I would be remiss not to point this out
My former workplace had chargers but the problem was that people would occupy them all day long and there were more EV owners than chargers. So eventually they added a charge after four hours of use, to encourage people to move their cars.
Mine does this, too, but 4 hours of charge is generally plenty for me. (And if not, you can just move over to another charger if it’s available).
D’OH!
I didn’t a little bit of consulting for a small outpost office of a very large social media company. They had to have a similar policy because nearly all of the employees had EVs.
Gah, and now Dewey_Finn’s doing it too! 
For the sake of reader sanity, can we all agree to refer to a monetary payment demanded for the use of an EV charger as a “fee”, rather than a “charge”?
Henceforth, in this context, the “charge” will be the juice you put in your battery, and the “fee” will be the $$ that you have to pay to do so. 
My WAG is that the hard part is people remembering (or bothering) to go out and move their car off the charger sometime during the day, fee or no fee*. If I’d had an EV when I was working (we did get a handful of chargers in the parking garage a few years pre-pandemic) that would have been the hard part for me. I was very used to not thinking about my car in between parking it in the morning and leaving at night.
*Hi Kimstu!
This is not a problem for me, because the charger sends me a notification that “the rate increases in 15 minutes” if I forget about it. But really I’ve just gotten into the habit of moving it after lunch, when I am out and about anyway.
In some EV thread a while back, I remember someone mentioning people at hotels putting a sign in their window saying something to the effect of ‘If my car is done charging, you can unplug it’. IOW, if you want to charge your car, go ahead and unplug mine when it’s done.
I think if we could develop a good system for doing that and having EVSEs in between parking spots so they can reach more than one car, that would help a lot. If I’m charging my car at a hotel, I don’t want to have to remember to go move it at 2 in the morning. I’d rather someone just parked in the open spot next to me and plugged theirs in at 2am when mine is done. But that’s a whole other discussion.
If you’re going to be nitpicky, an EV charger is a device inside your car. The thing you attach your car to is an EVSE (Electric vehicle supply equipment).
Shouldn’t we be taking this legit EV discussion back to the legit thread so people that are interested in EVs can find it? I know the EV threads helped me in my decision to buy one and I doubt I’d come to the Pit looking for that info.
Let’s leave this thread for the debate of what constitutes a real car vs a glorified golfcart.
I would be very curious to see similar statements for stores that have level 3 chargers. As people are so quick to point out, cars using the chargers are stuck there for 10-45 minutes. Most people using level 3 chargers are on some sort of long trip, so are probably more likely to buy snacks than someone just getting gas on the way home from work.
There absolutely are plenty of times when having the charger is costing the store money for toilet paper, some soap, and paper towels. Right now though, those cases are probably offset by the charging cars that buy fountain drinks.
Right now there is also a big first-mover advantage. All EVs are stopping at the one store that has the level 3 chargers. In the future that might not be the case.
This is another one of those often repeated false aspirations that most people don’t get, or willfully ignore. The time to a full charge does not matter. All that matters is the time it takes to charge to get to the next charger. Charging is not like refueling, if you think about it like refueling you will be sad about EVs, and wrong. If you (or one of your passengers) needs a bio break every 2 hours, then all that matters is how long it takes to charge for 2 hours of driving.
Road tripping in an EV, any stop where you are not charging is wasted. Any charging done when you are waiting on people is not time wasted charging, it’s time wasted while someone spends way too long deciding between M&Ms and Skittles.
Too many jerks posting useful EV information in the Pit. Get the hell out!
Can we get back to discussing why Bob thinks EVs threaten their sexuality?
I’m surprised gas stations haven’t started installing them to make up for some of the lost revenue. However, I think the best, most profitable place for them is going to be at fast food restaurants, and specifically ones right off the freeway.
Think about it, you’re going somewhere and need to charge your car. You can stare at the side of the gas station while you drink a soda, sit at the very outer edge of a big box grocery store parking lot, or go to McDonald’s and get something to eat while you wait. I know which one I’d choose.
My Volt would allow that. But both new EVs I have lock the cord in place, and as far as I can tell, there is no way to turn that feature off.
I once used my phone app to simply tell my car to stop charging, so I avoided the (much) higher fee and didn’t have to move my car. I’m not proud of that, but I was in an unexpected situation and was unable to move my car. If I were at work, it would be easy.
I have a few options with mine. Right now it’s set to lock when it’s charging, but as soon as it’s done, it releases.
However, IMO, in this type of scenario, where a random person is unplugging your car, the lock would have to be a lot more robust. My concern is that someone not familiar with your car, may not realized it’s locked and yank on it hard enough to break something. At least on mine, it doesn’t necessarily feel locked, so I could see someone thinking they’re just not pulling hard enough or at the right angle.
My daily commute is over 50 miles every day and our Tesla goes back and forth and uses about 50% of the battery life.
Or any restaurant. Can you imagine if there were a charger in the parking lot of a restaurant in Grand Island, NE or Albuquerque. NM. If I owned a sit-down restaurant in a town along a well-traveled highway, I’d have a charger yesterday.
I believe Tesla is making a lot of money on their chargers, and will make A LOT more once they are opened up to other cars. I wonder what the investment payoff timeline is for a restaurant, coffee shop, etc to install them? I assume the level 3 are very pricey while the level 2 are fairly inexpensive.
Dang it! I keep getting sucked into serious EV conversation in the Sideshow Bob thread!
The payoff is the customers that eat at my restaurant while their car is charging.
Back to the EV emasculation topic!
Doug DeMuro recently had a review of the 2024 Model 3, which is an update of the original 3. TL;DW: an excellent appliance for commuting and other mundane things, but otherwise boring. The original Model 3 review from 6 years ago or so was much more excited about how fast it was.
The Model 3 didn’t get slower, Doug got bored with how all EVs are just so fast. It isn’t interesting to him anymore. It’s expected, and must be really threatening to lots of people who wrap their identity up with their car.
All of the guys out there with SS Challenger GT Boss 450s with an exhaust and tune are half a second slower to 60 than a family hauler with a couple of dinky electric motors. The dick shrinkage must be unnerving. A Model Y performance station wagon, that costs just a few thousand over the price of an average new car, will do the 1/4 in low-12s with no tuning, no performance mods, and no driver training. It will do it all day, repeatedly, at altitude, and (excluding tire wear), only cost a few dollars in electricity, and without sacrificing any drivability for performance.