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[Richard230]

An article in my newspaper today, written by George Avalos and published by the bayareanewsgroup, says that PG&E, northern California's electric utility company will be installing 7,500 electrical charging stations over the next three years around the northern section of the state. They are starting with six stations at the Los Banos campus of Merced College, where each charging station will accommodate two vehicles.

The program will be installing Level 2 charging stations and PG&E will own and maintain up to 35% of the stations. The remainder will be owned and maintained by the hosts that request the chargers. The stations that PG&E would own would most likely be in multi-family residential apartment or condominium complexes, as well as in disadvantages communities. “These would be in places where cars would be more likely to sit for extended periods of time”, according to a company official.

The program would apparently be funded by an increase in the monthly utility rates for residential customers. The state PUC recently approved “15 different pilot charging station programs which target cars, trucks, buses, cranes, airport equipment, forklifts and other things that move”, according to a blog by Max Baumhefner, a San Francisco-based official with the National Resources Defense Council environmental activism group.

[Fran K]

I would be happy to discuss this.  I suppose that is what internet forums are about.  Does the first sentence of the last paragraph go with the above and the remainder of the last paragraph refer to something else?  It can almost read they are going to raise rates on residential customers to pay for charging stuff at airports, bus terminals and places where cranes work.  It is my understanding the harbor is dredged by electric not diesel in San Francisco.  Chances are tower cranes would be better plugged in or wired in directly.  The environmental impact of battery stuff is something an environmental agency or activism group ought to consider in my way of looking at things.

[Richard230]

I would be happy to discuss this.  I suppose that is what internet forums are about.  Does the first sentence of the last paragraph go with the above and the remainder of the last paragraph refer to something else?  It can almost read they are going to raise rates on residential customers to pay for charging stuff at airports, bus terminals and places where cranes work.  It is my understanding the harbor is dredged by electric not diesel in San Francisco.  Chances are tower cranes would be better plugged in or wired in directly.  The environmental impact of battery stuff is something an environmental agency or activism group ought to consider in my way of looking at things.

The way the article was written was a little confusing, so I tried to copy it mostly as it was published.  It sounded to me like PG&E plans to recover their charging station investment from rate payers, but their original much larger program proposal, was scaled back somewhat to cut back these future electric power rate increases.  The six stations referenced are just the first installations of the 7,500 station electric utility company's program.

The 15 different pilot charging station programs referenced in the last sentence seem to refer to other "zero pollution"  initiatives that are being proposed by environmentalists, or have been approved by the state PUC, over and above what PG&E will be doing.  But what the scope of those programs are I have no idea. 

[NEW2elec]

Short term = lots of places for the small percentage of people who have EVs to plug in.
Longer term = Tens of millions wasted on already weak level 2 charging stations instead of better DC options.

[Erasmo]

Level 2 is perfectly adequate for places where you're parking longer than an hour anyway like at work, a shopping mall or a film theatre. After a 2 hour film you could have charged your car with 22kWh, so basicly full unless you'd arrived almost empty.

It's also very cheap compared to DC fast charging station.

[MrDude_1]

Alot of money for a glorified AC outlet.

[Richard230]

Alot of money for a glorified AC outlet.

But that is OK as it is the rate-payer's money and Pacific, Graft and Explosion get lots of free good press and every new charging station will add to their "bottom line" and shareholders' profits. 

[NEW2elec]

Sorry I still see it as a band-aid at best.  It just can't work as a business model.  Its so slow you can't get the volume of customers that they would need to keep costs low.  In one hour most EV's (non motorcycle) only get about 20ish miles per hour of charge time.  Clipper Creek's charge chart.

https://www.clippercreek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/SMUD_Charge-Times-Chart-20180108_Final.jpg

Might be enough to get someone back home form the store they just shopped at for an hour but in no way does it work for a long distance traveler.  It's a nice little perk if the store gives it to you for free.  Unless you really needed that 22 miles would you pay (much) more for it than you'd pay to charge up back at your house?

[Doug S]

I tend to agree. Propagating a mediocre 'solution' isn't really much help. The community needs to settle on a standard for fast DC charging, THEN distribute the infrastructure. Personally I'd like to see mfrs take Tesla up on their offer to share their infrastructure, then make a big push to improve the distribution, but honestly I don't really care that much which standard wins. I just hate to see the landscape dotted with chargers that have limited use even today, and virtually none tomorrow. We'll just wind up having to replace it all in a few years for something that works better...let's just not do that.