Charging protocol

[roseytony]

I went to a public charger this morning and found another vehicle plugged in.
There was nobody around and the charging was finished, so I unplugged their vehicle and plugged in my own.
However, I was feeling a little uncomfortable about unplugging someone else's vehicle. Does anyone know if this is the normal thing to do or was I out of line.
A related question is should I close the flap etc of the other vehicle? What if it gets wet if I don't? What if I damage something in doing so?
Cheers

Tony

 

[PeterGalbavy]

This is all quite new culturally, so I guess we are making up as we go.

Most of the public chargers I have seen in London are single bays so this is less likely to happen, yet.

Simple question to ask; How would you feel if it was your car that had the cable removed without you there? What would you want / expect?

 

[Fendoch]

Hi Tony
Sorry to disagree but I certainly would not be disconnecting someone's vehicle
What then happens if you create a complete shutdown of that persons vehicle I think they would be rather upset coming back to their car and finding out they now need the AA or RAC to tow their vehicle away just because you could not wait
I am sure there was no desperate need for you to get an instant charge as you still have your petrol you could use
Watch out for big bills coming your way if something goes wrong when you interfere with someone else's vehicle I'm afraid

 

[rubes]

At least we're all part of the EV revolution I suppose - it's not as bad as the situation I had at the M4 services when I wanted a battery top up; there was a souped up Corsa parked in the charging bay with a couple of chavs tucking into a mcdonalds...I asked them politely if they would mind moving their car (didn't even tell them that it was obviously a space dedicated to EV's), but they told me to eff off, so I got the chademo cable and pulled it to my car, it just happened to bounce across his bonnet in the process. No damage to his car but I think I made my point! Hopefully he'll park more thoughtfully next time. Anyone else had these issues?

 

[jaapv]

I had a problem the other way around. I went to a reception and decided to plug in my car at a public spot nearby (actually mostly to avoid parking charges). So I wandered out, moved the car and plugged it in. I had forgotten my card was in my coat so went back to get it. In the meantime an Ampera had gotten into the next slot and the lady was fiddling away trying to get it to charge. I waved my card at the charger, noticed it was green, and went back. When I wanted to go home, my cable was locked in and I could not remove it. It turned out the Ampera lady (long gone without charging, a Zoe there charging now) had activated my point...
It took me a quarter of an hour to get the helpdesk to deactivate the charging point remotely. The Zoe driver must have been surprised to see his charge interrupted..
At least the charge cost went to the Ampera lady....

 

[jdsx]

I went to a public charger this morning and found another vehicle plugged in.
There was nobody around and the charging was finished, so I unplugged their vehicle and plugged in my own.
However, I was feeling a little uncomfortable about unplugging someone else's vehicle. Does anyone know if this is the normal thing to do or was I out of line.
A related question is should I close the flap etc of the other vehicle? What if it gets wet if I don't? What if I damage something in doing so?
Cheers

Tony

There's no correct answer to this, really. My view is that if you're on a 'rapid' charger, and you don't want anyone to touch your car, stay with the car so that you can unplug when finished. If you leave the car and the charge ends, someone else who is waiting for the charger is perfectly at liberty to unplug your car. That's only my personal view, of course!

 

[roseytony]

Maybe I should add that on this occasion, it was first thing in the morning (on a Chademo charger) and it looked as though the other vehicle had been left there overnight (a fairly remote charging location and nobody around)
So what I'm gathering is there is - as yet - no protocol and different people have different views!

 

[phevmike]

I have given up with public charging. Period. I don't know what it is but most of the chargers I attempt to use are broken or I get there and someone is already using it.

Two recent examples include when the other week I politely asked an individual how long he was planning on leaving his Leaf on charge (at the only available working bay), he said 'five minutes as I don't intend to charge it right up' and disappeared into the service station. About 25 mins later I was still waiting, so decided to call it quits.

Later on that day at another site I spotted two empty charging bays, a Leaf driver was just ahead of me pulling into the car park and nipped into one of the spaces, I thought 'no bother, there's two', but AGAIN this was another faulty charge point and Leaf had beaten me to it.

I think I have attempted to charge my PHEV on around 9-10 occasions since buying it in August. Not very often, but I have only been successful once. In conclusion, there are simply not enough working charging bays for the amount of electric vehicles on the road, before you get into all the blind confusion of actually finding a spot, registering because it's yet another different scheme that you're not a member of etc. The whole process is not putting me off plug-in hybrids, but I would never own a fully electric car because of it.

 

[kentphev]

I think this issue is going to be a major limiting factor for wider adoption of fully electric vehicles in the short/medium term.

