My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental – Page 25

More Napkin math, OR – Real Goods Solar and BMW’s program is a REAL GOOD deal!

Saving money while saving the environment is an addictive process. It’s crack for good Karma! I feel like Michael Corleone in the Godfather III, I try to get away from it, but they keep dragging me back in!

As I had indicated on my Ping! post, I got “unofficial” Permission to Operate (PTO) on August 17, 2012 and finally received official PTO ten days later on August 27, 2012.

So, we’re now running our car on Solar Power… or are we? Unless your house is completely disconnected from the electric grid, what you are really doing is netting out generated power from the solar panels on the roof with consumed power from the electric grid. So, if you’re overproducing power from your solar panels than what you’re consuming, you get money back, otherwise you’re really just netting out what you’ve made with what you’ve used. As I have published previously, the rate to charge depends a lot on what tariff you’ve chosen.

In my first napkin math post, I charged on the SCE Domestic rate which effectively got me charged at $0.31 per kWh as my usage of electricity had already pushed me to Tier 5 for most of the billing periods. In order to normalize and compare ICE vs Electric, I calculated that the cost under the first plan was 1.714¢ per mile

By my third napkin math post, I attempt to alleviate that $0.31 per kWh charge by opting for the whole house SCE Electric TOU Tiered rate structure, this pretty much reduced my rate to charge to $0.13 per kWh for my car charging needs (as well as my pool pump as I switched the time of use for that from mid-day to mid-night to 6 am). As we noted on that post, my cost per mile dropped to about 1.412¢ per mile.

So, the big question is what is my cost per mile under the Real Goods Solar and BMW ActiveE program deal.

Before I took advantage of this deal, I would like to tell you about my search to save our energy costs further. Not necessarily the environment, but that’s always a fun side-effect with this accidental environmentalism that I’ve stumbled across. After signing up for the Active E, I figured to become educated on what my solar options were. To that end I requested quotes from three solar companies in the Los Angeles County area: Peak Power Solutions (Sunpower reseller), Solar City, and Verengo Solar. Each solution had its strengths and weaknesses and around the third week of March (between three to four weeks of receiving my ActiveE), I decided to sign a power purchase agreement with Solar City.

A power purchase agreement is basically the right to buy a guaranteed amount of power from a provider for twenty years. I don’t own the solar array on my roof, someone else does (a finance company) and I agree to pay them a fee for this. This means at the end of twenty years I get the option to keep buying from them, buy the equipment outright, or have them remove the array from my roof.

So, how did I compare the suppliers. Ultimately, economics. So, at the end the Solar City deal that I had originally signed was approximately $0.10344 per kWh. How did I calculate this? All the suppliers with the power purchase agreements have a guaranteed rate of production for the 20 years that the system will be produced, so I divided the total guaranteed kWh by the the total prepaid lease amount, and that’s how I got to the $0.10344 per kWh.

So, I thought that was it. I signed up with Solar City, got a rate that I felt was fair and waited to get installed. Solar City’s installation process was methodological and professional. They provided a website to track the progress of the installation and was quite impressive. However, their process proved to be the opportunity for Real Goods Solar and BMW’s deal to come in and make my costs even less. Around the beginning of May, during the design and survey process, Solar City notified me that in order to proceed with the installation of the system that I signed in the third week of March (about five to six weeks earlier) my roof would have to be replaced. This change provided me with an out-clause from completing the agreement that I signed with Solar City.

As I was mulling through a roof quote and setting up more roofers to see what this replacement roof would cost me, Real Goods Solar and the BMW Active E program announced their program. So, I figured, why not ask them to see what the solution would cost me. I contacted Real Goods and they had a sales agent contact me within the day. Their initial quote was 12% less than the Solar City quote and agreement that I went with. However, I had to bundle in the cost of the replacement roof and needed to get the total project cost to figure out which deal I was going to take.

Figuring that both solar companies would probably be able to get a reliable, professional, licensed roofer at a lower cost than I would have on my own, I went back to both providers to find out what the roof was going to cost from them and go from there. My assumption was not exactly correct as my independent roofer quote was actually $500 to $1000 cheaper than the lowest quote from either solar provider. I was at an inflection point. I was already saving quite a bit on gasoline with the TOU tariff and this would have been the time to quit or cut bait. I approached both providers to see if there was anything they can do to their quote to make the entire project less expensive (replacement roof and solar).

The dilemma is how do I adequately calculate my cost per kWh based on the various scenarios. I figured the most conservative thing to do would be to subtract the lowest roofing quote from my total project cost and use that figure to divide my cost per kWh over the guaranteed generation over the life of the system. Granted, this methodology would provide me with an understatement of cost as the guaranteed rate of production is typically rather conservative of the suppliers, but it IS what they guarantee, that is why I went with that methodology. When the system has really sunny days it will outperform this guarantee and my actual cost per kWh is less than what I calculated.

