How do Aucklander's find day to day EV life without charging at home?

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › How do Aucklander's find day to day EV life without charging at home?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

5896 posts

Uber Geek

#2996346 15-Nov-2022 06:28

gareth41:

theres no chargenet chargers or any others for miles - I have added my home charger onto plugshare for people in our local community to use who haven't got a driveway

NW Hobsonville Pt and PakNSave Westgate seem to be the closest ones - the Hobsonville NW usually seem to have a space free. I'm close-by in Massey and we're seeing a lot of the same townhouses here.

I'm desperately trying to avoid townhouses as only the hugely expensive ones I've seen have enough actual storage space inside for practical family use, the expectation definitely seems to be you either a K Mart catalogue lifestyle with everything on display, otherwise you use the garage. And I've got a bunch of non-EVs that I want to keep safe and dry and you're lucky if you get a tandem garage at best.

alasta

6701 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#2996436 15-Nov-2022 09:24

Scott3:

In terms of using private power to charge while parked on a street, the key issue is that street parking is first come first served. Unless you live in a location with very little demand for street parking (where generally low housing densities would make off street parking more realistic to provide), there is a decent chance that a fair chunk of the time, your trench / canter-lever charge cable holder would be blocked by another parked car. Hard to justify the cost of the install when somebody blissfully unaware could go away on holiday and leave their car blocking it for two months...

This is why the trial in Wellington won't work. Down here there is huge demand for street parking in suburban areas due to the removal of parking to accommodate cycleways, and the increasing number of occupants per house due to skyrocketing rents.

The council isn't doing any enforcement to stop nuisance vehicles from blocking footpaths, so they're unlikely to do anything to prevent EV charger spaces from being occupied by vehicles that don't need use of the charger.

Obraik

2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2996440 15-Nov-2022 09:48

Ideally, if done properly, EVSE's should be positioned along a street so they're able to reach a car in any parking bay so it doesn't matter where anyone parks, whether they're an EV or not.

Looking to buy a Tesla? Use my referral link and we both get credits

GV27

5896 posts

Uber Geek

#2996469 15-Nov-2022 10:31

alasta:

This is why the trial in Wellington won't work. Down here there is huge demand for street parking in suburban areas due to the removal of parking to accommodate cycleways, and the increasing number of occupants per house due to skyrocketing rents.

Seems like the issue is everyone expects to be able to store their cars on the streets more than anything to do with cycleways.

alasta

6701 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#2996477 15-Nov-2022 10:43

GV27:

alasta:

This is why the trial in Wellington won't work. Down here there is huge demand for street parking in suburban areas due to the removal of parking to accommodate cycleways, and the increasing number of occupants per house due to skyrocketing rents.

Seems like the issue is everyone expects to be able to store their cars on the streets more than anything to do with cycleways.

Then the council should be doing some enforcement rather than ignoring the fact that people are parking their vehicles illegally in response to the reduction in legitimate parking spaces.

elpenguino

3419 posts

Uber Geek

#2996935 15-Nov-2022 21:51

alasta:

GV27:

Seems like the issue is everyone expects to be able to store their cars on the streets more than anything to do with cycleways.

Then the council should be doing some enforcement rather than ignoring the fact that people are parking their vehicles illegally in response to the reduction in legitimate parking spaces.

Have you tried telling the council when somebody is parked illegally?

The one time I did it, a ticket appeared tout suite.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

alasta

6701 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#2996971 16-Nov-2022 08:34

elpenguino:

alasta:

Then the council should be doing some enforcement rather than ignoring the fact that people are parking their vehicles illegally in response to the reduction in legitimate parking spaces.

Have you tried telling the council when somebody is parked illegally?

The one time I did it, a ticket appeared tout suite.

Yes. It took five hours to attend and the offending vehicle was long gone.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

Dingbatt

6754 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2997084 16-Nov-2022 12:52

Kind of getting off topic, don’t you think?

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Scott3

3963 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2997294 16-Nov-2022 23:47

alasta:

This is why the trial in Wellington won't work. Down here there is huge demand for street parking in suburban areas due to the removal of parking to accommodate cycleways, and the increasing number of occupants per house due to skyrocketing rents.

The council isn't doing any enforcement to stop nuisance vehicles from blocking footpaths, so they're unlikely to do anything to prevent EV charger spaces from being occupied by vehicles that don't need use of the charger.

On wellington footpath parking, the council changed it's policy in Feb, and decided to actually enforce the law. Prior to that their policy was to turn a blind eye if there was more than 1m of the passable footpath.

Trial in wellington has attracted some heat (2 year old article):
Wellington electric vehicle chargers are only being used 1-3 per cent of the time

https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/evs/122135848/wellington-electric-vehicle-chargers-are-only-being-used-13-per-cent-of-the-time

"Resident Brodie Fraser was annoyed by the installation of the charger, which she said made the street park for the exclusive use of one resident who has an electric vehicle."

On the utilization of suburban street DC chargers, I would consider a single afternoon / evening charge session, to be full utilisation. The intent (I don't think it is expected people come out and move their cars at 1am when they finish charging) is that people plug their car in and leave it until morning. As such, the fact the charger spends most of the day doing nothing isn't a failure at all.

