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Charge Rage: Electric Cars Are Making People Meaner In California
HughPickens.com writes: Matt Richtel reports that the push to make the state greener with electric cars is having an unintended side effect: It is making some people meaner. The bad moods stem from the challenges drivers face finding recharging spots for their battery-powered cars. Unlike gas stations, charging stations are not yet in great supply, and that has led to sharp-elbowed competition. According to Richtel, electric-vehicle owners are unplugging one another's cars, trading insults, and creating black markets and side deals to trade spots in corporate parking lots. The too-few-outlets problem is a familiar one in crowded cafes and airports, where people want to charge their phones or laptops. But the need can be more acute with cars — will their owners have enough juice to make it home? — and manners often go out the window. "Cars are getting unplugged while they are actively charging, and that's a problem," says Peter Graf. "Employees are calling and messaging each other, saying, 'I see you're fully charged, can you please move your car?'"
The problem is that installation of electric vehicle charging ports at some companies has not kept pace with soaring demand, creating thorny etiquette issues in the workplace. German software company SAP installed 16 electric vehicle charging ports in 2010 at its Palo Alto campus for the handful of employees who owned electric vehicles. Now there are far more electric cars than chargers. Sixty-one of the roughly 1,800 employees on the campus now drive a plug-in vehicle, overwhelming the 16 available chargers. And as demand for chargers exceeds supply, there have been notorious incidents of "charge rage." Companies are finding that they need one charging port for every two of their employees' electric vehicles. "If you don't maintain a 2-to-1 ratio, you are dead," said ChargePoint CEO Pat Romano. "Having two chargers and 20 electric cars is worse than having no chargers and 20 electric cars. If you are going to do this, you have to be willing to continue to scale it."
The problem is that installation of electric vehicle charging ports at some companies has not kept pace with soaring demand, creating thorny etiquette issues in the workplace. German software company SAP installed 16 electric vehicle charging ports in 2010 at its Palo Alto campus for the handful of employees who owned electric vehicles. Now there are far more electric cars than chargers. Sixty-one of the roughly 1,800 employees on the campus now drive a plug-in vehicle, overwhelming the 16 available chargers. And as demand for chargers exceeds supply, there have been notorious incidents of "charge rage." Companies are finding that they need one charging port for every two of their employees' electric vehicles. "If you don't maintain a 2-to-1 ratio, you are dead," said ChargePoint CEO Pat Romano. "Having two chargers and 20 electric cars is worse than having no chargers and 20 electric cars. If you are going to do this, you have to be willing to continue to scale it."
Compounded certainly by the relatively well-documented issue about people who feel they're doing "their part" (driving green cars, using shopping totes, whole foods customers, etc.) being entitled assholes.
-Styopa
Dunno... up here in Portland, I've lost count of the prime parking 'chargers only 'cuz we're teh environmentalz!!!!' spots that sit empty most of the time, even during peak shopping/working hours.
Wouldn't mind having the EV owners pay for the privilege, though, because if they don't, the rest of us do (the stores aren't installing the things out of the goodness of their hearts, you know, and they have to recoup the costs somewhere).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Maybe things work differently in California but TFA seems to a bit strange to me. When I'm charging the charging cable is locked in at both ends. It can't be unplugged without a great amount of force, that will probably damage something.
It's not an "in California" thing - it's an "on some cars" thing. On the eGolf for example, the charger locks, and does not unlock unless the owner comes back and unlocks the vehicle. On the Leaf, it can be set to not lock even during charging (made safe by having control pins disconnect before power pins, and stopping charging as the plug is pulled).
Throw in traffic jams and start and stop driving while running AC and stereo, etc., and that 300 mile range drops fast.
You've got it backwards.
Stop and go driving and traffic jams are where electric cars shine the most. AC takes, at the very most 3kW; much less once the cabin is cooled down. Even at full blast, 3kW saps about 12 miles of range per hour.
EPA range numbers for electric cars are based on highway speeds. Electric cars easily get 150% of the EPA range at traffic jam speeds of 30-50 MPH.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.