With the total system cost, I figure that my cost per kWh is $0.10250, however, if I subtract the roof cost my cost per kWh drops to $0.07970 based on guaranteed power. Seeing that my energy cost is a 38.7% reduction, mathematically speaking, my cost per mile is approximately .8657¢ per mile ($0.008657) or 73.58 cents per day based on the 85 mile day that I had in the last post on this matter. Not bad at all. Of course, the system is currently overproducing and with time of use I actually am paid a rate for the energy I am sending back to the grid during the day and most of my charging occurs between midnight and 6 am, so this is, like my other estimates “napkin math”, so I am certain my actual costs are lower, but the numbers work for me. Remember, my original calculation of a comparable vehicle costs were approximately 17 cents per mile, so my 0.8657 cents per mile cost is quite a bit less than driving my ICE 328i convertible.

So, there you have it. My energy costs are a heck of a lot less than it has been.

Want to see what my system is producing, check out the sidebar production information courtesy of Ken Clifton‘s plugin for WordPress or directly from Enlighten’s website.

In a few days, I will follow up this Napkin Math article with pictures and my opinion on the installation from Real Goods. Let me just say, I recommend them and if you give my name, I get a referral on your system, so contact me if you’re serious and I will recommend them.

Interested in going solar? Get a quote from my solar vendor – Real Goods Solar.

National Plug in Day… Pre-event planning.

If you were sent here by this month’s BMW Electronaut Newsletter, welcome to my blog. I am STILL drafting my Real Goods post and need to come up with how to handle calculating cost per kWh over the solar array. Since Sunday, September 23, 2012 is National Plug In Day, I figured to write about that first. I was inspired to look into this event by a post on the Active E Forums by Keith Davidson and so I figured to participate.

One of the benefits in living in the southernmost city in Los Angeles County is that it is very efficient to go behind the Orange Curtain to Orange County for things. When I used to drive my Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars more often, I would often fill up at the Costco in Cypress as it is often significantly cheaper in gasoline to buy my gas there than at a Costco in Los Angeles County and the location is somewhat convenient to home.

My gasoline border incursions have gotten to be fewer and farther in between as I don’t often have to purchase petrol as I have taken to carpooling with the better half on many days as I attempt to catch up to Tom Moloughney and his challenging 100 mile a day average (sadly still behind).

This Sunday, September 21, 2012, is National Plug In Day. What can I say, I’m an Electronut and want to check out others cars and have the opportunity to be an EVangelist for electric vehicles, so I scheduled myself to visit BOTH the Los Angeles and Orange County Plug In Day festivities. (Recap of LA Plug In Day Experience here)

The one in Los Angeles will be held in El Segundo at 610 Lairport St, El Segundo, CA 90245 and this is approximately 25 miles away from home and the one in Orange County is at the Mitsubishi of North America’s Headquarters (a few blocks East of the aforementioned Costco at Cypress) at 6400 Katella Ave, Cypress CA 90630.

The Los Angeles County event goes from 11am to 3pm and the Orange County one goes from 1pm to 3pm.

So, if you wish to come down and say hi, come on over. I will have sufficient charge to get around and home, so may take a few interested parties out for a spin. Just leave me a comment and I’ll set that up. I plan on being at the Los Angeles County event from 11am (the start) until approximately 12:30 pm and at the Orange County event from 1:30pm to 3pm.

See you there!

The Los Angeles County one at El Segundo –

View Larger Map

The Orange County one at Cypress –

View Larger Map

Apple takes away Google Maps, but gives you MAP on the other hand!

Ok.

I haven’t yet enabled iOS 6.0 on my wife’s iPhone (have a few more challenges before I take that on.) But one thing that I did read about (aside from people complaining about Apple’s Maps versus Google Maps) is the launch of MAP (Message Access Profile) support on iOS 6.0…

I am upgrading my iPod Touch to see if I can get the ActiveE to read my mail on the iPod Touch, but won’t know until later.

[Update: 4:00 pm, tried to get my iPod Touch to read on the ActiveE, no joy. It may just be the fact that it is an iPod Touch and not a phone. The car sees it as a phone over bluetooth as I was able to pair it, but could not get music to play over the connection. I tried to see if Show Notifications on the device setting under Bluetooth (default off, I turned it on) would do anything, and still no joy. I had the iPod Touch connected to the Internet via a MiFi that I carry, so it had Internet access.]

