BLINK/ Dept of Energy visit

Guys
Firstoff- i spotted another (black from Dirito)leaf today on 680 near stoneridge avenue and i waved at him and he waved back. Leaf spotting has become all too common in the bay area- i see one almost every day. The owners dont wave back though! Today the driver waved back! Wooo Hooo!


Blink contacted me about scheduling DOE visit- they want to see what blink has been doing with the money given to them. This would mean i take off from work after lunch and be available for 30 minutes. Is there any feedback you want me to give them? Also- i will do this if it helps the larger EV community- what do you think?

That is a sensitive subject... you can start bashing Ecotality and we will end up with no public chargers at all (if it were to lead to funding cuts) or you play along and help keep some chargers being installed. Although I doubt one person's opinion is going to affect that large of a project. I am sure that others on here would thrive at the opportunity to slam Ecotality and will probably chime in with what they want you to say... just remember that people can type anything hiding behind their keyboards. When it would come to saying those things in person it would be a different story.

Number one feedback from me would be the tardiness on the public charging effort. Being given a QC port and having no QC chargers to use them rankles more as time goes on. My home charging use might be different if the public infrastructure were in place.

Skywagon: No need to bash Ecotality in order to complain about lack of public infrastructure. I actually think that Ecotality has valid reasons for being late...doesn't change the fact that they're late.

Constructive criticism is what i was looking for. Anyway i will let them know about how slow the public charging infrastructure is.

Ask them when their reservation system is going to roll out.
Also, their website is pretty useless. They need a total redesign.

Skywagon said:

you can start bashing Ecotality and we will end up with no public chargers at all

Click to expand...

Or you could tell them ECOtalitiy is doing great and we end up with almost no public chargers at all, it's really your choice.

+1 one on the public chargers. It seems Ecotality is deliberately misleading the Government and EV community on installing infrastructure. The "inspection" may be due to the administration considering changing horse's from Eco. Please read below that the DOE is NOT overly financially committed to ECO.

I contacted Secretary of Energy Chu on April 27 and got a very long eMail back. My concern was lack of progress in public infrastructure. The email response highlight:

"As with all DOE grants, the recipient of the grant in this case Ecotality is NOT provided funds until specific milestones have been Achieved. To date only a limited amount of funds have been provided to Ecotality...."


Full eMail.

Mr. W--------,
 
Thank you for your e-mail message to Secretary of Energy Chu on April 27, 2011 regarding the Ecotality EV Project.  I am the manager of the ARRA Transportation Electrification Projects at the Department of Energy, including the Ecotality EV Project referenced in your e-mail.
 
This project was selected by the Department through a competitive solicitation to establish research, development, and demonstration projects to accelerate the market introduction, utilization, and US manufacturing of plug-in electric drive vehicles and their supporting infrastructure.  One of the key aspects of these projects, and the reason for focusing them with larger numbers of vehicles and charging locations in specific metropolitan areas, is to be able to assess potential impacts on the grid that could result from widespread adoption and use of electric drive vehicles.  Another is the evaluation of consumer's vehicle and charging patterns.
 
The EV Project is one of two projects selected with a focus on establishing infrastructure.  This project is structured so that residential infrastructure is installed just before the vehicles are delivered by Nissan, and public infrastructure is installed based on where vehicles have been delivered and the most likely travel patterns for these vehicles.  Unfortunately, the events in Japan earlier this year severely delayed the building, shipping, and delivery of the Nissan Leafs for this project.  As a result, the planned installations of residential and public access infrastructure has also been delayed, so that it still coincides with vehicle deliveries.
 
Now that deliveries of Nissan Leafs to project participants has begun, so have the installations of both residential and public infrastructure.  As of the end of May, more than 1,200 residential units have been installed by Ecotality, with nearly 1,300 more planned by the end of July.  In addition, public infrastructure installations began in early June and there will be over 250 units installed and operational by the end of this month.  Please note that in many locations in California, the infrastructure installed in the 1990s, both conductive and inductive units, are still being used by legacy EVs from that era and replacing these units would leave the vehicle owners that rely on them for charging with no way to charge their EVs.  Furthermore, these units are not owned by the Department or by Ecotality and the owner of these stations would have to agree to any replacements.
 
As with all Department of Energy grants, the recipient of the grant, in this case Ecotality, is not provided funds until specific milestones have been achieved. To date, only a limited amount of funds have been provided to Ecotality and future funding allocations will only be made as each milestone is achieved.
 
Thank you for your interest in the EV Project and the Department's efforts to support the transition to electric drive transportation.  I hope this information has been useful and answered your questions and concerns.
 
 
Lee Slezak
Manager, Vehicle Systems 
Vehicle Technologies Program
U.S. Department of Energy
 
Phone:  202-586-2335
FAX:  202-586-2476


I am hoping what I highlighted in red is the reason for the DOE coming out to take a look at Ecotality. I hope they give a one month ultimatum on the Infrastructure and then spread the grant out to competitors that would love to eat ECO's lunch.
 

With all the cutbacks going on in Wash.DC now I wonder how much longer this inspector will have a job..

I see some serios cut backs in solar and the e-car industry coming to meet that trillion in savings for the balanced budget...

Ecotality just issued 10 million more shares to help pay back the 100 million in grant money..

I can not figure out my charger, sometimes its crap then it works perfect..Its now working perfect again after having to unplug it 50 times to get it to work correctly..Yes i contacted Blink,they sent me a email back saying they did not have a fix for my issues yet :shock:

I have also had my concerns with Ecotality. I've been really unimpressed with their alleged deployment of public chargers. My impression is that they are focused now almost entirely on residential chargers. Am I right?

Two things bother me. First, compare the charging map of Coulomb Technologies, http://www.mychargepoint.net/find-stations.php with the charging map from the EV Project. This is what I expected the EV Projects's map to look like by this point in time. Oh, wait, the EV project took their charging map offline several months ago. There's now no way to find out now where their chargers are. Is that because their map would be embarrassingly sparse?

I've been following the EV Project for a while, and back when their map was available, there were two charging stations listed as being operational in downtown Washington DC, near where I live. I thought, cool, I'll go have a look. They turned out to be smart meters on a pole, with no other connections. Nothing to plug into and no J1772 connections. They have since been taken away. BTW, the location I'm taking about is along 12 St NW between G and H.

I want nothing but the best for the EV Project and charger deployment in general. We have to get this right, especially in these early days, to give a good impression to the public. That's why I'm concerned about the EV Project. What I'm really worried about is the political danger that if the <gulp> "failure" of the EV Project gets linked to the DOE, and hence to Obama, that his political opponents will point to it as an example of how ev's are a wasteful boondoggle, etc., and we in the EV community could all be affected. Whether we like it or not, we're all kind of tied to the success or failure of the EV Project. C'mon EV Project, there is a lot riding on you!

.

rawhog said:

The BLINK Network map is up on their website.

Click to expand...

only 1 charger within 50mile radius of Palo Alto, and it's offline. There are probably >50 on the Coulomb Technology network.

Skywagon said:

That is a sensitive subject... you can start bashing Ecotality and we will end up with no public chargers at all (if it were to lead to funding cuts) or you play along and help keep some chargers being installed. Although I doubt one person's opinion is going to affect that large of a project. I am sure that others on here would thrive at the opportunity to slam Ecotality and will probably chime in with what they want you to say... just remember that people can type anything hiding behind their keyboards. When it would come to saying those things in person it would be a different story.

Click to expand...

MAN, I wish they would send one of these investigators my way.

I can talk a lot faster than I type, and I have some quality feedback on exactly how EV Project is doing.

I'd take the inspector for a drive, and we would visit 100% of San Diego's public L2 Blink infrastructure in less than one hour. That pretty much says it all.

We would review every statement EV Project has made since October, and compute the percentage of those that have been accurate.

Then I would show him Coulomb's map and BEG that they revoke the EV Project contracts and start over with Coulomb. I'm certain we would hit 1,000 chargers faster by starting over with Coulomb than continuing to pump funds into the EV Project PR machine. What a joke.

Just finished the inspection:

I told them how hard it was to get some one out to install my charging station. Thereafter blink customer support has been easy to reach and the system has worked most of the time.

I did mention that the lack of public infrastructure has been frustrating. The blink rep said that its mainly because of allotment- most of the units are meant for residential. he said that although they are picking up installation of the public units.

He mentioned 3 wineries in Napa have the infrastructure. Monterey bay city just bought 4 from them. Bishop Ranch will also have a unit.
More importantly- he said 20 DC fast chargers have been approved and should be installed soon. I did complain about the length of the charging wire and how it should have been another 5 feet longer. he mentioned that they are working out an extension kit for the same.

You can contact Jason Smith from ecotality for any feedback. [email protected]

As for the DOE rep, if you need his email id, send me an IM.