Disappointed with Bay Area, Ca public charging

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mgs333

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
57
Location
SF Bay Area
I'm surprised there isn't a sticky thread for the Bay Area given that this is probably the region with the greatest uptake of EVs and Leafs.

Anyway, as a new Leaf driver, I've been researching the public charging infrastructure around the Bay Area for a while, then one day I looked at So Cal's charging network for kicks and was surprised to see the network down there is much more robust vs up here.

Bay Area QC network: http://i.imgur.com/aWkOtso.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So Cal QC network: http://i.imgur.com/duLCqn0.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Adding L2s makes doesn't change the picture much, in fact, it seems to make So Cal even better covered.

For the most common driving scenario where one would need a charge (driving from SJ to SF and back,) the options in SF are pretty slim. Plus all the dealers here seem to only let people who bought from them use their QC, if they're even up in the first place and not blocked by employees' cars.

I guess I'm just surprised that So Cal has a much better infrastructure than the Bay Area given that I would have thought the network would be the best here.
 
QC coverage is more local than your terms indicate. As a San Diego driver - in Southern California but not in the Los Angeles metro area - things don't look so good here as your LA map indicates. Similarly a San Ramon driver might look enviously at the San Jose portion of your map. Still it's all MUCH better than it was a couple of years ago.

I think QC coverage is most closely correlated with how much money Dynegy stole from consumers in 2001 in each region, hence how many eVgo stations are built. Blink isn't much of a factor given their poor reliability, frequent ICEing, halt to expansion, and punitive pricing.

The biggest improvement to QC coverage could come if operators realized that by adding a second station to an existing location they could dramatically increase reliability, charges per day, and profit, at a small fraction of the cost of opening a new location.
 
Of course three years ago the amount was nearly zero. It's only been within the last year that we've inched up to "barely acceptable" in ether region.
 
If I recall, there was a big uptick in the LA region as chargers started being installed pursuant to the terms of the Enron settlement.

On a per-capita basis I'm not sure the discrepency is as large as appears.
 
mgs333 said:
I've been researching the public charging infrastructure around the Bay Area for a while, then one day I looked at So Cal's charging network for kicks and was surprised to see the network down there is much more robust vs up here.

Bay Area QC network: http://i.imgur.com/aWkOtso.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So Cal QC network: http://i.imgur.com/duLCqn0.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
...

Keep in mind that you have a bunch of "apples to oranges" going on there comparing the Bay Area (with hills and open space forests) and the LA basin which is basically just a sprawl of concrete cities.

Here is the bay area view showing some sections which are wooded hills with little development and no big business to support QC stations:
openspace1_zps0977e44f.png


In many cases those areas are watershed, county parks, or "open space preserve" owned by trusts that don't want any development there.
 
I've used several QC's in the bay area with no problem. The Nissan R&D one in San Mateo, VW Electronic research lab, there's one at the dealer in Oakland (haven't used that one), one at the dealer in Fremont (requires an nrggo account, which I don't have). In the east bay, it's more of a pain.
 
mgs333 said:
Bay Area QC network: http://i.imgur.com/aWkOtso.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
If you think that's bad, try searching for SAE Combo (aka J1772 CCS aka Combo1) DC FCs in Nor Cal and then expand it to the rest of the country...
 
you can pretty much replace "Bay Area" with any area in the country with the possible exception of Oregon and be dead on.

Maybe I am spoiled. On my trip to Japan, there was a map of Fast Chargers in Yokohama surrounding Tokyo Bay. They were spaced out anywhere from 3 to 15 km apart.

In WA, we "supposedly" have one of the best public charging infrastructures in the country but they are concentrated in selected areas leaving HUGE coverage holes all over. I see on the map that CA Coastal coverage is weak as is WA's (we have ZERO charging of any kind on the coast here) OR did it right. The coast of ANY state is a huge draw for recreation and just to drive for the Hell of it.

Why no one except OR realizes that is beyond me
 
you can pretty much replace "Bay Area" with any area in the country with the possible exception of Oregon and be dead on.

