great experience

Yesterday I plugged in my new imiev at the Nicholas conservatory here n rockford Illinois during a visit.
when we were done there was a 2 year old leaf also charging. As we were.leaving a volt went past in the parking lot.
It was way cool seeing 2 electrics.plugged in and a plug in electric hybrid in the same place!

Delighted to see EVs proliferating in the rest of the country. Around here, at least a dozen Teslas and Leafs will be seen in a 15-minute drive.

The euphoria (I didn't do that capital "U" following the "e", this website did) of seeing other EVs quickly changes to despair when you NEED to charge and other EVs are charging at a public EVSE. Even worse, I now have developed a real resentment towards PHEVs (Volt, PIP, Energi, etc.), which 'need' to charge far more often than we do in order to stay in EV mode. Finally, I'm still grating over the Tesla that was sitting in an EV charging spot at SFO and not even plugged in! It's become so bad that I now rarely venture outside my home radius with our i-MiEV unless I have a guaranteed charging spot at my destination. The solution is either many more well-located charging stations or simply larger batteries. /RANT

JoeS said:

The solution is either many more well-located charging stations or simply larger batteries. /RANT

Click to expand...

Or, you know, much better/smarter behavior by EV drivers. But I'm not holding my breath.

I'm starting to think that the only way public L1/L2 charging will work is if it's (a) a public utility indifferent to revenues, and (b) priced kinda stupid expensive to discourage casual use. I still think they're a great free amenity to be provided by shopping centers, casinos, and other establishments interested in having people hang around for a while. But they'll have the incentives to put up enough chargers to reduce conflicts, locate them near less attractive entrances, and have abusers hauled away.

L3 DCQC is a whole 'nother ballgame, of course. I have no idea what the best pricing scheme would be, but I really think the stations need to be installed and operated by electric utilities with regulatory bodies dictating general locations and the utilities selecting specific siting based on grid loads, property values, etc. If needed, eminent domain could be used if it is not possible to economically site DCQC stations in strategically desirable locations.

I mean, if we were being uber-rational about it. But again, I'm not holding my breath. :roll: