EV Reservable Charging

When an earlier version of Juicenet 40 did not support a fixed charge quota limit, I would rarely, remotely end a session. But now it is set to 8 kWh which works well. We don't have to worry about EVSE hogs.

Hotels are special so when planning a trip, free charging is important. But due to abuse, the last hotel we stayed at had to disable them unless asked for by a guest. This prevented those using a near-by gym from hogging the chargers. A better solution would be an all-weather, door key to enable charging.

Free is what lets me afford to charge and the shop at the pricy Whole Foods. It also applies at a pricy, upscale mall, Bridge Street, and my favorite neighborhood stores at 5-Points.

Here is the weekly activity of the 5-Points EVSE. We turn it off at 11 PM after the last restaurant closes and start at 6 AM when the earliest stores open:


Experiments limiting the total charge to what can be done in 1-2 hours solves the problem. Here is the latest charge session:

The rather weak charger, ~3.42 kW, took about 2.5 hours to get the 8 kWh. Not enough for a full charge, it is enough to give 24-48 miles (3-4 mi/kWh.) That EV owner works at a local office and moves the car when it is done.

Is this perfect, no. I would prefer a way so anyone on a charger can get an SMS message if someone needs a charge. Locking the J1772 should be limited to when the car is actively charging and then unlock. The simple expedient of a parking meter makes sharing of our downtown, fast DC charger easy.

Bob Wilson

 

From chargepoint's FAQ's:
How does the ChargePoint reservations system work?
As the station owner, you decide whether you want to make your stations reservable. You also decide how much it costs to reserve your stations and who is allowed to reserve your stations. Once a station has been designated as reservable, it can only be used with a reservation. To configure reservations, log into your administrator account and follow the instructions in the Help Menu, under Videos and Manuals.

 

You're very far from the only EV supporter who thinks that free charging is a detriment to the EV community.

I can see a reasonable argument that free charging at destination chargers at hotels and other businesses are a good thing when restricted to customers of the business, because they do support long-distance travel in EVs. But free DC fast charging shouldn't be "a thing". One problem is that if the charger is free for the general public to use, then the owner of the charger has no incentive to maintain it.

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There's a place for that, for people who have private chargers installed on their property for their own use, but they want to make them available, as a service to the EV community, to others who need to use them when the owner isn't using the charger.

If "AmpUp" were intended to support that informal network of EV enthusiasts, then I'd be all for it. But I don't think that's their primary intended market.

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A former Prius owner, there was a Hyundai advocate who came to PriusChat to advocate for his ride. So I went to the local Hyundai dealer and was the first one to test drive one and shared my impressions. This included a fairly detail technical discussion. I even joined the Hyundai forum and shared the facts and data with the same style. Soon enough, that chip on his shoulder fell off and the trollish behavior went away. Then I got an e-mail about this posting:
https://www.ioniqforum.com/threads/dealership-albany-ny-would-not-let-me-charge-my-ev.34566/#post-415783?utm_campaign=ed761&utm_content=iss89&utm_source=threadloom&utm_medium=email

I was travelling through Albany NY and was really low on my charge. With less that 10 miles left, I decided to stop at Lia Hyundai (Albany). When I showed up to try and charge, two sales guys were rude as anything. They told me: since I did NOT lease my car from them (FYI - they did not, and do not, have the car in stock), I could not use their charger.

I told them that I was really low in charge and in need.

They did not care.

Also, I told them that I had called a couple days earlier (which I had!) and was told that I could come by and charge my car, but they would not have any of it. Rude, ruder and rudest.

One sales guy then told me: "if they let me use the charger, maybe a customer would come in and need a charge. Then what?"

I explained politely: "Then I would be more than happy to unplug and let them charge." I also expressed doubt at the remote probability of some local customer coming during my 20 minute charge and needing to kick me off. He said that two days earlier a couple of customers had come in for a charge (as if to imply that it was at least somewhat possible).

He would NOT budge. What a knucklehead!!

They told me to use some proprietary unit at a mall down the road (which was a ruse to get rid of me as they were Tesla Superchargers). He gave me the worst lying face I think I ever saw. I even called him out on the lie. I mean: sales guys should be much better liars than this guy. His face gave him away.

Then, after a lot of back and forth, the guy capitulated and said: he would let me charge the car for THREE MINUTES ?!?!

Are you serious?!? Three whole minutes? Were they going to use a stop watch and time it?

The charger was sitting empty with no one using it !!! The dealership was pretty empty looking. And after 12 to 15 minutes of back and forth and putting up with his rudeness, three lousy minutes was the best offer ?!?

I wanted to ask him (but held my tongue): does the plugging in time and unplugging also count in the 3 minutes?

Can you believe this? What is wrong with these people !!!

Bottom line: Hyundai should have a policy to allow Hyundai owners to charge free at any dealership nationwide. Period. I mean: how are we supposed to be expected to buy an EV car, when charging it is so difficult when taking a road trip. Plus, has a company/brand never heard of goodwill.

FYI - after going to the mall and finding the Tesla charging stations outside the Whole Foods supermarket, I then found a Chevy dealership which was more than happy to help me in any way.

Another point: it seems like many/most of the gas stations on the NY State Thruway between Syracuse and NYC do NOT have EV charging stations. They were Mobil stations. I found a Sunoco one with a DC Charger ($8 flat fee). A HUGE, monster rig truck was blocking the EV station. Within 30 minutes, he moved his truck.

I was feeling kinda like a second class citizen.....

Does anyone have any experience getting a charge from dealerships? Maybe better experiences than this one. What are the most friendly places with DC chargers?​

I bring this up because there are real issues with ordinary charging and dealers are occasionally part of the problem:

1. Chevy dealer in Athens has a 24x7, J1772, EVSE that is inert.
2. Nissan dealer near Shelbyville had 24 A (low power) EVSE blocked by some of their ICE inventory.
3. Shelbyville City Hall has a broken EVSE and no plans to get it fixed.
4. UAH has six, J1772, 16 A (nearly useless) and requires a student or staff parking sticker

Reservations just look like another way to deny access. It doesn't really appeal when we see EVSEs locked or blocked.

Bob Wilson

 

There was a discussion on this in another thread including pro and cons https://insideevsforum.com/communit...ev-charging-station-publicly.7536/#post-84925

Here is the crux of it, there are two use cases where reservation works

1. Where you have a home charger or in a small business (like a campground), the owner can insist that all potential users need to call in advance, and the owner can decide whom he/she wants to accommodate and at what time i.e. make a reservation. It is low volume, and is based on convenience of owner and more of a public service than an money making opportunity. (Call after hours and get the voicemail) ChargeHub, Sharepoint, Chargepoint already have these options.
   
2. Very high volume station with multiple chargers, where there is an attendant or someone who can manage reservations. Here the assumption is that a one or a few chargers can be set aside and locked up and opened only when a reservation owner shows up. Else, if there is a line, the reservation holders can get promoted to the top of the line and gets the next available charger, if they arrive on time. You need people and/or technology to manage it. This means a large investment, which only larger corporate networks or stations can afford or be interested in. And obviously they will charge a pretty penny.

So in case 1, yes it is a reservation system but it is at the discretion of the owner and is done offline. That is why ChargePoint insists it all reservations or none (no combination). As @bwilson4web experience shows, this can be very iffy.

Case 2 is a combination of reservation and non reservation but requires investment. And if someone were to make that investment, they can have their own app and insist reservations be done by a proprietary app, not AmpUp.

So I am not seeing the niche or the uniqueness of AmpUp or what additional value it provides that ChargePoint or others are not providing. Another app many not hurt but does not mean it provides much value either. What may happen is you will have multiple apps and begin with the one which has the most number of options which in this case is the established guys.

 

Exactly: Even where it might be useful to have reservations for charging, existing apps already cover that use case.

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