stanley said:
What is the location of the Mcdonalds charger station?
Now that we're close to the end of the EV Project's planned one year construction program of public charging infrastructure, they have completed a grand total of ... ZERO ... installations in San Diego. I hope that changes soon! But for now this appears to be the only modern EV charging station in San Diego outside of a Nissan dealer, listed at
http://chargepoint.net
Code:
Name: AMSOLR CORP / 1121 GARNE AVE
Address: 1121 Garnet Ave, San Diego, CA 92109, USA
Description:
Status: Not Available
Status as of: 2011-03-08 00:48:22 (PST)
Price: Free
I
thought I saw it listed earlier as "Available" so I went to see for myself, and if the charging station appeared to be functional then I'd eat lunch there as well. It's a nice shade structure with PV panels providing power, probably a lot more power than the charging station uses.
The charging station is by the second post. There is no sign restricting parking to EV's only, and despite all the empty parking spaces the spot selected by the ICE car is, of course, the EV charging space.
Still, this McDonald's deserves a lot of credit for being the first business in the city to support electric vehicles. I'd expect that once a significant number of Leafs and Volts have been delivered, that the owner might mark the space as being for EV's only.
The location a couple of blocks from the beach would make it a nice place to park for a while. I suppose the Chargepoint reservation system would take care of knowing that the station would be available for you before you started your trip, and would take care of knowing how long the restaurant owner is willing for you to stay. So far, so good.
But there was no J1772 connector and cable, and the little (locked) box didn't look like one could be stored inside. So I think this must be an L1 charging station! Chargepoint's web site doesn't make it clear, but from photos of their stations I think they must have L1 and L2, and at the L1 stations you unlock the door to access a 120VAC plug for your own portable L1 EVSE. I can't imagine what would be the point of an L1 public charging station. Plus five miles of range per hour spent!? (Edited. Correction thanks to planet4ever: 100 mi / 20 hrs = 5 mi/hr not 1)
An outdoor electrical outlet box costs less than $50 at Home Depot. Why would anyone instead put in a Chargepoint L1?
Maybe someone who is familiar with Chargepoint can correct me, and it will turn out that this is a useful charging station after all.