We'll either need cars than can get "there and back" on a single charge or ubiquitous charging, ie charging everywhere for everyone.

 

[maby]

I have given up with public charging. Period. I don't know what it is but most of the chargers I attempt to use are broken or I get there and someone is already using it.

Two recent examples include when the other week I politely asked an individual how long he was planning on leaving his Leaf on charge (at the only available working bay), he said 'five minutes as I don't intend to charge it right up' and disappeared into the service station. About 25 mins later I was still waiting, so decided to call it quits.

Later on that day at another site I spotted two empty charging bays, a Leaf driver was just ahead of me pulling into the car park and nipped into one of the spaces, I thought 'no bother, there's two', but AGAIN this was another faulty charge point and Leaf had beaten me to it.

I think I have attempted to charge my PHEV on around 9-10 occasions since buying it in August. Not very often, but I have only been successful once. In conclusion, there are simply not enough working charging bays for the amount of electric vehicles on the road, before you get into all the blind confusion of actually finding a spot, registering because it's yet another different scheme that you're not a member of etc. The whole process is not putting me off plug-in hybrids, but I would never own a fully electric car because of it.

Given the small battery in an Outlander and the fact that most of the rapid charging points are on motorways where the charge really does not get you very far, they really are not worth the effort. Add to that the possibility of locking up the system and suggestions of long-term battery damage from frequent use and they are better avoided.

 

[maby]

I think this issue is going to be a major limiting factor for wider adoption of fully electric vehicles in the short/medium term.

We'll either need cars than can get "there and back" on a single charge or ubiquitous charging, ie charging everywhere for everyone.

Which, in turn, assumes that people are prepared to pay an economic price to use them!

 

[user 816]

I have seen my local authority is installing rapid chargers at various facilities around here like the local sports stadium. Great I thought until I found cost.

A flat £5.50 for up to 45 minutes. That is shocking as its over 5 times electricity at home.

Its also about the cost of a gallon of fuel which would easily get me at least 30 miles, even if my battery was empty it will only rapid charge to 80% so 20 miles worth at best. I would lose money using these chargers!

It would have to be no more than £2 to even think about using it. They are run by Chargemaster, it seems mainly for Leaf drivers with range anxiety.

The council say:
The County Council, which has project-managed the installations, believes the chargepoints are likely to be used by as convenience chargers, by people who are travelling through Worcestershire and need to top up their battery, or local residents who need a quicker charge than they can get from their home charger.

 

[maby]

The installation cost of a rapid charger approaches £50,000 - they need to recoup the price.

Also remember that these are really targeted at pure electric vehicles - in 45 minutes a Leaf or Tesla could take on enough charge to do a hundred miles or more - £5 is not unreasonable for them.

 

[user 816]

The installation cost of a rapid charger approaches £50,000 - they need to recoup the price.

Also remember that these are really targeted at pure electric vehicles - in 45 minutes a Leaf or Tesla could take on enough charge to do a hundred miles or more - £5 is not unreasonable for them.

£50K seems a lot but I take it under advisement. The one at the sports centre has little other facilities on site, I would imagine a well planned Leaf driver to use the free rapid at the motorway services not so far away instead. I can't imagine it getting the money back in a hurry.

Then again I can imagine our council bosses giving themselves company Tesla's under the 'green' excuse so it will be handy for them.

Seriously I do appreciate pure EV driver will find more points handy, really more commenting from the PHEV point of view, not much in it for us. Its just a pity. I spend an hour at the sports stadium several times a week whilst the kids do swimming club so a charge would have been handy.

 

[greendwarf]

The installation cost of a rapid charger approaches £50,000 - they need to recoup the price.

Also remember that these are really targeted at pure electric vehicles - in 45 minutes a Leaf or Tesla could take on enough charge to do a hundred miles or more - £5 is not unreasonable for them.

£50K seems a lot but I take it under advisement. The one at the sports centre has little other facilities on site, I would imagine a well planned Leaf driver to use the free rapid at the motorway services not so far away instead. I can't imagine it getting the money back in a hurry.

Then again I can imagine our council bosses giving themselves company Tesla's under the 'green' excuse so it will be handy for them.

Seriously I do appreciate pure EV driver will find more points handy, really more commenting from the PHEV point of view, not much in it for us. Its just a pity. I spend an hour at the sports stadium several times a week whilst the kids do swimming club so a charge would have been handy.

This illustrates the problem. Most users are going to be longer than an hour at a Sports Centre, so a standard 3 pin charger would have been more useful to more people and cheaper to install - so could have been "free" to use with the local RFID card - especially with OLEV support. Unlike a commercial business, e.g. IKEA, the local authority are not in completion with rivals so they are not going to draw in customers who wouldn't otherwise go there by a Rapid charger - especially if there is a cost.

