Where do you want an EV Charging Station located?

Living in Tucson, I want to be able to drive to Phoenix (about 100 miles one-way) to shop, spend some time, demonstrate at the AZ Capitol building, lots of fun things. I will need a charging station mid-way and another in Phoenix somewhere.

Today I wrote to the store manager of the IKEA store asking him to contact The EV Project about installing charging stations at the store. Then I found something rather fun on The EV Project website. Go to the EV Project website:
http://www.theevproject.com/index.php

click on the "charging maps" link at the top. Zoom in to your city and location where you think there should be a charging station. Follow the "Suggest Charging Locations" directions in the blue box. (Doesn't work using Safari. Use Firefox instead.)

I covered Tucson with my suggestions and also plotted charging locations to Phoenix and back. Now if they will only listen to us. These charging stations are in the planning stages right now, so it will be good for us to give them our input.

Very cool.
Thanks for the heads up!

BTW, Safari, Chrome and Firefox all worked fine for me.

They won't be coming up to me in Iowa City for a while, but a reasonable strategy for eastern Iowa would be for a rapid charger in each of the following locations:

Eastern Des Moines at the I-80/Hwy 1 intersection
Grinnell
Iowa City
Davenport
Mt. Pleasant
Ottumwa
Maquoketa
Dubuque
Cedar Rapids
Waterloo
Prairie du Chien
New Hampton
Mason City

Those 13 sites should make pretty much anywhere in Eastern Iowa reachable from anywhere else in Eastern Iowa. For slow chargers, smaller cities don't really need them as much. In Cedar Rapids, they definitely need a number of them at the big Rockwell-Collins parking lots. All of the grocery stores and malls around here could use them. So could the University of Iowa parking lots and ramps. Maybe a couple at the larger city parks.

I pulled up the charger-site map at "TheEvProject.com" and added a dozen or more suggested sites along and around the I-5 freeway through Orange County, CA.

I tried for intersections of 2 (or more) freeways, with exit-access to the site in all directions, and first-available charging locations after longer "isolated" stretches of road.

But, it is easy, and a bit "fun", so I encourage you to try it in your area. Often, locals will know a good spot that is either vacant or has suitable parking already in place. Existing access to nearby electricity is good too!

garygid said:

I pulled up the charger-site map at "TheEvProject.com" and added a dozen or more suggested sites along and around the I-5 freeway through Orange County, CA.

I tried for intersections of 2 (or more) freeways, with exit-access to the site in all directions, and first-available charging locations after longer "isolated" stretches of road.

But, it is easy, and a bit "fun", so I encourage you to try it in your area. Often, locals will know a good spot that is either vacant or has suitable parking already in place. Existing access to nearby electricity is good too!

Click to expand...

This is great info ... turns out that Chicago downtown has two active charging stations already (who knew!) so I added a few suggestions in the suburbs as well as our commuter rail stations (Metra) with larger lots. There was also one in Madison, WI where we travel sometimes --- unfortunately it's 121 miles away so a bit out of range. I still think for me at least we would charge it overnight at home but having the flexibility to extend the range a bit with a quick charge would be great. I read a story about a Tesla driver who managed to go from CA to OR and mapped out RV parks along the way who had hookups for power so it's not so far fetched that you could plot out a trip using these until more charging stations become available.

Had some time before a meeting to do a little more research for the Chicago metro interested forum members ... apparently a company called Carbon Day Automotive will be working on charging stations here ...

http://carbondayautomotive.com/

I also found a few more power stations in metro Chicago so perhaps were not that far behind ...

http://www.mychargepoint.net/find-stations.php

How does ChargePoint (pay for use?) "integrate" with EvProject (free?) e-fueling stations?

Will the Leaf show both networks, and "other" e-fuel networks, ... because they are all being implemented to tie together in one real-time database?

If so, what are the "tie together" standards?

garygid said:

How does ChargePoint (pay for use?) "integrate" with EvProject (free?) e-fueling stations?

Will the Leaf show both networks, and "other" e-fuel networks, ... because they are all being implemented to tie together in one real-time database?

If so, what are the "tie together" standards?

Click to expand...

All good questions, as far as ChargePoint, it appears to work like a fuel card which are popular out here (similar to Mobil Oil's Speedpass only this one looks like a passcard you would see for employee work entrances). You sign up online using your credit card and they send you a card that you swipe to access the charge station, the swipe reports back to a central station that charges your credit card. Perhaps this is why they are taking longer with the rollouts as they need to work these details out. At least one of Chicago's electric utilities (ComEd) has added some pure electric vehicles to their fleet. I have yet to see any (see more NG powered Nicor gas utility trucks) but hopefully this will change (BTW car featured in one of the ads was a converted Prius plug-in).

garygid said:

I pulled up the charger-site map at "TheEvProject.com" and added a dozen or more suggested sites along and around the I-5 freeway through Orange County, CA.

Click to expand...

I added a couple too. Rather selfishly, I added one at the OCTA (Orange County Transit Authority, for those not familiar) offices in Garden Grove, just down the street from my house, and one at LAX, just up the street from my office.

Here is Phoenix we already have 20 FREE charging station installed. Click the link on here then on APS power company web site to see a pdf with the locations. They are across the valley of the sun.

http://www.aps.com/my_community/Environmental/Environmental_5.html

Gonewild, that APS page links you to the old AVCON charging stations. You'll notice the update date on that pdf is 2005, well before the new J1772 standard was developed.

I'd like to see three DC quick charge stations along I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson. Driving at 75mph will cut range quite a bit. Also as the batteries age they will lose range. Three stations would provide sufficient options for folks depending upon their range requirements. I would also like to see some around East Mesa and West Phoenix so I could get there and back from Ahwatukee. I think shopping malls are good spots since they tend to be destinations people spend some time at and are usually also close to other businesses. Another good place would be downtown Phoenix in one or more of the public garages; level 2 should do there.