EVs in HOV en Virginie, C'est Fini!

On 30 June 2012 the Clean Fuel HOV easement will end in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  The General Assembly failed to pass legislation in the 2011 session that would renew the easement allowing hybrid and electric vehicles access to certain of Virginia's HOV lanes depending on when the car was registered.  This system favored older hybrid cars in lieu of newer, cleaner of fully-electric, zero-emission vehicles.

Clearly, the Commonwealth decided to take me up on the second of my six proposals:

2. End the Clean Fuel HOV easement all together, which although fair would, I suspect, make no-one happy.

And clearly, I'm not happy.  Had I my druthers, we'd have passed item six of that list:

6. Allow only Plug-In Vehicles, vehicles that can be plugged into the wall, to take advantage of the HOV easement.  As a resident of Northern Virginia I find this the best solution for the Commonwealth because it's the exact same rule which governs our neighbor Maryland.  In fact, what would benefit the residents of Northern Virginia most would be if Richmond and Annapolis could set up a joint commission and co-operate on the issuing of this Plug-In easement such that each state would recognize the other's right to use HOV single occupancy within both states.

Instead, the Commonwealth is moving to a HOT-lane model.  First, I495 will be adding an HOV-3 HOT Lane that will work similarly to the Maryland Route 200 Inter-County Connector (ICC).  However, unlike the ICC, the I495 HOT lines will allow cars equipped with a special transponder that can verify the requisite number of passengers (3) it will be able to pass through the toll stations without being charged.  After the I495 HOT Lanes are completed, the plan is to extend these new toll lanes into the HOV for I95/I395 from Edsall Road in Arlington, VA, the first exit after the I495 beltway on I395, to Garrisonville Road in Stafford County, just South of the Marine Corps Base Quantico.

I asked Commonwealth Delegate Tom Rust about allowing EVs, at least, free access to these new HOV/HOT lanes but he said the contracts had already been signed and had no interest in pursuing any perk that would encourage Virginian's to switch to zero-emmission vehicles and thus help clean our state as well as put less pressure on gasoline prices for existing Internal Combustion Vehicles but reducing the demand for Gasoline by moving more people to EVs.  And recently Green Car Reports has taken up my cause, for what it's worth.  Personally, I think it's pretty hopeless but it doesn't mean we can't try to get things right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I know I have support for my favorite option in Maryland.  Let's keep Virginia green and get EVs on those HOVs!  EVs from Virginia, EVs from Maryland and EVs from D.C.!  And then we can all breathe a little easier thanks to a greener Virginia.

EV Gathering in Maple Lawn

Tomorrow's EV Gathering in Maple Lawn is going to be fun.

We are expecting some interesting classic and brand new EVs that you may not have seen yet.  Bryan will be coming in his 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV.  Toyota will be announcing the new RAV4 Electric next week, come see the original!  Mark will be driving a Ford Transit Connect Electric van up from Virginia.  We will have one of the first Mitsubishi iMiEVs to arrive in the area.  You will also see several of only a handful of Th!nk City electric cars that are in private ownership in the US.

Come on out Saturday between 10:00 and noon. Bring lawn chairs and sunscreen.  Let us know beforehand if you are coming from such a distance that you will need a long charge to get home so that we can help arrange that.

EV Gathering/Coffee Meetup

Saturday, May 5, 2012, 10:00 AM
Parking lot with charging stations near Sidamo Coffee
8170 Maple Lawn Blvd, Fulton, MD

Maryland Volts

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Thank you Lanny and good luck!&nbps; Sounds like the best meetup yet.

Changes for a Better EV Life: Paying for Your Work-Related Driving

Having driven CO2 Fre for over a month now, I feel I can now safely make some recommendations for change that would make my life infinitely easier.  Some of these things I've been writing about long before I purchased my Nissan LEAF; I knew going in some sacrifice would be required for the greater good.  That's not to say there aren't great things like the burgeoning Charging Infrastructure and wonderful LEAF features to help get me through the day!  But there's always room for improvement and if you don't speak up, nothing will get done.

Charge at Work in Lieu of Per Mile Reimbursement

Recently, I learned about a perplexing issue affecting a Government employee who drives an EV and was was asked to attend a conference as a part of that person's work duties.  Unfortunately, this individual already uses most of the car's battery capacity in just getting to and from work each day.  Thus, to get to the conference the car would require supplemental charging to increase its range.  Since this car is a 100% Battery-Electric Vehicle (BEV), the only way to increase the car range is via plugging into an electrical outlet.  But because there is no Government policy allowing its employees to charge at work under any circumstances, the worker in question would have to spend potentially hours of personal time at a public charger, perhaps paying a premium for that time just to satisfy job requirements.

One could and I have argued that Government employees and contractors should be able to charge at work.  But that's in the line of getting to and from the workplace when circumstances beyond the driver's control conspire to make it impossible to get home when leaving for work on a full pack, such as might be with traffic or cold weather.  Of course you shouldn't get an EV if you can't either charge at work or can't make it to work and back on a full pack 95% of the time or more, but for those situations where you do need a supplement, it's in the government's best interest to sell the energy to the employee rather than making this employee spend idle hours at a public charging spot.

