NYC – Solving the charging puzzle

[Driver1]

I live in NYC and will be parking in a monthly valet parking lot without my own charger, so I’m expecting to be charging only at Electrify America or other fast DC chargers. Looks like EA has a spot in NJ near the Holland Tunnel and I live in downtown Manhattan, so that looks like it could be an option but not ideal…. Does anyone else live in Manhattan with a similar situation and have a better charging game plan figured out for their Taycan? Need to figure this out before my Taycan arrives!

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[kort]

I live in NYC and will be parking in a monthly valet parking lot without my own charger, so I’m expecting to be charging only at Electrify America or other fast DC chargers. Looks like EA has a spot in NJ near the Holland Tunnel and I live in downtown Manhattan, so that looks like it could be an option but not ideal…. Does anyone else live in Manhattan with a similar situation and have a better charging game plan figured out for their Taycan? Need to figure this out before my Taycan arrives!

this is a dilemma faced by many people who live in apartments and lack their own dedicated places to charge. what you are planning to do will waste a lot of time and cost a lot of money in tolls going to a charger in NJ.
one possible solution is to find one of the many parking garages that have L2 chargers and charge the car while parked. Check with www.plugshare.com to locate these garages. garage parking in the city will be quite costly and you will need to incentive the attendants to get your car onto the charger.
this is something that people should get sorted out before committing to owning an EV when they lack a dedicated place to charge.

 

[Windpower]

My kids live in Greenwich Village and when I visit I take the Williamsburg bridge. There is an Electrify America station just off 495 and Queens Blvd in the Queens shopping center. This could be an option if you’re heading east from NYC.

what you are planning to do will waste a lot of time and cost a lot of money in tolls going to a charger in NJ.

But as mentioned by Kort above, you’re better off finding a low power destination charger (level 2 or even a level 1) in a garage so you can keep your car topped up instead of traveling to charge. A level 1 charger (common 120 volt 15 amp power outlet) would work if you can plug in daily overnight and don’t drive too much during the day. A friend got an EV last November and he charges at home with a level 1 charger. He’s perfectly happy with this since his daily commute is less than 20 miles.

 

[Driver1]

Thanks! The PlugShare app is very helpful. Using it I actually found this parking lot that looks like a self parking lot with some DC chargers (although they’re 50kw). Am I reading this correctly and the CCS plug should work with the Taycan and enable 50kw charging? If so this could actually be a viable option even though 50 kw isn’t the fastest. I should mention also that I would be using the car mostly for weekend trips (I live and work in Manhattan), so don’t anticipate needing to charge more than once every couple of weeks.
I’ll also check around my local garages to see what options there might be to plug into to an L1 socket or have attendants slot me into an L2. The garages near where I am seem to be a cluster**** like many garages in NYC, so if possible to avoid having to have the valet play Tetris with cars and chargers that would be ideal!

 

[carboard123]

Thanks! The PlugShare app is very helpful. Using it I actually found this parking lot that looks like a self parking lot with some DC chargers (although they’re 50kw). Am I reading this correctly and the CCS plug should work with the Taycan and enable 50kw charging? If so this could actually be a viable option even though 50 kw isn’t the fastest. I should mention also that I would be using the car mostly for weekend trips (I live and work in Manhattan), so don’t anticipate needing to charge more than once every couple of weeks.
I’ll also check around my local garages to see what options there might be to plug into to an L1 socket or have attendants slot me into an L2. The garages near where I am seem to be a cluster**** like many garages in NYC, so if possible to avoid having to have the valet play Tetris with cars and chargers that would be ideal!

If you are generally going to be using the car on the weekends, you dont need a garage with a DC fast charger. There are many garages in Manhattan that have slow chargers available. I just looked at ICON parking (pre-covid i had a monthly parking contract with ICON in midtown). They have over 60 garages in NY with slow chargers. I am sure the other garage companies offer similar services. Find a garage with j-1772 chargers and get a monthly pass. Just ask the garage guys to charge the car overnight one night during the week and you will always have a full charge when you pick up the car on the weekends. If you road trip then use Electric America fast chargers which are relatively plentiful in the tri-state area. Lastly, get a TESLATAP so you can use tesla destination chargers (which the ICON garages also have). If you dont get a monthly pass at a garage with a charger and get this all set up, you will hate driving an EV. If you get it all set up, you will love it.

 

[Driver1]

Thank you! Great tips – I definitely want to be in the “love it” camp. I’ve got some homework to do.

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