Inadvertent selfie: Taking a photo of the EV charger outside the clubhouse at The Banks apartments in Albany on Feb. 8.
The planned conversion to electric vehicles in the next generation will require a lot of places to charge car batteries. So I was interested to see a newly installed charger at The Banks, the 120-unit apartment complex nearing completion at 595 Geary St. N.E.
What kind of charger is it, I wondered. And will there be more?
“It is a dual-port level 2 charger,” Patrick Morley, one of the principals in the company developing the complex, told me. “We put in infrastructure to expand to a total of 15 dual-port charging stations. We will add additional chargers as demand increases.”
The ready availability of charging stations will become increasingly important the closer we get to 2035, when Oregon expects to ban the sale of new combustion-driven vehicles.
Homeowners presumably can have chargers installed in their garages. But what about apartment dwellers?
I’ve heard of proposals to require new apartment buildings to provide electric chargers. Looks like the developers of The Banks are looking to the future and want to be prepared.
How many of these charging stations will be enough?
Level 2 chargers with a power rating of 80 amps can deliver a charge equal to 60 miles of range per hour of charging time, according to an online table I found on the website of Carvana.com.
Let’s say there’s an apartment complex with 100 households, each of which has one electric vehicle. Most of the charging presumably would be done when the drivers are at home, possibly asleep, and won’t need their cars.
That would mean something close to 100 charging hours compressed in the hours between 11 p.m., say, and 6 a.m. Unless the owners want to get up at night to move their cars, the cars would sit at the chargers from bedtime until 6 or 7 in the morning.
I may be wrong about that, but it looks as though a hypothetical housing complex like that would need a charger for each apartment.
If the number of available chargers is smaller — 30, say, for 120 units — then the management might have to restrict EV charging privileges and assign each apartment a specified window of time.
In Oregon’s not too distant future, when and for how long apartment tenants are allowed to charge their cars at home might become a new source of conflict among residents and their site managers.
No, you scoff, that won’t happen. Since people are universally reasonable, accommodating, and considerate, this is one future problem we don’t have to worry about. Right? (hh)
Conflict? It’s time to expand our notion of road rage.
Sometimes open parking spots near a destination are hard to find. Those reserved for uppity drivers of EVs are easy targets.
A new term you will be hearing – ICEing. Let the rage fest begin…
Hasso’s Sky-is-Falling prediction is not unlike when the gasoline shortages of the early 1970s broke out. People lined-up their gas-guzzling vehicles at petrol stations in huge numbers. Fights broke out as the scarcity put pressure on the nation’s economy. Gasoline prices rocketed as competition for the resource intensified. Occasionally there were even killings as shortages persisted. But, like all things, the gasoline “shortage,” (charging station shortage) subsided as solutions were found. Back then there was the same handwringing and navel gazing having to do with gasoline engines as Hasso would have us believe electric cars are about to undergo. We should remember that the gasoline “shortage” went away. The Great Electric Charging Station Crisis will also fade.
I have a charger in the garage and it takes approximately 6 hours to charge the battery completely. Unless every apartment has a battery charger for each tenants car, how is all this going to work oh mighty guru with all the liberal answers but no common sense.
This is the same argument that Hasso attempts. By today’s standards, EVs are doomed because not enough charging. Whenever there’s not enough widgets for everyone who needs one, someone or some company comes along and fills the need. This is what I mean about the typical Albany resident who believes that all possible progress has been made and that no future progress is possible, thereby making this problem, or whatever other Sky-is-Falling prediction the only possible belief we can hold. But, if this sort of logic were true, then there never would have been EVs invented in the first place. Using this writer’s logic, back when gasoline powered vehicles came out there were few gas stations…yet somehow the stations got built to alleviate the problem. The same will happen in this instance.
What happens to our power grid once all of these chargers go online? More blackouts is what’s going to happen. No air conditioning during the summer. No heating in the winter (because of the restrictions on gas furnaces). Trust me, this will take peoples lives. They use to call you people “tree huggers”, but as shown in recent articles, those tree seem to be an afterthought these days.
Nothing. You’re totally clueless MarK. Electricity is easily available at night because peak loads OCCUR in DAYTIME. Mostly 3 to 7 pm. The cheapest electricity you can buy is from 10pm to 7 am.
Most new EV’s have a capacity of around 250+ miles of range. Use Google and you’ll find that the average driver drives 35 miles a day. You don’t need to recharge every night if you’re an average driver. If you’re a “35 miler” you only need to charge for a half-hour or so.
The point being, quit pontificating with your total lack of knowledge and reality, You’re “opinion” is worth as much as a “warm bucket of spit” as VP John Nance Garner once put it.
Yeah Right HARTMAN!
V8 Driver here, gas guzzler and enjoying it.
Truth to the power base!
E_change is tricky and long……………. honk HONK
Where is the electricity coming from oh mighty guru? Nuclear!
The Sky-is-Falling crowd is out in full force.
Yep, if people would do their research they’d find its takes fossil fuel to build all the EVS, batterys, wind farms, solar panels, EV chargers. You’re not going to hear that on your national/local liberal news or how the precious metals are mined (remember the blood diamonds) this is all about political power for one party.
Hasso with dripping sarcasm: “Since people are universally reasonable, accommodating, and considerate…”
Hasso’s blog group of a dozen frequent commenters: “Hold my beer.”