I think it is unlikely they will get many (or any) punters and have wasted your Council Tax - a reference to the District Auditor perhaps

 

[sheselectric]

I think the chargebump app has been developed to help fellow ev users communicate with each other re charging. I havent used it myself but the idea seems good assuming a sufficient number of people sign up to the app, which i think is free.

 

[greendwarf]

I think the chargebump app has been developed to help fellow ev users communicate with each other re charging. I havent used it myself but the idea seems good assuming a sufficient number of people sign up to the app, which i think is free.

But of no use if either party doesn't use a smart 'phone, whereas this is ideal for us Luddites http://e-auto.tv/ladescheibe (scroll down for English version).

 

[maby]

The installation cost of a rapid charger approaches £50,000 - they need to recoup the price.

Also remember that these are really targeted at pure electric vehicles - in 45 minutes a Leaf or Tesla could take on enough charge to do a hundred miles or more - £5 is not unreasonable for them.

£50K seems a lot but I take it under advisement. The one at the sports centre has little other facilities on site, I would imagine a well planned Leaf driver to use the free rapid at the motorway services not so far away instead. I can't imagine it getting the money back in a hurry.

Then again I can imagine our council bosses giving themselves company Tesla's under the 'green' excuse so it will be handy for them.

Seriously I do appreciate pure EV driver will find more points handy, really more commenting from the PHEV point of view, not much in it for us. Its just a pity. I spend an hour at the sports stadium several times a week whilst the kids do swimming club so a charge would have been handy.

It is hard to see how any commercially viable charging network could ever be attractive to PHEV owners - we just don't get enough range out of a charge.

 

[user 816]

The installation cost of a rapid charger approaches £50,000 - they need to recoup the price.

Also remember that these are really targeted at pure electric vehicles - in 45 minutes a Leaf or Tesla could take on enough charge to do a hundred miles or more - £5 is not unreasonable for them.

£50K seems a lot but I take it under advisement. The one at the sports centre has little other facilities on site, I would imagine a well planned Leaf driver to use the free rapid at the motorway services not so far away instead. I can't imagine it getting the money back in a hurry.

Then again I can imagine our council bosses giving themselves company Tesla's under the 'green' excuse so it will be handy for them.

Seriously I do appreciate pure EV driver will find more points handy, really more commenting from the PHEV point of view, not much in it for us. Its just a pity. I spend an hour at the sports stadium several times a week whilst the kids do swimming club so a charge would have been handy.

It is hard to see how any commercially viable charging network could ever be attractive to PHEV owners - we just don't get enough range out of a charge.

Perhaps the rate should be on power used rather than time for a start. The £5.50 flat fee is for 45 minutes with an extra charge for minutes beyond this.

A PHEV with a bit of SOC and to 80% would take at most say 8kWh? but a Leaf could take more like 20kWh, a Tesla could take 80kWh. How about 25p per kWh with a top limit set on time/price. So a PHEV would cost about £2, a Leaf £5 and say a 45 minute + £10 top limit for a single transaction would cover Tesla.

 

[maby]

...

It is hard to see how any commercially viable charging network could ever be attractive to PHEV owners - we just don't get enough range out of a charge.

Perhaps the rate should be on power used rather than time for a start. The £5.50 flat fee is for 45 minutes with an extra charge for minutes beyond this.

A PHEV with a bit of SOC and to 80% would take at most say 8kWh? but a Leaf could take more like 20kWh, a Tesla could take 80kWh. How about 25p per kWh with a top limit set on time/price. So a PHEV would cost about £2, a Leaf £5 and say a 45 minute + £10 top limit for a single transaction would cover Tesla.

The trouble with charging for power consumed is that they need to get people off the charger quickly. I travel into our London office occasionally and the PHEV would be a good fit - just about 25 miles each way - could do it almost entirely on EV each way with a charge during the day. But when I arrive in London, I'm there to work - if there were a charger reasonably close to the office, I would plug up, but I could not commit to coming back out after an hour to move the car - by that time there could easily be no alternative space and I would be in real trouble. So, assuming that the cost were per kWh used, I would just leave the car in the charging bay all day - denying it to anyone else and leaving the operator with £2 revenue for the day.

Don't forget that the bulk of PHEV sales appear to be to company drivers - we are not "popping down to the shops or the leisure centre" - we are driving to work or a customer site - we'll be parking up for hours at a time and you need a pricing structure that will discourage bay-hogging.