Just found over 40 PUBLIC EV CHARGING STATIONS!

[bennelson]

This is a little bizarre.

Through a couple of odd coincidences, an e-mailed photo, and a Chevy Volt, I just located at least 40 EV Charging stations.

As far as I know of. These stations have NEVER had any sort of publicity or advertising in any way. If you search the company's web page, there is ZERO mention of them!

I've got a full article on my blog at:
Gas Station EV Charging Stations!

Here's a teaser video for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIYpCG6V6r0

[NeilBlanchard]

Ben, you've made Plugin Cars blog:

Convenience Store Chain Installs Network of Free Electric Car Chargers, at 120 Volts | PluginCars.com

[Piwoslaw]

Nice find, Ben!!

Have you thought about making a public access charge point in front of your house? Someone at a local EV forum once mentioned that he would like to put one in front of his house. Of course, he has the only EV within a 150km radius, but to him it's more about making a statement than actually having people use it. Though he wouldn't mind finding an out-of-town EV parked in front of his place one day.

[vpoppv]

This is really excellent and surprising news! I'm a bit shocked at the negative comments from EV'ers about installing these!!?? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you (electrons)!! If they put one in my local Wal-Mart, for example, where I easily spend an hour shopping, I could get my batteries nicely topped off. And, at this point in time, I'd be willing to bet that most EV's on the road couldn't even use more than 120v at 15 amps anyway. But the real kicker is IT'S FREE!!

[Ryland]

Does anyone, other then the owners have brand new EV's, use anything other then a standard outlet for charging?

[bennelson]

I agree with vpoppv,

Most vehicles out there right now can't use J1772 anyways. There may be a couple of vehicles in the Midwest that use the ol' inductive paddle chargers (not that anyone is going to provide support for those!) and I'm sure a fair number of cars are using 240V for home charging, but a 15 or 20 amp 120V outlet is the STANDARD WAY we use electricity in this country.

No, it's not high power or "fast-charge", but it's also inexpensive, and doesn't have any odd new electrical code issues, etc.

Block heaters can get plugged into it, and since it's at a gas station, maybe even a shop vac to clean the inside of your car after you run it through the car wash.

Think of it like public drinking fountains. In public buildings, and in some places even out on the street, or in parks, we have public drinking fountains. We don't charge people to use them. They are just for a quick sip or two for our pleasure and convenience. We don't complain that drinking fountains "Aren't Good Enough" because we can't fill our 55-gallon drums or swimming pools from them. We still get most of our water at home.

Drinking fountains also compete with people buying bottled water. Neither has caused the end of the other.

Likewise, I think that access to electricity is also a public good. We still get most of our power from our own wall outlets, but when out and about we still have access to it. 120V is still useful energy. For the newer breeds of cars, higher voltage would be better, but 120V is still far better than none.

I really am shocked at how much disagreement and negativity I have heard from cyberspace lately on 120V EV charging and on the Chevy Volt. Much of it is from UNMODERATED places, such as YouTube. The sad truth is that I'm sure all those comments are from people who have never even ridden in an EV, let alone OWN one.

I don't care if you drive a Hybrid, hyper-mile your stock car, rideshare, carpool, or always bike or walk. These are ALL good things that make our society just a little better than what it would be otherwise, so BRAVO to you, and Bravo to Kwik-Trip for their efforts in electric outlets! Is it perfect? No. Is it a good thing? It sure is.

And that's something I think we can all agree on.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi Ben,

You have also now been posted on AutoBlog Green:

Video: Kwik Trip stores install 70 free charging stations (well, sort of) — Autoblog Green

[Ryland]

The leaf and Volt charge via a J1772 plug, this plug allows level one and level two charging, 120v outlets are level one charging, 240v is level 2 charging, level 3 charging is the quick, ~30 minute DC charging, for this DC charging there is another "standard" plug, but last I read they were talking about combining the two standard plugs in to a single more complex plug, this might happen as soon as 2013 or about the time that the mid west will start seeing Nissan Leaf's at dealerships, so even if Kwik Trip did install "real" charging stations they could vary well be out of date before they were ever used.

Electric scooters and bicycles are more and more common and they also work well with 120v outlets for charging.

[Piwoslaw]

Sorry for hijacking your thread Ben, but...

I just found a charging station only a stone's throw from home!!

No, there are not many EVs in Poland (only a handful), and no, I don't have an EV myself, but it's still exciting. In fact, adding this to a few other chargers in the city center, there are probably more charging stations (at least 5) in Warsaw than EVs (not more than 5). I hope this trend keeps up as the number of EVs increases.

I'll add that there are almost always cars parked in front of this charging station, but none are electric

[bennelson]

The correct solution is to build an electric car so that you can charge it there!