Hello Pretty Ladies

I'm pretty proud of myself today. I decided I had a little extra time this morning, so I took city streets to work. It probably took me 5-10 minutes longer but the fun result was that I was able to travel 23 miles using only 16 miles of EV range. See below. I started at 46 mi with 591 on the odometer.

I had to be at a meeting at our district office at 8am, which is about four blocks away from my office. No charging stations there yet, but there is a lot of construction going on in the parking lot, so I am hopeful. 

The meeting was supposed to end at 9am, but it ran until a few minutes after 10. In my current state of mind, I had to think seriously about whether it was more important to hit the ladies room before exiting the building (for my health, the answer was yes) or get to work, plug in to a charger, and then use a bathroom. TMI, sorry, I went with Plan A. It all worked out because when I got to work, my friend Liza was parking her lovely Summit White Volt. Here are our two gals next to each other, enjoying a meal of electrons together. Aren't they gorgeous?

The scary thing, however, was that I took the last available charging station in the lot, as our friend the blue Leaf was already there.  Keeping in mind that this is a Friday, in summer, and you should see that in the fall semester, we could have problems that would result in angry EV drivers not being able to charge when they want to.

Here is what "full house of charging vehicles" looks like in our parking lot.

This is not really true though. Each charger has a door where you can plug in your OWN EVSE (electrical vehicle standard equipment - what the unknowing would call "the charger") that comes with your automobile, and charge. So each station can really support two charging vehicles at once. But I'm not willing to leave my EVSE laying on the ground in a college parking lot, and I'd bet that not many other folks are either. A standard EVSE costs about $400 to replace, on the low end of the consumer choice spectrum. So for now, we deal with sharing.

I've spoken with the campus superintendent and he was already aware of the growing issue. It's a good problem to have of course - growing demand for charging stations indicates an increased number of cars that are not depending on foreign oil and/or pumping fumes into the air we breathe. I'm hoping we can discuss in the near future plans for a time when the majority of cars in the lot need to be charged... as we are not ready for that at all as an institution. I intend my career to last another 20-30 years, so I do expect to live to see the days where EREVs, plug-in hybrids, and full electric cars are the norm and not the exception.

Happy driving!