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[Richard230]

The H2 facility's door was still open last Sunday, so I took another look. The red light is still on and the weeds had grown another 6".  I did notice that below the red light was a siren. I wonder what you are supposed to do if that thing sounds. I assume run as fast as you can away from the station. 

[llukas]

Any idea if/when there would be fast charger near Alice Restaurant? Sorry for hijacking topic.

[Richard230]

Any idea if/when there would be fast charger near Alice Restaurant? Sorry for hijacking topic.

I have nothing against hijacking.  I have a tendency to do it all the time. 

A few years ago the owners of Alice's Restaurant were approached regarding establishing a couple of L2 charging stations in their parking lot. But they told me that the cost was too high and it would have taken away from their already insufficient restaurant parking area. Mostly though the costs were more much than they wanted to pay and they felt that their relatively few customers with electric cars (that would be almost entirely Teslas), would not make use of L2 charging facilities so it just didn't seem to be worth the expense. 

Instead the Skywood General Store across the street got the multi-million useless H2 Highway refueling station, which replaced the old rundown gas station that had been located next to the store for a great many years. 

[Crissa]

How are you supposed to get ev customers without chargers, especially in rural locations?

-Crissa

[Curt]

Skywood Trading Place is not rural, being only 11 miles from Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

It seems like Alice's could convince ChargePoint or EVgo to operate a charger there, maybe back behind their big propane tank.

The gas station is still there and was part of the remodel.

[Crissa]

That is literally rural.

Distance to urban core is not the definition.

-Crissa

[Curt]

Let me try again.

How are you supposed to get ev customers without chargers, especially in rural locations?

Having no chargers is not an impediment to 99% of Alice's EV customers (Teslas and the like; EV MCs are not even a blip on their radar).

[Crissa]

Let me try again.

...Weird, that completely seems to miss the point.

There were more Leafs on the road than Teslas until last year.  There are more non-Tesla EVs on the road than Teslas.

Having no EV charging means you do not grow your market.  They would be a stop a Leaf could take to the beach... But they don't have charging, so no Leaf or Bolt owners go there.

Let alone Zeros, which are made just down the road and the Zero demos used to go that way but now go South instead.

By not having charging, they are making sure no mid to low distance EVs even visit their community.

-Crissa

[Richard230]

There used to be an old gas station/repair building next to the Skywood General Store, it was replaced by the all new H2 station office, which has never been occupied. The General Store now operates the gas pumps, you go into the store, pay first and then pump. One of the gas pumps, the one that is out of the picture above, has not been working for the past few months.

Maybe I visit Alice's at the wrong time, but I have only seen one or two Teslas parked in the restaurant lot so far this year and I am up there every Sunday morning. I have yet to see any other EV vehicle lately. Nothing much but expensive sports cars and family SUV's, along with a bunch of Japanese "tuner" cars and the occasional old classic car.

[Crissa]

It's just out of my range with my bike without some chargers.  I could get there, but then I'd have to go down the hill to charge to get home.

So why spend time where I'm not charging?

-Crissa

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

With my latest Zero, I can make it from SF to Alice’s with 67% SoC, but charging there would be nice because I can EAT there, unlike most charging stations locations like the library that’s 0.7 miles down the road where I can walk around and maybe use the park for a little exercise.

Destination charging at restaurants like this isn’t just about straight line trip legs. It’s often about getting somewhere else without your lunch being a delay.

That hydrogen station has all the electrical upgrades a generous EV charging station group would need. I’m pretty sure from Alice’s perspective, they just want to keep costs low (let’s just admit the food isn’t the draw, and the young staff are probably not well paid) and are not concerned about traffic. They don’t have trouble keeping the place full.

[Crissa]

Yeah.  I can go to La Selva or Davenport and back from home, without charging.  But if I want to go to San Jose or Watsonville, the air show or the dunes, I have to charge somewhere.  Not long, but a little bit.

And that means parking somewhere.  Even for a Tesla that's more than a couple minutes... It's long enough to drink a coke or have a sandwich.  For me it's an hour or so, depending about how far out of my range I want to go.

So you have a restaurant, you want a charger.  Because that means EV drivers will steer to your business as a matter of course.  A stop on the way there, to add enough juice to make the day.  Or a stop on the way home, to finish off the trip.  But it's a stop that is chosen, because there's a charging point.

-Crissa

[MikeL]

I've actually thought about charging infrastructure along highway 1 (Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz) and the lack of it. I also consider Alices part of that as I often take 84 to get over to the coast. Half Moon Bay has plenty of charging, including DCFC but after that it's basically dead until Santa Cruz.

My first thought in terms of DCFC is the town of Pescadero. Lots of room to build out some Level 3s, it's a small town that gets packed on weekends. Coffee shop, little stores, great grocery store everyone stops at for lunch (or the fresh baked artichoke bread), and Duarte's. It probably has plenty of infrastructure for Level 3. See image below, plenty of parking/buildout areas for charging.



Next I would probably put in several level 2 charges in Davenport and 1 level 2 charger in San Gregorio. At that point the gap is covered for charging.

I know nothing about building out infrastructure for these types of things but I wonder how difficult it is to get funding for these projects from government/private.

[Richard230]

Funding for the initial installation and for the continuing maintenance of a charging station and its infrastructure and who is going to do it, always seems to be the big concern. Most businesses would like a government agency to do that, while the government has got its own money problems right now. 

Frankly, while it would be nice to have a charging station or two in Pescadero, except for the weekends I am not all that sure that most of the local residents would really use the facility as they are unlikely to be interested in owning electric cars due to the remote nature of the town and the low income of the residents of that farming community. Hay for horses and cows would seem to be the main refueling business in Pescadero. 

[Crissa]

It's fine to own an electric if you live in Pescadero, because you charge at home.  It's just not fine to visit.

-Crissa