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Plug-In Vehicles at the Baltimore Auto Show 2015

January 2, 2015January 12, 2015 Lanny

Baltimore Auto Show sign I took a trip to the Baltimore Auto Show on opening night on New Years Day, 2015. I wanted to see what plug-in vehicles the manufacturers were showing on the floor. I didn’t have high expectations for this show which is smaller than the one in Washington, DC.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of electrics and the interest they were generating from the crowd. My electric tour started off when I spotted a white Chevy Volt hiding along the wall in the GM section near where we entered. Perhaps it was not featured prominently because the new 2016 redesign will be unveiled in a few weeks in Detroit.

Next I spotted a black THINK City which is the car I drive, sitting proudly among the Ferraris in the Exotic Vehicles section of Eurostar Auto Gallery who still have a few more THINKs available.

The Kia Soul EV was featured along with a mock charging station for people to interact with. This was the first time I’ve seen the Soul EV and I was impressed with the interior room and the black and red paint scheme which is unique to the electric version along with the special aero wheels. It looks quite nice in person. Seeing this vehicle was the highlight of the show for me.

Ford Fusion Energi and C-Max Energi cars were on display in Ford’s eco-friendly fuel-efficient vehicle section. Ford also had a large display featuring three different charging stations in the area of the C-Max Energi. It included a Ford branded 120v portable charging cable, an AeroVironment Level 2 home charging station and a commercial GE Wattstation.

VW was featuring their new e-Golf which was getting lots of attention. It was touted with the slogan, All Golf. No Gas. The display featured a Bosch Level 2 EVSE which was plugged into the car.

BMW had an i3 in the center of their area. The car was surrounded with people waiting to sit inside it. I was hoping BMW would have an i8 on display but unfortunately they didn’t.

Mercedes had a black electric B-Class sitting unassumingly on the edge of their area without much fanfare. You would have to look close to even know it was electric.

To my surprise, Cadillac had an ELR featured on their floor with a beautiful matching black mock charging station. In general, it was good to see most of the manufacturers had their electric cars plugged in which helps create recognition among the public of electric vehicles.

Nissan will be offering test drives of their LEAF electric cars outside of the Convention Center during daylight hours. On Thursday night when I was there, Nissan didn’t have any electric cars on display inside.

Toyota had no plug-in cars displayed, not even the Plug In Prius. I asked a Toyota representative about their Fuel Cell Vehicle and he said they are offering it in California first and they are not planned for the rest of the country until 2018 or 2019 at the earliest.

Honda also didn’t have a single plug-in electric car there. I asked specifically about the Honda Accord Plug-In and the Honda representative didn’t even know about it.

The Baltimore Auto Show runs through Sunday, January 4, 2015 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

@Lanny

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2014 Charging Station Count

December 31, 2014December 31, 2019 Lanny

The following EV charging station count is from the U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center which keeps track of the number of electric vehicle charging stations from data provided by the major charging networks as well as other sources. It may not be a perfect count but it is close enough in my opinion to get a relative sense of the size and growth of the public charging infrastructure. The figures include planned stations, 120v, Level 1 outlets as well as stations marked as private. Charging station count was captured on December 31, 2014.

Maryland: 282 sites, 650 ports
Virginia: 237 sites, 604 ports
Washington, DC: 61 sites, 134 ports
West Virginia: 28 sites, 101 ports
Delaware: 16 sites, 26 ports

@Lanny

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Olney, MD Getting a CHAdeMO Fast Charger

December 27, 2014 Lanny

I stopped by the Olney Village Center today to check on an NRG eVgo Freedom Station that has been under construction for a few weeks and found the CHAdeMO charger up and seemingly running.

Olney, Maryland is in the middle of a big EV charging “desert” so this was nice to see. There was a blue box that will eventually house a Level 2 EVSE in a parking spot in another row. No word on when that will be running.

NRG eVgo usually conducts a few weeks of testing before announcing new Freedom Stations on their official map. Don’t expect this station to have consistent uptime in the testing interval. In fact, your regular eVgo card may not initiate a session, so be prepared to call customer service to see if they can remotely start the charging during the testing interval.

@Lanny

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Note of Appreciation and Happy Holidays!

December 23, 2014December 23, 2014 Lanny

This note was left on an EV yesterday by a fellow plug-in driver who often shares a dual L1, L2 charging station in a downtown parking garage.

They were expressing their appreciation for the driver, who often arrives first, to voluntarily use their “plug” or Level 1 charging cord and leave the more convenient Level 2 connector available for the person who arrives later. Nice gestures from both of these drivers I think.

Thank you for reading Plug In Sites. I appreciate being able to share charging spots, news, ideas and photos with you over the past few months since starting this project. Stay charged, drive electric and have a happy and safe holiday!

@Lanny

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MOM’s in Frederick, MD Gets a Level 2 Charging Station

December 22, 2014December 22, 2014 Lanny

The MOM’s Organic Market store in Frederick, Maryland installed two CHAdeMO DC Fast Chargers earlier this year. Now they have removed one of them and replaced it with a SemaConnect Chargepro Level 2 charging station.

