Electrify America - Santa Clara

[Doc_Rock]

Just took a ride down to Santa Clara this past weekend to check out their new flagship station. Our "gas" station of the future. What was amazing was how quiet the cable cooling was. the station was almost full (14 stalls in operation) and I need to verify that I was actually charging.

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[kort]

that is an amazing set up but I doubt that there will be many built like that. tesla has a couple of super stations like that as well but the vast majority are the plain jane version in a shopping center parking lot.

 

[ejcintr]

Just took a ride down to Santa Clara this past weekend to check out their new flagship station. Our "gas" station of the future. What was amazing was how quiet the cable cooling was. the station was almost full (14 stalls in operation) and I need to verify that I was actually charging.

Westfield charges to park... I expect there might be people in the future who leverage this site for 'charging' - while not having the car actually plugged in (or ICED)... seen this in the outlets here in the east bay (livermore).. especially during the holidays...

 

[bsclywilly]

Did you get food delivered to your Taycan while you charged? When they opened this location, they said that would be one of the perks. Have not been yet myself.

 

[notsofast]

Westfield charges to park... I expect there might be people in the future who leverage this site for 'charging' - while not having the car actually plugged in (or ICED)... seen this in the outlets here in the east bay (livermore).. especially during the holidays...

Case in point, what is that Tesla doing there?

 

[refazi]

The funniest thing is to see Tesla owners thinking that their j1772 adapter will work on these stations.
I’ve been there twice and saw the exact same thing where the driver comes to the station takes the plug and the adapter out and doesn’t understand why it doesn’t fit….

 

[Doc_Rock]

Did you get food delivered to your Taycan while you charged? When they opened this location, they said that would be one of the perks. Have not been yet myself.

Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of that perk until after I left. There really wasn’t too much close by that I could see (aside from the actual mall). ?

 

[ejcintr]

Case in point, what is that Tesla doing there?

nice catch... and exactly my point ?

 

[snstevens]

I am curious as to what the charging experience will be like at DC charging stations once EVs become much more common. It seems to me that there will be many behaviors exhibited including -

1. Good Citizen - This EV Owner who only parks in a charging spot when they are actually charging their vehicle. Once charging is completed they drive off and/or park somewhere else.
2. The Jerk - This EV Owner considers the charging spot to be "theirs" as long as a charging cable is connected to their car. (This type of jerk behavior is partially mitigated if charging was initiated so that the station can monitor time connected and charge/warn the driver when their car overstays their SoC or charging time targets.)
3. The EV-Privilege Jerk - This EV owner thinks that owning an EV gives them a privilege not offered to ordinary ICE drivers. For them owning an EV is like having a handicap sticker, but for the EV charging station, and so they park there whenever they like (particularly if the spot is more conveniently located), whether they are charging or not (similar to The Jerk, but with a sincere belief that their EV ownership gives them privileges - a case in point being the Tesla owner in the picture that OP shared at the start of this thread).
4. The Two-Spot Jerk - This is an unfortunate case where the design of the EV charging ports combined with the length of the charging cable make it almost impossible to charge the car without occupying two spots. (If charging stations were "pull through" instead of "pull up" this would be less of an issue.)

I hope that we figure out how to mitigate the three "Jerk" behavior types sooner rather than later. If not I suspect we will start to hear about "charging rage" incidents.

IMHO I think financial penalties would work best, but that would require personnel and monitoring that doesn't exist today. Perhaps someone else has a better solution...

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