Maybe I am spoiled. On my trip to Japan, there was a map of Fast Chargers in Yokohama surrounding Tokyo Bay. They were spaced out anywhere from 3 to 15 km apart.

In WA, we "supposedly" have one of the best public charging infrastructures in the country but they are concentrated in selected areas leaving HUGE coverage holes all over. I see on the map that CA Coastal coverage is weak as is WA's (we have ZERO charging of any kind on the coast here) OR did it right. The coast of ANY state is a huge draw for recreation and just to drive for the Hell of it.

Why no one except OR realizes that is beyond me
 
TEG said:
Keep in mind that you have a bunch of "apples to oranges" going on there comparing the Bay Area (with hills and open space forests) and the LA basin which is basically just a sprawl of concrete cities.

In addition, the two maps are in a vastly different scale, with the LA map covering more than twice the area as Bay Area map.

We'd love to have even one quarter the density of what the bay area has here in Colorado. Hell, until early this year we had no quick chargers at all.
 
I fear there is no real business model to offer a dense net of public quick charging stations:

- The vast majority of EVs will charge at home over night of a cost if let's say $0.10 per kWh or less.
- Looking forward, the range of EVs will increase, so even less need to "fill up" while on the road!
- Leaves the need for QC for longer trips, which means QC stations should be located strategically along major freeways (see Tesla's concept).
- As the capital costs for a QC remain high, the only way to make a profit for QC provider is a high per charge rate, which was just tried and lead to an uproar here on this forum. As the owners do the math and realize that a charge costs much more than charging at home, maybe as much as a to fill up a gas tank (but still takes much longer) they will again avoid using Quick Chargers, which meas that the utilization of QCs stays low and it gets hard to earn a profit.

By design or not, Tesla's combination of long range EV coupled with "free" per charge Superchargers seems to be the right model. The price for the QC is paid up front as part of the purchase price for car.

What does this mean? There might be QCs installed at dealer sites to support sales, there might pop up QC's at destinations sites like shopping centers (I doubt it as L2 should be sufficient and keeps one longer at the premises). Or somebody steps up and subsidizes QC stations so that the cost per charge is not too far above charging at home.

Am I wrong???
 
cBeam said:
I fear there is no real business model to offer a dense net of public quick charging stations:

- The vast majority of EVs will charge at home over night of a cost if let's say $0.10 per kWh or less.
- Looking forward, the range of EVs will increase, so even less need to "fill up" while on the road!
- Leaves the need for QC for longer trips, which means QC stations should be located strategically along major freeways (see Tesla's concept).
- As the capital costs for a QC remain high, the only way to make a profit for QC provider is a high per charge rate, which was just tried and lead to an uproar here on this forum. As the owners do the math and realize that a charge costs much more than charging at home, maybe as much as a to fill up a gas tank (but still takes much longer) they will again avoid using Quick Chargers, which meas that the utilization of QCs stays low and it gets hard to earn a profit.

By design or not, Tesla's combination of long range EV coupled with "free" per charge Superchargers seems to be the right model. The price for the QC is paid up front as part of the purchase price for car.

What does this mean? There might be QCs installed at dealer sites to support sales, there might pop up QC's at destinations sites like shopping centers (I doubt it as L2 should be sufficient and keeps one longer at the premises). Or somebody steps up and subsidizes QC stations so that the cost per charge is not too far above charging at home.

Am I wrong???

in a word; yes

you ignore the ever present downward pricing pressure all new cars experience. EVs that really want to succeed will recognize the fact that even if batteries cost dropped 50% overnight, there will be just as many (actually I predict 2-4X more) people wanting a cheaper car with the old range verses people willing to pay the same price for more range.
 
in a word; yes

you ignore the ever present downward pricing pressure all new cars experience. EVs that really want to succeed will recognize the fact that even if batteries cost dropped 50% overnight, there will be just as many (actually I predict 2-4X more) people wanting a cheaper car with the old range verses people willing to pay the same price for more range.

Sure, but what does this have to do with quick charging?