While it is good to have redundant Fast Chargers in case one of them goes down, it limited the number of electric vehicles that could charge at this location. MOM’s tells me that there are plans to move the displaced CHAdeMO to another store. However, they are awaiting approval from the property manager.

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@Lanny

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Maryland Fast Charging Network to Add 26 New Stations

December 18, 2014 Lanny

MarylandMap01a
The successful applicants for the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (EVIP) grant to develop a DC Fast Charger Network in Maryland have been selected. The three grantees will partner with the state to add 26 DC Fast Charging stations at 21 sites between Ocean City and Hagerstown. The charging stations should be in place by May, 2016.

This program was announced by the Maryland Attorney General on April 24, 2014. The $1,000,000 for the grant comes from a Consent Decree secured from a settlement for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act.

The DC Fast Charging stations installed through the EVIP grant must have both CHAdeMO and SAE Combo chargers at each location and be within ½ mile of the highway exit or within a Metropolitan area. There will be a fee to use them.

At the time it was announced, the network was proposed to encourage Interstate travel and extend as far west as Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County. However, none of the proposals included any sites west of Hagerstown.

The grant program is administered by the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) with participation of the Maryland Departments of Environment (MDE) and Transportation (MDOT) and Maryland Clean Cities Coalition.

More details, including the exact sites chosen, should be released soon and I will report updates as I learn them.

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@Lanny

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Calvert County, Maryland EV Parking Legislative Update

December 17, 2014December 17, 2014 Lanny

Calvert_Legislative_Request There is some news to report regarding recent suggestions made to the lawmakers of Calvert County, Maryland by a few of us EV drivers.

On December 2, 2014 the Calvert County Board of Commissioners voted to adopt new zoning ordinance parking regulations that includes an incentive for business owners to install electric vehicle charging stations in their parking lots. Unfortunately, the reward for placing the charging stations is to allow fewer overall parking spaces. The four of us who commented to the Planning Commission expressed concern about this leading to more ICEing.

The Planning Commission had originally proposed a zoning amendment to require installation of electric vehicle charging stations for public parking lots with more than 50 spaces. When the proposal went before the County Commissioners in a work session, the Commissioners vehemently opposed the requirement.

The Planning Commission subsequently dropped the requirement and came back with an incentive for installing charging stations. If a parking lot requiring more than 50 parking spaces provides two electric vehicle charging stations, then they would be allowed to reduced the required number of spaces by two.

In my opinion, this was a recipe for ICEing. With less overall parking spaces in a lot and with two spaces already dedicated for plug-in cars, I felt that gasoline cars would be parking in the EV spots when the smaller lot gets crowded. I spoke with Mary Beth Cook, Deputy Director, Zoning Officer of the Calvert County Department of Community Planning and Building about my concerns and sent a letter as part of the formal public comment process. I suggested they consider having the new parking lots pre-wired for future installation of charging stations.

I was not alone in expressing concerns to the Commissioners and Planning Board. Two other plug-in vehicle drivers, Mark Czajka and Scott Wilson, wrote letters also suggesting pre-wiring of the lots and pointing out issues such as placing the charging spots away from the prime parking locations.

I spoke with Deputy Director Cook again yesterday and she told me that the Zoning Regulations will be getting a rewrite in the near future and that our comments will be useful in the plans they have for revisiting the charging station recommendations which they seem to be committed to promoting. She also mentioned that Calvert County is looking at some grants to install charging stations in public places. I’ll keep an eye out for that announcement.

The other development came as a result of the Calvert County resident and EV driver who came to the October 21 public hearing and spoke about the need for enforcement to ensure that spaces for electric car charging are not blocked. The Southern Maryland News reported that Bryan Murtha told the Planning Board and the County Commissioners that electric vehicle charging stations are useless unless the spaces for them are enforced for electric cars only.

That comment was noted by the County Attorney, John B. Norris, who included it in the 2015 Legislative Requests that he brought before the Board of Commissioners at a work session on Nov. 18, 2014. This was labeled a “request to provide enforcement provisions for the unauthorized use of electric vehicle parking spaces.”

Commissioner Evan Slaughenhoupt gave his view that filling stations for fuel cell vehicles are likely to surpass the use of recharging stations in a very short time making the issues surrounding EV charging stations irrelevant. Commissioner Jerry Clark didn’t seem to be informed that this was being suggested in response to the charging stations that would be installed as a result of the incentives included in the zoning text amendments. Instead he focused on the single public station that is currently in the county. He also said that “when the price of gas gets back down to a dollar, we won’t even be talking about this.”

In the end, the board took “no position due to Statewide implications,” but the issue was presented to the State Delegation from Calvert County at a meeting on December 2, 2014. This time, the County Attorney referenced a letter from the Director of MD Volt, Inc.

