EV Reservable Charging

This is only likely to breed elitism and animosity, and lead to even more
social divisiveness and discrimination among who uses which
methods to interact with chargers. It's a horrendous idea.

We don't do any such nonsense for gas pumps; why the f would we
want to be fighting over chargers?? File an FTC complaint against
these clowns.

_H*

 

My thoughts: A solution in search of a problem.

How many EV chargers are manned and/or can can enforce a reservation system? You have so many complaints about being ICEed, which means that anyone who finds a parking spot takes it. What happens if someone does that? Our local Y for example has chargers but those spots can also be used by parents who dropping or picking up kids from day care. How do you plan for that even though parents are not supposed to use those spots for more than 10 minutes, but often stay longer. What happens if the person who is charging takes longer or does not come back in time? In order to build this enforcement, you have to spend money which may not compensate for additional revenue (which would make the meager revenue after paying for ampUP's cut even smaller). It might make money for you as all you are investing is in a app development and talking a cut of the profits, but the hard work has to be done by the charger owner.

There are apps that allow you rent out your charger and there was another thread where a poster he had not had a real bite in 5 years.

There is no dearth of gas pumps, so that problem does not arise. There is a scarcity of chargers, and these people are being entrepreneurial by trying to make money out of a scarcity situation, which does not read too well. I understand your sentiment, but this is not a FTC matter.

 

If I had to rely on reserving a charging spot on my trips, I will take my ICE car instead. With traffic and unscheduled stops along the way, there is no way that I could plan accurately enough the time I would arrive at a charging station. To be safe, I would have to be conservative and get there ahead of time, and then wait for my turn. That would be a waste of time. And to do this would just as bad as range anxiety.

I just think there should be enough charging stations available so we don't have to worry or think about this, just like gas stations. Otherwise, like I said, I would rather just take my ICE car on a trip.

 

I do agree that it would reduce stress if you must charge there and then. Lack of planning can happen.


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The technical problem is barring access to the EVSE during the 'reservation' period. This scheme sounds neither practical nor needed.

Bob Wilson

 

Can't draw a parallel with gas stations when it comes to reservations because gas pump users only need it for a few minutes unlike ev drivers.

 

And how do you think your app will be any sort of "authoritative" as
to who uses a charger when? If you're trying to form partnerships or
deals with the charging networks, it will be the community's obligation
to contact them at a very high level and do everything in its power
to make them shoot you down.

Besides, we're saddled with enough "apps" needed to handle the
charging infrastructure as it stands; we don't need another one.
If I find a charger i accessible for such a BS reason, I'm going to
be immediately adding to the CLAMOR of support calls telling
them to dump that nonsense.

Surely you've gotten the point by now. Spend your time on
something useful, like supporting more deployments.

_H*

 

I'm assuming that a message would pop up on the EVSE that it is reserved and require access thru a code or the app. That would prevent someone else from charging, but not blocking the EVSE (either in an ICE or an EV that either wanted a parking spot and/or to charge but was denied). Enforcement would require staff or some sort of mechanism (gate? spikes?) preventing entry to the parking spot without a reservation.

This is a bit of a solution in search of a problem.

Since almost all "public" stations are in fact privately owned and controlled, what would be the benefit to the station owners to limit/restrict access?

 

In theory, one could charge for reservations, so you have to pay a premium to reserve. And if the person does not show up or shows up late, the amount paid and the reservation is forfeit. But that puts the station owner into an obligation, that if a "reservation" shows up on time, then those people need to be obliged first. You cannot make a person with reservation wait too long. Else you are going to have an angry customer. That is where the enforcement part comes in


Also, you would have to take the payment upfront and this app apparently manages that part of the transaction for a I guess a cut of the revenue. You could not charge for reservation, but then why would it benefit the charging station?

So I guess large, extremely busy places can invest in what is needed to enforce reservations, for most others charging for reservations may not make sense.

 

So Wednesday evening, there were two cars the Whole Foods, EVSE. A Leaf getting a charge and a C-MAX parked but not plugged-in. Happily, there was a free parking space next to the C-MAX and the idle cable easily reached my BMW i3-REx charging port. Ordinarily I carry a 24 ft., J1772 extension and could have parked in another 3 free parking spaces on both sides of the Leaf and C-MAX. Later the C-MAX was gone and my free charge had reached 80%.