They will still use L2 at home or at work, and not shell out the higher prices to quick charge in significant numbers. The price of QC needs to come down, which means lower capital cost, and high utilization to spread capital cost, maintenance cost and profit. Pure electricity cost (price per kWh) will not be much cheaper than what it costs you to charge at home.
 
cBeam said:
in a word; yes

you ignore the ever present downward pricing pressure all new cars experience. EVs that really want to succeed will recognize the fact that even if batteries cost dropped 50% overnight, there will be just as many (actually I predict 2-4X more) people wanting a cheaper car with the old range verses people willing to pay the same price for more range.

Sure, but what does this have to do with quick charging?

They will still use L2 at home or at work, and not shell out the higher prices to quick charge in significant numbers. The price of QC needs to come down, which means lower capital cost, and high utilization to spread capital cost, maintenance cost and profit. Pure electricity cost (price per kWh) will not be much cheaper than what it costs you to charge at home.


shorter range cars implies a greater public charging need. There will ALWAYS be a short range EV out on the market or at least until we develop a cheap robust power supply and that is likely to take years if not longer.

as far as the current price of the stations; in the short time they have been around the price has been cut in half and I doubt the price cutting is done.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
shorter range cars implies a greater public charging need. There will ALWAYS be a short range EV out on the market or at least until we develop a cheap robust power supply and that is likely to take years if not longer.

as far as the current price of the stations; in the short time they have been around the price has been cut in half and I doubt the price cutting is done.

I am still not convinced. Yes, there will always be short range EVs, however I doubt that they will quick charge on public QCs in significant numbers if they have to pay a price that covers all cost. They likely will prefer to charge L2 at home or at work.

Now this thread started out because the OP is disappointed with Bay Area public charging (and I assume this is about QC looking at his first post). In order to get more QC stations there needs to be a viable business model for entrepreneurs to make money selling quick charges. I do not see this business model. L2 at home will always be cheaper and more convenient. Questions to you, how often do you use a public QC? If there were convenient QC stations around the corner of your house how often would you use QC then? And how much are you ready to pay per charge to prefer public QC to the L2 in your garage?
 
cBeam said:
By design or not, Tesla's combination of long range EV coupled with "free" per charge Superchargers seems to be the right model. The price for the QC is paid up front as part of the purchase price for car.
I was reading a Tesla owners thread on chargers and utilization, and noticed that the folks there were complaining about folks parked at the superchargers for extended periods, blocking their access when they wanted to charge. It cost them no more to stay parked for a while.

Another complaint was that there were people who lived near a supercharger and were using it as their regular charge process, with no home charging at all. These folks were taking up spaces wanted by long distance travelers.

So their problems are similar to the complaints we hear about people using free quick chargers (or free public L2 chargers) for their regular charging, without home charging.
 
cBeam said:
Now this thread started out because the OP is disappointed with Bay Area public charging (and I assume this is about QC looking at his first post). In order to get more QC stations there needs to be a viable business model for entrepreneurs to make money selling quick charges. I do not see this business model. L2 at home will always be cheaper and more convenient. Questions to you, how often do you use a public QC? If there were convenient QC stations around the corner of your house how often would you use QC then? And how much are you ready to pay per charge to prefer public QC to the L2 in your garage?

For me, I was looking specifically at driving to SF from SJ and would definitely pay for QC rather than renting a car to make the trip. As it is, the options seem very limited (many of the QCs in SF are perennially down, unavailable, plus a lot of them are closed at night). Right now the only way I can drive to SF without much anxiety or inconvenience is if the destination I'm going to happens to be near a parking garage that has L2 chargers and is open in the evenings (many garages seem to close early evening), and those garages (concentrated around Union Square/FiDi) are not in the parts of town I usually go to.

I have wondered about the business model of public chargers, right now any kind of a public charging station seems to be a massive money loser and are only put in as an image thing or as a service.
 
mgs333 said:
I have wondered about the business model of public chargers, right now any kind of a public charging station seems to be a massive money loser and are only put in as an image thing or as a service.

curious as to your thoughts on other public projects and their profitability? seems like they are all money losers
 
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