I’m not betting on $1.00 a gallon gasoline nor do I expect that fuel cell vehicles are going to take over anytime soon. But plug-in electric vehicles are here today and if Calvert County is going to offer incentives to encourage public charging stations, then they should also provide enforcement provisions to ensure those stations are not blocked.

Follow Plug In Sites to stay abreast of EV Infrastructure news in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area (and beyond.)

@Lanny

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EV Charging at Beacon Hill Apartments in Alexandria, VA

December 16, 2014 Lanny

Beacon Hill Apartments SemaCharge stations

This post is the first in a series of Featured Plug In Sites to highlight apartments and condos that have installed EV charging stations for their tenants.

One of the advantages of plug-in electric vehicles is that you can “refuel” them at home by plugging in every night. But what if you live in a condo or an apartment building? That was the caveat of a reporter who lived in an apartment in San Francisco and attempted to test drive an all-electric Nissan LEAF for a week. Without a regular place to recharge every night, the results were predictable. The headline on his article in Wired read, “A Two-Day Battle to Charge My Car Convinced Me We’re Not Ready for EVs.”

The Beacon Hill Apartments in the Groveton area of Alexandria, Virginia has two SemaConnect stations in front of their leasing office. The high visibility of these prominently placed stations may convince current tenants to consider a getting a plug-in car.

However, I hope they reconsider their pricing structure. It costs $1.50/hr. for the first four hours and $10.00/hr. after that. This two-tiered pricing is designed to encourage drivers to move their cars once they are finished charging. However, I’m not sure this is the best plan in this particular case. Imagine coming home at 11:00 PM and plugging in your car before heading to sleep. If you don’t wake up at 3:00 AM to unplug, you’ll end up with a $36.00 bill by 6:00 in the morning. I hope they reconsider the pricing. Perhaps a prospective tenant could negotiate a more reasonable price for EV charging with the management as a condition of signing a lease.

Although there may be some adjustments to be made in the pricing model, it is good to see EV charging stations offered at more apartments.

Follow Plug In Sites to stay abreast of EV Infrastructure news in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area (and beyond.)

@Lanny

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Police Ticketing Vehicles That Block EV Charging Spots in Howard County, MD

December 11, 2014January 8, 2022 Lanny

Ticket for blocking an EV Charging Spot Parking Citation SUV

Howard County Police left a parking citation on the windshield of this SUV that parked in a spot designated for electric vehicle charging in Columbia, Maryland.

Citation for parking a non electric car in electric spot, Fine $35.00

The ticket indicated a fine of $35.00 for, “parking restriction violation non electric car in electric spot.” The ordinance number cited was 21207c3. That ordinance was amended to the Howard County Code when the provisions of Council Bill 36-2014 went into effect in September, 2014.

SUVs blocking two EV charging stations in Columbia, MD

Montgomery County, Maryland has a similar law which has been effective since June 11, 2014. In order to be enforced on private property, both counties require that the spaces be marked for the use of plug-in vehicles with a sign that conforms to specified regulations or standards.

Parking violations can be reported by calling the police non-emergency line.

Montgomery County, MD – Police Non-Emergencies: 301-279-8000
Ref: Montgomery County Code Sec. 31-26B * Printable PDF

Howard County, MD – Police Non-Emergencies: 410-313-2200
Ref: Howard County Code Sec. 21.207 and 21.221 * Printable PDF

***

“Enchanted Forest” Electric Vehicle Charging in Ellicott City

December 10, 2014August 3, 2021 Lanny

An NRG eVgo Freedom Station with a CHAdeMO Fast Charger and a Level 2 has popped up at the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center on Rt. 40 in Ellicott City, Maryland. This is the third CHAdeMO station in Howard County. The other two are at the Ascend Building in Columbia and the NRG eVgo station in Elkridge.

This charging station was issued a permit in October and online records show that it was inspected on December 5, 2014. As of December 8th, it doesn’t have a meter and is not yet powered on. Signs and green striping for the charging spaces also need to be done.
The area where this is located used to be the site of a popular amusement park called the Enchanted Forest which opened in 1955, the same year that Disneyland opened. It welcomed up to 300,000 visitors a year until it closed in 1988 when the owners sold the land to developers who built the shopping center where the Safeway and the new charging station are today.

The Enchanted Forest had a nursery rhyme theme with Cinderella’s pumpkin coach and the shoe house where the children’s tale says an old woman lived with her many children. The white castle-like building which served as the park’s entrance is still there and is worth the short walk to visit while charging. Many of the fairy tale structures were moved to a nearby petting farm where they are preserved for the current generation of children to enjoy. Clark’s Ellioak Farm is a short drive from the charging station and could be a destination for a family electric road trip.
There are several restaurants in the shopping center including the White Oak Tavern, Ernesto’s Fine Mexican Food, Sakura Japanese Steak and Sushi Bar and Bagel Bin and Deli. If you have any packages to send, there is a Post Office near the Safeway. You can even send a postcard from the Enchanted Forest to tell friends and family that you charged your Nissan Leaf in 30 minutes, just like magic!

@Lanny