I don't get 'bent out of shape' when I discover an EVSE parking place blocked by either an ICE, PHEV, or other vehicles. With the range extender BMW i3, it is not a problem. As for our Std. Rng. Plus Model 3, I have a collection of portable EVSE and only need an unguarded, 120 VAC outlet . . . all but universally available.

Now what I needed in Nashville yesterday was some way to monitor an EVgo station which was busy when I arrived. But the EVgo app that I downloaded let me know when the station was available and later let me know it was still charging while sipping a coffee. The only thing missing was the charging rate, a cost savings issue. But the BMW app let me know I'd reached 80%, a good place to stop.

Bob Wilson

 

I have to agree with the majority. I don’t see a viable business model here. Add to that, there are new charging stations coming on line all the time. I wish you luck though, maybe your idea will pan out.


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I like the idea. Very useful, especially for long road trips where you can vary your travel time depending on available and reserve-able charging stations. Now that range anxiety has been reduced, the other anxiety is knowing whether a charging station will be available when you get there. You never know what to expect: no one using it or a line-up of EV's waiting their turn.

It might be an idea to work with Plugshare so that we could go to one site to do everything.

 

I think this could be an interesting service for people who have a home charger that they are willing to make available to others.

I have to wonder, though, how do you enforce that the charger isn't just being used by a freeloader? Is it possible to have, say, a combination lock on the charger, and the person wishing to use it only receives the code after payment has been sent or something similar?

Or is it just based on the honor system?

I don't get all of the animosity upthread, as I think this could be a useful service, but I do have a couple of questions.

 

One doesn't have to spend much time thinking about the problem to realize advance reservations would just make the problem worse. If the lines are long at EV fast-charging stations over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, how much longer would those lines be if you couldn't use a charger that isn't being used merely because the person who reserved it didn't show up yet!

You want a reserved charger some place? Fine, then pay for the installation yourself, and restrict it to private rather than public use.

​

 

Then you're ignoring the reality. You are, as they say, "tone deaf" to the problem.

That's because you can always find a restaurant to eat at where you don't need a reservation, if you're willing to look elsewhere. Furthermore, restaurants which do take reservations have employees who make sure that if someone doesn't show up, their other customers aren't kept waiting for that table. EV charging stations don't usually have attendants, so that business model doesn't work.

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It’s no different than placing a reservation at a restaurant. If you’re there on time you get your table. If not, NEXT!

One place that I would find this feature very useful is at hotels. Whenever I call to make a reservation and ask if I could reserve one of their electric car stations for the evening, they always tell me no, first come first serve.

Colour me crazy, but I for one would love to see all of the free chargers done away with. All they do is encourage people who don’t need a charge to plug-in, and create a disincentive for people from disconnecting and moving their EVS after they are full.


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I would definitely be interested in using this service if they could guarantee charging system access along my route and at the hotel I’m staying at. The logistics of making it work would be up to them. It wasn’t all that long ago when most people thought electric cars would never be popular. Look at the numbers now. 7.5% of all new car sales in Quebec and 10% in B.C. are electric now. This service might flop or it might fly. We will never know if someone doesn’t try. I for one wish them good luck in their endeavour.


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There is a caveat to this.

Exactly, this is the enforcement I have been talking about. If they either had the people or the technology to do it (for example a fence around the charger with a gate and the gate opens if you have a reservation code) to do it, yes, reservations can be enforced. So the question is "how much are you willing to pay extra for this service?". A restaurant has a person who is responsible for sitting people down anyway, so there is no additional charges for that service. Here you have to hire a person and/or build in the technology.

Plugshare and( I believe) a couple of other sites already offer this option. They will provide the contact details and you can call the provider. If the provider has capabilities to share current usage, that can be added. In plugshare, you can add your own home charger, you can look for amenities. (Screen shot below) Other than reservations, what different value does ampup provide? Do we need another application that duplicates about 95% or more of what Plugshare already does? Also if reservations are source of revenue, why would large networks like the supercharger and EA that have their own system not require you to use their app?

Plugshare capabilities

Catch 22? You need these free chargers to encourage EV usage, but free chargers may create disincentive as it can be misused. People on this forum have expressed a thought such as "we were not considering an EV, but the availability of free charging (say at work) changed my decision". Cities that want to encourage EV usage offer this incentive. Unfortunately, we are still in a growth stage. If we get to a certain volumes and there are enough chargers, free charging may not have the motivation any more.