Free Public Chargers: Leaf Abuse

i think unplugging someone else's fully charged car is just etiquette.

 

Never unplug a car that's not yours if it's not done charging. Period.

I've had 2 Volt alarms go off on me when I unplugged them because they were done charging. That was embarrassing

 

Gee.....
I remember when it was the hybrid drivers that were always crying about special parking spots, tax breaks, and HOV lane access.

Maybe I'll wait a little while before getting a PHEV.

 

I feel the opposite way. You have a car with gas in it, don't hog the public EV charger for someone that CANT use an alternate fuel source. When I park at a public charger (pay or not) I put the lock on AUTO so it disconnects when it is fully charged but people like you don't disconnect me. Rarely does it ever unlock since I am not sitting at the parking lot for 3 hours, except the movie theater.

I absolute HATE all the Volts and PiPs that crowd the EV chargers for no reason. I am at the airport at least once a week, so I see the EV parking twice at least (there and out) and it is almost allways full of Volts taking up a parking space for days to charge up a puny pack. The Teslas and Leafs have to park nearby without charging. If I were world dictator I would make EV parking just that. EV only, not PHEV.

 

Concur wholeheartedly.
I don't like the idea of public chargers, but if we're going to have them they should probably be metered just to eliminate this type of foolishness. BEV owners aren't trying to save 50 cents worth of gas, they're trying to fuel their vehicle.
The idea that a PHEV owner would feel entitled to interrupt their charging is a little disturbing.

Interesting....
Volt fan-boys are always bagging on Pip owners for having puny batteries.

Unfortunately, 99.999 percent of people out there still don't know the difference between a PHEV and a BEV, and anybody who would be called on to enforce the EV-only policy would probably be unsympathetic.
Cops are worried about other things lately.....and so even an edict from the Supreme World Leader would amount to little more than a mattress-tag law.
Metering would probably help here too.

 

To the OP, the reason Leaf owners have locks, is because a number of them had issues with yahoos unplugging them for kicks.
While you may not unplug a car that is charging, others do. So the people you should be ticked at should be those that unplug evs for kicks.
Regarding the two hour limit, did you notify the mall about cars there more than two hours? If not, how do you expect them to do anything about it if they don't know about it??

Personally, I like the idea of the first block of time being free, and then an hourly charge. Or, something along those lines.
The cheapskates will be absolutely sure to move their cars, the people who desperately need more than two hours would be happy to pay.

 

For those of you... and you know who you are ...that continue to come down on Toyota for not having expanded rollout of Prius PHV, this is a contributing reason. It never ceased to amaze me how dismissive some have been when I brought up how the market wasn't ready yet, sighting the conflicts between other plug-in vehicles as a barrier to still overcome.

Thankfully, there are some who are more receptive. A plug is plug. You're using electricity for cleaner emissions and a reduction on oil dependency. That's the point and the numbers of those who accept that is growing.

So what if a plug-in hybrid is plugged in? You have no idea how far they actually drove to get to that charger anyway. The goal is to replace guzzlers with affordable, practical, and profitable choices.

 

Maybe the (admittedly blunt) solution is to limit gratis public charging to pure electric vehicles?

 

how do i know if the ev charging actually needs the charge to get to the next charge? maybe they're just topping up with free electrons instead of plugging in at home.

 

i always plug in at whole foods if it's available.

 

sometimes less. you can pick up a few few miles quickly.

 

You don't and that's why you don't touch a BEV until it stops charging.

But think about it this way... What is the intersection of people wealthy and smart enough to buy a BEV __AND__ that are also crazy enough, cheap enough, have nothing to do for 3 hours in a parking lot so they can just plug in for free? I am willing to bet that is a very very small number.

They all except for a couple CA-only compliance vehicles have indicators to tell you, and ontop of that most chargers show the current KW-ingestion rate of the car. The bigger problem is that every indication method is different and nonstandard. Blinking lights on some mean it is done charging, others it means it is charging. Some are always lit up but change the colours to see charging vs. charged vs. plugged in and waiting to charge on a timer. And the the lights are sometimes on the dash, sometimes on the plug, sometimes only on the instrument cluster, etc...

There are times when I take the Leaf waaaaaay outside its range and rely on public charging to get back. Because of the distance and elevation change, it takes a good 85% of the battery to get from the South of the next big city to the Northern part of my city. Going the opposite way it takes less than 40%. So when I am getting ready to come back, I stop by a DC L3 and charge to 92% until the charge starts tapering off.

The only time I use public chargers are when I need them. I think this stems from the basic social difference between Americans and most other societies. Here in the states the mindset is "if it is there, then I will use it". In most other places it is "if it is there and I need it, then I will use it".

 

Why?

I've got a Prius and Leaf and the Leaf charges so slow on L1 or L2 I don't care if the charger is in use or not anywhere other than my work parking lot.

Let the Volt, Spark, and Prius, etectera have their plug in time. It won't bother my Leaf to share.

Just be sure to add more L1 plugs in the parking lot so we can all get a little juice in the winter time when it's cold enough to matter or in those locations where AC can be the difference between life and death. It really does make a huge difference knowing you can keep the climate control reasonable without losing a ton of range when shore power is available.

I'd think shore power climate control is just as important to PHEVs as it is to regular old battery EVs.

 

Yup that Leaf sounds like a problem and is a mooch. I think she is in a very narrow category of people though. To spend a couple hours a day reading a book in a parking garage just because you don't want to run an extension cord up to your apartment window... Sounds like she has nothing better to do. I own my house but I've never installed anything. I just use the L1 and that's good enough. Some days it doesn't fully charge but over the course of the week it averages out.

There are also people on the Tesla forums complaining about people hogging Superchargers so they don't have to charge at home.

I agree these people exist and will always exist but hopefully as a percentage of total BEV drivers they remain a small small minority.

 

Closer to the door...lack of enforcement..."I'm helping the country and the environment"..."I need it more than you because I exceeded my range"..."I can't plug in because I live in an apartment"......it's FREE!

Yea right...no problem.

 

anyone one out side of priuschat, and maybe some inside, might be deterred from buying a bev, and maybe even a phev due to threads like this.