Bringing The Sun Country Electric Highway To The US!

[GaslessInSeattle]

This came about last minute and is preliminary, make it if you can, I think you will find it very interesting!

Bringing The Sun Country Electric Highway To The US!
Saturday, August 10th at 9:30AM
Starbucks
10214 Northeast 8th Street
Bellevue, WA 98004
Bellevue Village Center
(425) 454-0191

Meet the founder of Sun Country, Kent Rathwell, founder of Plug-In North Central Washington, Jack Anderson, and Plug In America's Tom Saxton to discuss plans to bring the Sun Country Highway to the US. Sun Country Highway (https://suncountryhighway.ca/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false is a network of high powered J1772 chargers that can be used by every EV up to 80A (20kW's)! Kent will explain how his company managed to pull off installing a string of 1,000 high powered chargers all across Canada in less than a year and how to extend the project to the US, ideally without government financial assistance! These chargers will be free of charge for drivers to use, host sponsored and are proven to be incredibly reliable. Come to learn about the project and see how you can contribute! Kent will also be plugging the E-Mazing race, the worlds longest EV race, starting in Seattle and across Canada to the east coast, kick off is September 3rd! http://e-mazingrace.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

sounds like a great project but have a commitment that i can not get out of (celebration of life speech)

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

sounds like a great project but have a commitment that i can not get out of (celebration of life speech)

sorry again about the last minute notice, it was a bit impromptu as a way to kick start the effort while Kent was still down from Canada, he's an extraordinary individual! His initial purpose was to come and prepare for the EV race across Canada and since Jack and I are installing 80A chargers and fired up about Sun Country, it turned into "lets have a meeting now!" kind of thing. we will likely be there for a couple of hours, it's going to go from presentation mode to brain storming and organizing pretty quickly I'm guessing and I'm sure there will be additional meetings and more online networking here on MNL and TMC.

My inspiration comes from a trip I took up into Canada using the Tesla S and the Sun Country Highway high amperage J1772's. I got to talk with Kent, and he helped cement the realization that we will need more than the super charging network or DC Quick Chargers for the Leaf to fill in the gaps, that high Amperage AC is much less expensive to install and very useful and can be done using J1772's so beneficial to all EV's, that "free" is the best way, eliminating failure points due to card swipes/RFID card/computer screen reader malfunctions and all the added expense of the data hook up and function of a "for fee" system etc. The 80A units are much less expensive than even the commercial 40A Blinks and Chargepoints, that difference can makes the cost of the electricity relatively negligible.

I am really hoping that we can get the snow ball rolling with donations of chargers and host sites... there are essentially no pesky contracts to sign, something that turned off a lot of potential hosts with other networks. it's a looser, more affordable, beautifully simple and fast moving approach to a relatively high speed charging network that will accommodate virtually all EV's as the rate of onboard AC chargers continues to jump every couple of years, like it's been doing... 20kWh charging may not even be that far off for the Leaf! Please come if you can! By no means will it be an alternative to DC fast chargers and Tesla Super Chargers but instead, an augmentation beyond those networks, giving folks more choices for destination charging within metro areas as well as in remote areas, beyond the main arterials.

 

[KJD]

OK so it sounds interesting. Now the hard part.

How do you motivate people to install these if there is no revenue stream from people using them ?

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

OK so it sounds interesting. Now the hard part.

How do you motivate people to install these if there is no revenue stream from people using them ?

you mean for the hosts? the motivation to host comes from different angles depending on the host. Some do it just to help the movement and some homeowners like myself need a second charging station anyway because we now have given up gas cars all together and have two electrics. the main 40A charging station in the garage is plenty most of the time so I added the high speed line to the outdoors. on the occasion that I need 62 miles of range an hour on the Tesla S, I charge from the higher speed charger outside. the outside charger, being high speed and J1772 is perfect for a plug share scenario, accommodating 3.3 kw or 6.6 kW leafs or 10kW RAV 4's or 20kW Tesla S. 80A or 20kWh's is the likely top end for AC charging, at least for a good ways into the future, so these stations are future proofed. the other motivator is that I run a business from my home and it "might" help business and is certainly a way to demonstrate the technology to clients and neighbors.

for retail and other businesses, it turns out that there is very little revenue to be made from charging money to charge, even just the cost of adding card swipes is the equivalent of years of electricity for some of these stations. for the retailer the charger attracts business, more and more as EV's become more common and come with higher amperage chargers. having a high speed charging station makes the business attractive as a place that people can come to get a meaningful charge in a relatively short period of time. the cost of the electricity is minor, it's still slow enough that it deters people from coming just to get a "free fill", it most often attracts those traveling beyond their typical daily needs who need what I call, destination charging.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I'd love to meet up, but certainly too short of a notice.

Seems like a really short notice on the rally, considering the time required to complete it and shortage info on the website.

 

[KJD]

This came about last minute and is preliminary, make it if you can, I think you will find it very interesting!
Bringing The Sun Country Electric Highway To The US!
Saturday, August 10th at 9:30AM

I really like this concept. How did the meeting go last Saturday ?