Category: Featured Plug In Site

First Location in State-Wide EV Charging Network Planned for Delaware

There has always been an EV charging desert in the state of Delaware. It has been difficult to get to the beaches and the area around Wilmington on the I-95 corridor has lacked public charging making it hard to travel in an EV between Baltimore and Philadelphia.

In February, 2014, the University of Delaware announced a partnership with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) to install a state-wide network of strategically placed Level 2 charging stations to enable EV travel to all corners of the state. The first of these charging stations have been installed at the Delaware Welcome Center on I-95 near Newark, DE. This is the same rest area that has four Tesla Superchargers.

map link

There are two 75 Amp, Power Port branded stations that are made by Milbank Mfg. attached to posts that were originally built for big rig trucks to plug into. The stations were installed around mid-July, less than a week after the University of Delaware signed an agreement with the host. There are plans to paint the spaces green to help identify them as EV charging spots.

Future planned locations for pairs of these high-amp L2 EV charging stations include Dover, Bridgeville, Wilmington, Christiana Mall, Lewes Ferry Terminal and Rehoboth Beach.

@Lanny

photos by @jcadman22

Four Level 2 Charging Ports near Baltimore Inner Harbor

Baltimore’s Inner Harbor has many attractions that bring people downtown. There is the National Aquarium, Port Discovery Children’s Museum, Maryland Science Center, and many restaurants and other attractions. If you need a place to plug in while visiting, there are four new charging ports at the Harbor Park Garage at 55 Market Place.
I stopped in to the garage to check out the two new ChargePoint CT-4000 series EV charging stations on the purple level near the garage office. I spoke with the manager and she was excited about the new stations. She said that they were originally scheduled to be installed in April but they waited until after July 1, 2014 in order to take advantage of the Maryland EVSE rebate program. The manager also said that they plan to add more charging stations on other levels of the garage in the future if there is enough demand. So far, only one car at a time has been seen charging but they haven’t advertised the availability of the stations yet. They plan to paint the parking spots green within the next few weeks.

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Parking rates are $13.00 after 5:00 PM and weekends 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM. You may be able to find discount coupons online. The charging stations are free but you need a ChargePoint card.

There are two entrances to the garage, one on Market Place next to the McDonald’s and another on E. Lombard St. on the southeast corner of the building.

@Lanny

MOM’s Organic Market began installing EV charging stations at their stores beginning with their College Park and Timonium locations in 2011. Most of their eleven locations in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania have two Level 2 charging stations that are free to use.

Scott Nash, the founder of MOM’s, is a great supporter of electric vehicles. He has owned a Nissan Leaf and currently drives a Tesla Model S that he reluctantly switched to only because the bigger battery of the Tesla fit his needs for longer range trips better than the Leaf. Employees of MOM’s are eligible for a 15% subsidy towards the purchase of an electric car (up to $5,000) after one year of full-time employment.

The MOM’s store in Frederick, Maryland is the first to get DC Quick Charging. There are actually two units installed and both have the CHAdeMO standard which currently is only used with optionally equipped Nissan Leafs and Mitsubishi iMiEV cars.

The 25kW DC Quick Chargers are from Fuji Electric. The 25kW models are less costly to install than the 50kW DC Quick Chargers seen at most CHAdeMO installations. Fuji claims that the lower powered Quick Chargers only take an additional 7 minutes when charging from 30% to 77% because the 50kW charger quickly ramps down to below 25kW anyway as the battery gets full.

The Fuji Electric chargers at MOM’s both have a credit card pad for accepting payment but it is not activated and the cost is free as it is at all of MOM’s charging stations. While these stations currently are limited to use only on CHAdeMO equipped cars, the unique aspect of this charging location is that it has a pair of DC Quick Chargers. The redundancy is an important feature of this site. In general, DC Quick Chargers seem to fail much more often than normal L2 charging stations. When you are taking a trip and counting on a Quick Charger to speed you along, it is nice to have a backup that won’t slow you down. It would take several hours if you had to resort to a Level 2 backup station.

Thanks MOM’s for this plug in site in Frederick and at your other store locations.

@Lanny

Featured Plug In Site – Ascend One Building, Columbia, MD

This DC Quick Charger has been operational since April 24, 2014. It was installed by Howard County Government and is located on the north side of the Ascend One Building at 8930 Stanford Blvd. in Columbia, Maryland. It is an AeroVironment CHAdeMO unit branded with a Nissan logo. The station is available to the public and there is currently no fee to use it.

This DC Quick Charger brought a Mitsubishi i from empty (10%) to 82% in just 20 minutes.

@Lanny

Featured Plug In Site – Hagerstown, Maryland Tesla Supercharger

In parking lot of Hagerstown Premium Outlets, 495 Prime Outlets Blvd Hagerstown, MD 21740

This is the first Tesla Supercharger site located in the state of Maryland. It opened in late January, 2014 as part of the initial coast-to-coast Supercharger route that I took with the @TeslaRoadTrip group between July 12 and 17, 2014. The video below is of the convoy of six Tesla Model S arriving at the Superchargers all at once.

There is a food court and restrooms located in the Mall and free WIFI service. Security patrols the parking lot and have been seen writing up cars that ICE the Superchargers. When the Hagerstown location first opened, the security people were not aware that the Superchargers were supposed to be accessible 24 hours a day and tried to tell Tesla drivers to leave after the Mall closed. That issue has since been resolved.

Hagerstown Supercharger on TeslaMotors.com.
@Lanny

Featured Plug In Site – Maryland’s first public charging station?

This charging station is located behind the Element Hotel near Arundel Mills at 7522 Teague Road, Hanover, MD. It is possibly the “first” public charging station in the state of Maryland judging by the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center database. It is assigned ID: 36363 which is the lowest ID number of all the charging stations listed for Maryland. That means it was likely the first charging station added to the database that is located in Maryland.

Element Arundel Mills Level 1

A unique aspect of this ChargePoint station is that it is 120V Level 1 only. Notice in the photo that there is no J-1772 connector holster on this unit, only the door flap for the 120V outlet. This is the first and only one I’ve seen like this.

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