Category: Featured Plug In Site

Fast Food – Slow Charging

Looking for a Big Mac and want to boost your charge? This McDonald’s has you covered. Don’t get your hopes too high, the food may be fast but the charging is not. This is Level 2 charging only.

Traveling down the West Coast Electric Highway in August, 2017, we stopped at this Level 2 charging station at the McDonald’s at 2910 Newberg Hwy, Woodburn, OR. This restaurant is about a mile from the Woodburn Tesla Supercharger and a West Coast Electric Highway fast charger site with CHAdeMO is across the street at the Woodburn Transit Center.

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Charming Historic Old Town Warrenton

Virginia is home to a number of charming, walkable small towns. Old Town Warrenton is one of those gems. Now you can charge your Tesla when you visit.

The Town of Warrenton recently installed two Tesla connectors in a public parking lot downtown. The location is near 45 Horner St., behind the Post Office.

On Way to Wineries and Shenandoah National Park

Warrenton Town Manager Brandie Schaeffer told WTOP Radio ”Warrenton is the best kept secret in Northern Virginia. People with electric vehicles traveling from the city to the wineries or Shenandoah National Park can stop in Warrenton for a quick charge, while they grab coffee, lunch, or shop.”

One attraction that gets rave reviews is the Red Truck Rural Bakery. Located in a former Esso gas station, Travel + Leisure calls it “One of America’s best small-town bakeries.”

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Utility Operated Charging Station

The first utility owned and operated DC Fast Charger in Maryland opened in Westminster, Maryland. It’s located in the parking lot at the Carroll County Government Offices Building at 225 N. Center Street.

The 50 kW charger is an Efacec QC45 similar to the charger at the Royal Farms Store about four miles east on Baltimore Blvd. We hope the single BGE fast charger is reliable, regularly maintained and fixed quickly since the only backup on site is a pair of Level 2 ports. See: Advocating for EV Charger Reliability at the Maryland PSC

All BGE fast chargers currently cost $0.34 per kWh as approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission which regulates the utility. Level 2 costs $0.18 per kWh. EV drivers can pay via a Greenlots account. Video.

More BGE Public Charging Coming Soon

BGE plans to own, and operate up to 500 public EV charging stations in their Maryland service area on property owned or controlled by state, county, and local governments. About 20% of these are to be DC Fast Chargers.

Eldersburg Library, North Carroll Library and Carroll Community College also plan to have charging stations according to a Carroll County news release.

For more information about the BGE EV Smart program, see bge.com/electricvehicles.

Newark, DE and Milford, CT Tesla Superchargers Open for Seven Years

On December 21, 2012, Tesla officially opened the Superchargers at the Delaware Welcome Center in Newark and at the Milford Travel Plazas on I-95 in Connecticut. These two locations let Model S drivers travel between Washington, DC and Boston. At the time, only six of Tesla’s exclusive fast charging sites existed elsewhere in the world and all were in California. Today, there are over 1,700 Supercharger stations worldwide.

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Tesla Supercharging at Francis Scott Key Mall

The Frederick Maryland Supercharger at Francis Scott Key Mall has power as of November 26, 2019. Tesla installed ten charging stalls at the mall which is south east of the town of Frederick near where I-270 and I-70 merge. Map link.

The Frederick Supercharger site is along Spectrum Drive on the north edge of the parking lot near Barnes and Noble. There’s a Red Robin restaurant and a BJ’s Brewhouse nearby. In addition to the mall’s food options, there’s a Panera, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Baja Fresh and several other eateries in the area.

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Ten Charging Stalls

The new Electrify America charging station in Columbia, MD is now the largest CCS/CHAdeMO site in Maryland and one of the biggest in the entire country.

The fast charging station, which is now operational, has a total of ten dispensers. Two are labeled as 350 kW maximum power and the other eight are 150 kW maximum. One dispenser has a CHAdeMO port rated at 50 kW, the other nine are CCS only. 

According to the Electrify America website, there are 339 stations operational as of Nov. 15, 2019. Most EA sites have eight or fewer chargers. Columbia is one of only about 14 Electrify America sites with ten chargers.

The electric vehicle charging station is built and operated by a subsidiary of Volkswagen Group as part of a settlement over VW’s diesel emissions scandal. It’s located in the parking lot of the Walmart at 6405 Dobbin Road. Walmart, a partner with Electrify America, has announced over 100 stores will have EA charging stations. The Walmart stores in Abingdon and Hagerstown, MD also have Electrify America chargers operating in their parking lots.

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A new set of DC fast chargers in Hancock, Maryland has moved the western frontier for CHAdeMO and CCS charging in Maryland about 25 miles past Hagerstown.

EV drivers in the region have been eager to have CCS and CHAdeMO options in western Maryland ever since it was first proposed over five years ago.

In April 2014, Maryland announced a $1 million plan to fund the placement of DC fast chargers throughout the entire state including Garrett County. However, when the first grant awards were announced, there weren’t any charging sites on the map past Hagerstown.

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The Columbia Association has installed a Level 2 electric vehicle charging station in the Oakland Mills Village Center in Columbia, Maryland. It is located at 5851 Robert Oliver Pl., behind The Other Barn, which serves as the Oakland Mills Community Center.

This is the sixth EV charging location installed by the Columbia Association since they began their EV charging initiative in February, 2013. The other CA locations with EV charging are Owen Brown Community Center, Columbia Gym, Supreme Sports Club, Athletic Club (2), and Long Reach Tennis Club (2).

Columbia Association still needs to post signage at this EV charging station. This will bring it into alignment with the Howard County Anti-ICEing ordinance allowing police to ticket violators.

The price to use this station is $0.20 per kWh and you need a ChargePoint account to initiate a session.

Beach goers to the Outer Banks of North Carolina now have a Tesla Supercharger in Kill Devil Hills.

In the past, Tesla drivers who visited the Outer Banks had few choices to recharge. Some used the NEMA 14-50 outlets at the local RV campground. Others plugged in to a 120v outlet during their stay in order to make it back to the Norfolk, VA Supercharger. In 2015, Tanger Outlets installed Level 2 charging stations, the first public EV charging on the Outer Banks. Recently, Tesla destination charging has been growing in the OBX including at the Outer Banks Brewing Station.

The eight stall Supercharger is located in the parking lot of the Harris Teeter grocery store at 2012 S Croatan Hwy near milepost 9.5 on the U.S. Hwy 158 bypass.

The Kill Devil Hills Supercharger has been powered up for about a week but it’s now officially on the Tesla Navigation screen.

Individually Billed EV Charging for Multi-Family Housing

A large portion of the population in the US lives in multi-unit housing such as an apartment or condo. The parking arrangements in these communities can make it difficult to install a dedicated electric vehicle charging station. Some states have Right to Charge laws that make it easier to get approval for putting in charging equipment from their Condo or HOA board.

SemaConnect now offers an option to help property managers of multi-unit housing to offer dedicated personal charging stations to residents. SemaConnect’s new Series 5 Personal Charging Station is designed to be used by EV drivers that have a dedicated parking space in a multi-unit housing community. The unit supports electricity metering and billing directly to the EV driver. Property managers can now supply EV charging and get reimbursed for the electricity and service used by residents.

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