Can’t we all just get along? Yeah, right. Haha
There’s a long way to 2035 and many new EV cars now could charge to 80% within 18 minutes. There will be chargers at existing gas stations as well. But we can’t do much about people who stress out waiting 18 minutes to charge their vehicles.
Unfortunately, it takes 3 phase 480 power to charge your car to 80% in 18 minutes. No apartment complex in Albany has that power available and won’t have in the future.
Al, so how many years did you spend filling your gasoline tank EVERY night after your day’s driving?
Unless you drove a couple of hundred miles a day, it was pretty much never, right?
The same thing is true for EV’s. Except that the filling station is in your garage so you CAN do it every day if you want.
Not sure where you’ve been lately Bob, but you’re more than welcome to go back.
Why don’t you respond to the fact that you would need 3phase 480 power in every apartment complex to charges electric cars rather than an inane comment about charging in my garage when apartment complexes do not have garages. If I own one I obviously am not against EV’s but there is now way it is happening by 2035! That’s another pie in the sky comment from liberals who are going to build 36,000 house per year for the next 10 years and are going to eliminate gas engine cars by 2035. Get in the real world as California already has a power crisis and is not shutting down the last Nuke operating facility.
As Hasso says: “I may be wrong about that, but it looks as though a hypothetical housing complex like that would need a charger for each apartment.”
I have a 14-50 240 NEMA plug for charging 2 hots on two 50 amp circuit breakers, for plenty of juice for recharging. overnight – about 35 miles per hour of charge. No big deal there. Why do I say that?
Because it’s virtually no different than what’s used for my outlet for our electric dryer: 240/30 amp circuits are the general requirement. Adding an extra 30 amp circuit for EV charging generating only 20 miles per hour of charge would seem to be a small marginal cost increase, especially since the tenants will be paying the cost of power.
Charging from 10 PM to 7 AM on a 30 amp circuit available at the parking space could provide 180 miles of range – way more than needed for day-to-day use
480 volt, and higher, systems are for Level 3 DC/Fast Charging stations where you want to do a 0-80% recharge in a half hour or so. Those are not for home/apartment installations. That would be a colossal waste of money.
The bottom line is that EV are selling fast. The fact that so may people just flip out at the thought of “change” just means they’re the last to catch up.
As Ted Turner so famously said to the naysayers when he was starting CNN “You have 3 choices: lead, follow or get out of the way.”
re your last paragraph, last sentence should have been wrong!
To prove my point just walk down the street and use a cross walk – may have to wait for several cars to pass before one stops. Lo and behold everyone stops long enough to cross.
It’s todays society.
Hasso –
Methinks you’re seriously over-thinking the problem. It will be at least a generation+ from now before your hypothetical apartment complex is even realistic. So, is it possible? Sure – ANYthing is “possible” within the laws of physics, but definitely not in our lifetimes — even if the rules are set in concrete that no new IC-engine cars will be sold in Oregon. Heck, I’m driving 50+ year-old Saabs and “…until they pry them from my…” Well, you get the picture. :-)
There are many other “future problems”, known and unknown, to worry about. Interesting times ahead.
“No, you scoff, that won’t happen. Since people are universally reasonable, accommodating, and considerate, this is one future problem we don’t have to worry about. Right?”
People are universally reasonable, accommodating, and considerate when it comes to apartment parking spots? Yes, yes they are. It’s one thing to have an apartment guest inconvenience a tenant by parking in their designated spot, thereby making them park in the boondocks. It’s quite another to make them park in the boondocks, AND leave them short of fuel to get to work the next day. At least the towing companies will be happy.
ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars will be around for a long time, and their resale value will increase a great deal. The number of gas stations will decrease eventually and the price of gasoline will climb. But gas will be available for a long time to supply those ICE used cars. A bigger problem will be supplying the huge amount of electricity for charging those e-cars with the continued pressure of the unreasonable green agenda.
So do pinwheels provide power when the wind doesn’t blow, or mirrors provide power when our star is making it’s way across the Pacific and Asia? Of course not and the way the democrats think hydro-electric power isn’t green at all.
So when it’s night time, and the wind speed is zero, how would you charge EV’s?
I’m sure some of you are scratching you brain pans trying to figure out what pinwheels and mirrors are, wind turbines are pinwheels and solar panels are mirrors.
There was an article I read today out of Eugene talking about cold weather making it take longer to charge the batteries. Several longer hours than in warmer climates. They recommended keeping the cars in garages so batteries would stay warmer. Wonder how that works in North Dakota?
Well if in 2035 Oregon stops selling gas ran cars we will solve the road overcrowding problem. No one will be driving anywhere. Everyone will need to move to huge cities like Portland and Eugene for public transportation to get around. Rual living will fade out due to distance a EV can travel before needing to be recharged and if it takes hours to recharge what will the traveler do for all those hours as they wait. But for me by 2023 I doubt I will still be driving if only EV cars is the only option.
Everybody has an electric car with no petrol option? At that point, everybody is in the power of whoever CONTROLS THE ELECTRIC GRID. The govt. steps in and decides if you are worthy of receiving electricity and how much. Lenin would be so proud!
I appreciate you letting me know about the potential installation of electric vehicle (EV) chargers in residential buildings. This blog is fantastic, there is so much useful information here for developing novel concepts. Please continue writing and publishing such useful content; it is really appreciated. You must also check out Dormitxelectric.com it has some great insights too.