the most populous of the Commonwealth and suburb to D.C., went by the NEC 2005 last I checked, but I believe 2008 has already been approved. So there's nothing unusual to stand in the way at the county level since they're just going by NEC.

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The rules & regulations I'm talking about are things like
- How & how fast the city will approve evse permits at home
- How much they will charge for the permits
- What kind of signs will the city put up for public chargers (they are trying to co-ordinate that among states on the west coast)
- Zones where L3 chargers can be installed (not sure why they need that)
- Vehicle registration rules for EVs
- Co-ordinating with utilities on rates

For all these things, atleast here in WA, ecotality was co-ordinating with the city/county/state, not Nissan. Infact they hired someone from the staff of Seattle's ex-mayor to do the co-ordination.

evnow said:

The rules & regulations I'm talking about are things like
- How & how fast the city will approve evse permits at home
- How much they will charge for the permits
- What kind of signs will the city put up for public chargers (they are trying to co-ordinate that among states on the west coast)
- Zones where L3 chargers can be installed (not sure why they need that)
- Vehicle registration rules for EVs
- Co-ordinating with utilities on rates

For all these things, atleast here in WA, ecotality was co-ordinating with the city/county/state, not Nissan. Infact they hired someone from the staff of Seattle's ex-mayor to do the co-ordination.

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LOL! Well, then. For VA, it wasn't Ecotality, Nissan or GM that's made the most end-roads into the Commonwealth; it was me!

• Fairfax just ent by NEC-2005 for me to install my EVSE; quick permitting but it did cost $250 and hopefully that will go down; part of that may be about running 1/0 SEU cable - 25 ft, 3-Wire Aluminum and the Sub Panel; so permits may be lower for simpler installs. But I set the vanguard to propel us forward here. Inspector was like, we trust your installer so you're approved. I hear for someone in Maryland it took longer because they wanted to have ventilation in his garage as if the Refueling mechanism could emit fumes, but he set them straight IIRC.
• $250 for my submeter and heavy wire run, but it may get streamlined since there's no setting for EVSE on the permit site; so obviously things could be improved; most items are now $85.00 for permitting.
• Not sure about signage but I will say that I wish MD and VA could co-ordinate on HOV easements since effectively a 10-year-old Hybrid can drive single-occupancy HOV in VA but by the time the LEAF rolls out here it won't be allowed to use an HOV single-occupancy except the Toll Road.
• Zoning for L3, not sure. Not a big issue yet, of course, but worth looking into; I'll get back to you.
• Same as any car; the Clean Fuel registration is the same as for any Hybrid: $25 per year for the specialized plates (we use plates, not stickers for the HOV easement in VA, MD and CA use stickers.)
• I've been interfacing directly with my PU, Dominion Virginia Power, since last summer about a TOU rate for an EV and they got back to me this year with the now well-publicized Schedule EV Rider and Schedule 1EV household rate specifically for EVs so that they can take advantage of a new Super-Off-Peak rate. As for MD, my friend and VP of the EVA/DC Charlie Garlow brought to my attention 3 bills that now I believed are signed by the Governor, one of which will establish a commission for a new EV rate, another to provide a state tax credit for EVSEs and one to establish a council on establishing EV infrastructure: http://aecn.timehorse.com/2011/02/help-make-maryland-ev-friendlier.html.

So I would say that myself and the EVA/DC are probably the biggest forces pushing for a more EV-friendly U.S. Capital region, along with ChargePoint America and Sema Connect.

You hear that, Nissan? We're ready!!