On effectively making a parking space exclusive for one resident, I can see why other people on the street would be upset. And one the second person (without off street charging) in the area gets an EV, whoever gets home latest out of the two of them is going to be disappointed.

Obraik:

Ideally, if done properly, EVSE's should be positioned along a street so they're able to reach a car in any parking bay so it doesn't matter where anyone parks, whether they're an EV or not.

When say 90% of the cars parked overnight in a suburban area can plug in, that would make sense.

But if 20% could plug in, by only installing EVSE at every 5th bay (and reserving the bays for ev charging) would cut the cost's down by 4/5th. And given the kind of EVSE's that are durable enough to handle public use, and have the capability for billing arn't cheap, that would be very tempting.

Some parking configurations (i.e. perpendicular parking), could support having say a single EVSE straddling two bays, without spaces being reserved. Would mean regardless which bay of the pair, a car not charging was parked in, charging could be undertaken in the other bay.

GV27

5896 posts

Uber Geek

#2997298 17-Nov-2022 07:06

Scott3:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/evs/122135848/wellington-electric-vehicle-chargers-are-only-being-used-13-per-cent-of-the-time

"Resident Brodie Fraser was annoyed by the installation of the charger, which she said made the street park for the exclusive use of one resident who has an electric vehicle."

...

On effectively making a parking space exclusive for one resident, I can see why other people on the street would be upset. And one the second person (without off street charging) in the area gets an EV, whoever gets home latest out of the two of them is going to be disappointed.

The real solution is to put AC chargers in everywhere, so that dedicated EV spots are not required.

But a lot of these issues only seem to be problems if you approach it assuming that people have some sort of inherent right to parking on the street outside their house, which the reality is that they simply don't. They have no more right than any other member of the public has to park in an ordinary kerbside park.

And tbh, if you have so many houses with no off-street parking but people determined to have cars they realistically have no way of storing without a ratepayer subsidy in the form of cheap on-street storage, then this will always be a problem no matter what cars are powered by - and maybe people just need to be a bit more realistic about either car ownership or keeping their possessions out on the street in an area where space is limited.

E: This applies to Hobsonville as well. If you paid $1.4m for something with a garage and a driveway spot and you're mad you have nowhere to park your second car because you're using your garage for storage your house doesn't come with, then it's a very basic case of buyer-beware. There are other houses with bigger garages out there, they just cost much more. Choices, limited resources etc.

alasta

6701 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#2997315 17-Nov-2022 08:38

Scott3:

On wellington footpath parking, the council changed it's policy in Feb, and decided to actually enforce the law.

They announced this, but never enacted the enforcement.

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2997341 17-Nov-2022 09:46

Maybe we need something like this here?

https://thedriven.io/2022/11/10/australian-company-strikes-record-deal-to-roll-out-kerbside-charging-points/

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#2997343 17-Nov-2022 09:53

Scott3:

On effectively making a parking space exclusive for one resident, I can see why other people on the street would be upset. And one the second person (without off street charging) in the area gets an EV, whoever gets home latest out of the two of them is going to be disappointed.

According to LTNZ the council has to restrict parking in EV spaces to that class of vehicle via their bylaws, to restrict EV spaces for EV use.

My point is if the council hasn't imposed these restrictions they might argue that the use of the EV space is non-exclusive.

If I was the council, I'd slap a P60 on designated EV charging spots. One hour seems to be a reasonable boost from a fast charger and it's not such a long time that people can't manage it, without staying up half the night.

The other thing is: Does whoever supplies power via the charger pay for the parking space?

They should. WCC is the council that charges annual fees for balconies above ground level that overhang public space like footpaths.

Mike

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2997350 17-Nov-2022 10:20

MikeAqua:

They should. WCC is the council that charges annual fees for balconies above ground level that overhang public space like footpaths.

How does the WCC charge for coupon parking? Maybe that model could be used for EV charging spots?

Obraik

2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2997360 17-Nov-2022 10:44

Scott3:

When say 90% of the cars parked overnight in a suburban area can plug in, that would make sense.

But if 20% could plug in, by only installing EVSE at every 5th bay (and reserving the bays for ev charging) would cut the cost's down by 4/5th. And given the kind of EVSE's that are durable enough to handle public use, and have the capability for billing arn't cheap, that would be very tempting.

Some parking configurations (i.e. perpendicular parking), could support having say a single EVSE straddling two bays, without spaces being reserved. Would mean regardless which bay of the pair, a car not charging was parked in, charging could be undertaken in the other bay.

There are some clever charging solutions being created.

This EVSE embedded into a light post seems like a pretty good idea to me, with just the Type 2 socket exposed from the post that someone plugs there Type 2 cable into. If all future urban light posts in areas with high density living were fitted with these then that would be a good start to getting charging on the streets, and there's less risk of damage being done to the EVSE

Looking to buy a Tesla? Use my referral link and we both get credits

1 | 2 | 3 | 4