Of course, OPM allows a Per Mile Reimbursement of 51¢ (at the time of this writing) which applies equally to EVs and ICE vehicles.  So of course this money could be put toward the electricity used to power the car.  After all, if the fuel reimbursement is 19¢—with the other 32¢ per mile representing additional wear and tear on the vehicle—that's a windfall for an electric car.  For example, my vehicle gets better than 4^mi⁄_kWh (6.4^km⁄_kWh) at the moment and for the most part my electricity comes at the Super Off-Peak rate of about 6^¢⁄_kWh meaning I only require about 1.5^¢⁄_mi (0.93^¢⁄_km) in fuel.  And at 19^¢⁄_mi payed by the the employeer, this comes the equivalent of 76^¢⁄_kWh for a car like mine, which is almost 6 times the regional average of 13^¢⁄_kWh, higher even than most all of the electricy sold in the U.S.  Indeed, any workplace offering a per mile reimbursement rate of work-related travel is likely to be just as lucrative in terms of energy cost.  But that's obviously not the issue.

It's about the time

The real issue here with EV drivers isn't the money at all, it's the time.  Most Americans mistakenly have in their head the idea that a vehicle operates by first filling it with fuel at some designated fueling station, in minutes, then using it until near empty, then going to another designated fueling station and repeating the process.  This, however, is an incorrect paradigm for EVs.  For an EV driver the logical situation is to charge the car each night, then charge some more where you're parked, then charge some more at the next place you park, and so on.  You never let the battery get toward zero and you prefer not to charge to 100%.  That's why the 4-tiered charging pyramid you see above, derived by the my friend Bob Bruninga, has charge at home at the bottom, charge at work in the middle and public charging at the top with a small point at the summit to represent Level-3 Charging like with CHADeMO.

Again, it's the employer's call, be that the Federal Government, Local Government, Public Non-Profit or Private Business, as to whether an employee may charge at work.  But there are so many idle hours parked at work and with so little cost to you, the employer.  Yet there's so much time benefit—potentially a large percentage of your poor, loyal worker's personal day.  And when the only reason they need to spend those extra hours charging is because they have to go that extra mile in the line of duty, they don't just need the money.  Simply forget the 19¢ fuel you'd normally give your workers and just let them charge at work, just for that day, at least, just so they can effectively do the job your require of them and still save you money!

Informal EV Gathering, Volts, LEAFs, Teslas, Smart ED all welcome!

My good friend Lanny Hartmann has arranged for an impromptu gathering of my fellow electric vehicle enthusiasts to meet in Scaggsville / Fulton, MD tomorrow for what we'll call Electric Cars & Coffee and the adorable Ethiopian emporium Sidemo Coffee & Tea.

Located in the Maple Lawn shopping center, this location has no less than 6 SemaConnect chargers available for anyone coming from more than about 40 miles away in an EV, so we hope to see folks from far and wide.  But be forewarned, you need a SemaConnect card with a current balance to use these chargers. In this case I will try to share my card with anyone identifying themselves as coming from this website and you'll hopefully have a chance to meet the founder and CEO of SemaConnect himself, Mahi Reddy who may also be able to help you.  At just $1 per hours, I can certainly afford a few of you.  Of course, this assumes I can activate multiple EVSEs at once with the same card.  I've yet to try but I won't be the only one with a card there.  So please order your card from the Sema Website and then come on and join us for the first area Electric Cars & Coffee!

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The Capital LEAFs is coming to Koons!

I've just got confirmation from Steve Osborne, GM at Koons Nissan in Falls Church, Virginia!  Mark your calendars for Tax Credit Weekend, Saturday, 14 April 2012 from 13:00 (1:00 pm) to 17:00 (5:00 pm) where we will have 3 chargers available and I am looking into catering.  I'll post more details as they become available.  Hopefully we can get everyone from Haymarket, VA to Glen Burnie, MD and have the biggest LEAF EVent yet in the Capital region!

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Changes for a Better EV Life: Get Them to Work Overtime for Pennies

Having driven CO2 Fre for over a month now, I feel I can now safely make some recommendations for change that would make my life infinitely easier.  Some of these things I've been writing about long before I purchased my Nissan LEAF; I knew going in some sacrifice would be required for the greater good.  That's not to say there aren't great things like the burgeoning Charging Infrastructure and wonderful LEAF features to help get me through the day!  But there's always room for improvement and if you don't speak up, nothing will get done.

Cheap Employee Perk

Would your employees work for 17¢ an hour?  Sound impossible?  Sound illegal?  Well, if your pay your employees on salary it's certainly possible to extract more hours of work by simply allowing them to plug their electric vehicle into one of your outlets.

Simply put, if you don't have to pay them overtime and pizzas and refreshments aren't keeping them late, how about a bit of free tickle charged electricity to get them to work just one more hour?  And it doesn't cost you more than the electricity assuming you already have a standard NEMA 5-15 plug at the work site, and what business doesn't? Just let them plug in and watch as they consider leaving then rethink because they want just that little bit extra charge, an extra 5–10 miles of after work activities or to make up the lost mileage that morning due to traffic and weather.  At 12^¢⁄_kWh U.S. national average and a mere 1.44kW charger you'd only be out about 17¢ per hour more worked!

But one thing I will recommend if it's not there already.  For a couple more bucks upgrade that external outlet to a GFCI.  The last think you'll need is to have a fault at that socket plunge the whole office into darkness.  It's not necessary, believe me.&nbps; All EVSEs have their own ground fault circuitry so they shouldn't be hitting your breaker with issues.  But when someone plugs something besides an EV in that output, you'll be thankful I told you.

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Oh, and happy π day!

Three Years?

Happy Anniversary from CO2 Fre!

Cars and Coffee at Katie's Coffee House.