I found the following articles to be helpful

I will report further once I have tested it out.

[Update: 9/27/2012 Noon PDT. I borrowed my colleagues’ iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s that were both running iOs 6.0. No joy on either. I was able to pair both phones to the ActiveE. I went into each one’s bluetooth configuration for the car and told each phone to allow Sending messages over that specific bluetooth link. I then sent text messages to both phones. Waited a couple of minutes and no messages were notified or viewable on the car. Messages were received by the respective iPhone. I wonder whether or not this is an iPhone 5 only feature or if it is user error or my impatience.]

Even though Apple may be removing the built in Google Maps and supplementing their own maps in iOS 6.0, they are at least giving you MAP access.

California EV enthusiasts or soon to be EV enthusiasts, make it easier on yourself! – Free EVSE charger offer

So, I’ve been meaning to post this offer on the ActiveE forum, but several of my fellow Electronuts have already done that…

So, I figure why not post it on the blog!

I received the attached email a week ago and promptly forwarded it to my office manager to forward to our new landlord. I also sent it to my wife for her people to send it to their landlord.

From: Lynette Mandal <lynette.mandal@chargepoint.com>
Date: September 12, 2012 1:21:25 AM PDT
To: Dennis
Subject: ChargePoint offer to: home charging station owners

Hello Dennis,
We have great news! For a limited time only, ChargePoint is giving away electric vehicle (EV) charging stations for the workplace. ChargePoint is making available one FREE charging station to any workplace location that doesn’t already have a ChargePoint station in their parking lot.

ChargePoint’s ‘JumpStart’ program is designed to assist you with encouraging your employer to install a FREE ChargePoint station. Any California employer with more than 50 employees is eligible! This is the perfect opportunity for anyone with sustainability agendas, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) programs, new construction and renovation programs.

To assist your employer in making workplace EV charging prevalent, ChargePoint can also assist in finding a low cost installation provider.

Why are we doing this?

With the ChargePoint JumpStart program, we want to help EV drivers like you get EV charging services at your place of employment. Some of the most progressive and forward-thinking organizations in the world including Google, SAP, 3M, Facebook, Dell and Adobe, provide ChargePoint charging stations for their employees. With ChargePoint JumpStart we’re putting the power to charge in the hands of drivers!

How do you apply?

You can either take the attached offer to the appropriate decision-maker inside your company or apply through the ChargePoint website by October 15, 2012.

Click HERE to apply online.

The free ChargePoint stations are available on a first come first served basis.

Sincerely,

Team ChargePoint

P.S.

This is not a secret. If you know of an employee that needs a free ChargePoint station at their workplace, please let them know about this great offer.

Seems like a pretty straightforward offer, but there is still resistance to installing EV chargers at people’s workplaces.

I am hopeful, but pessimistic that either my office’s landlord or my wife’s employer’s landlord will bite, but why not try.

Some of the concerns that I have heard directly and indirectly through others that folks have over installing public charging stations in their facilities:

Concern over the increase in their electric bill
The cost of the EVSE and installation of the charging station.
Loss of use of parking space
Commitment length for some of the “free” public EVSE installation. i.e. 7 year agreement of exclusivity for any EVSE installs on the property.

Granted this offer only covers concern 2. As much as you can explain that the cost to charge an EV is only $.10 per kWH (national average), this is still an incremental cost that the landlord/employer currently does not have. Others have said that an individual could volunteer to pay for this and it may well behoove you to do so, however, the nice thing about the Chargepoint offer is that it’s on network and there IS a way for the landlord to participate in what Chargepoint will cost per hour.

As for concern 3 on the loss of use of parking spaces, that’s just silly. I know that my EV takes up exactly the same amount of parking space as any other car. So, that’s an argument that can be discussed. Additionally, other solutions have been put in place, such as the one at the Electric Lodge in Venice. Their solution is to restrict EV only parking between certain hours and allow the spots to be ICEd at other times.

Either way, the spots get used and you don’t have to worry about under-utilization of a precious commodity like parking spaces.

As for commitment length. I would gather that it’s all up to negotiation.

So, if you’re interested in getting a free EVSE for your office and live in California. Make use of the offer above.

Charge It! – Great food near public chargers #5 in an ongoing series – Mateo Street – East side of Downtown Los Angeles, CA (Arts District)

This update on Charge It! is a case of great food and Leaf/MiEV – CHAdeMO – Level 3 (L3) envy…

Huh?

Well, I love my ActiveE. It gets me almost everywhere. However, since the J1772 Level 3 standard is yet to be published, BMW released the car with Level 1 and Level 2 charging capability. Level 3 gets most L3 capable cars to 80% state of charge (SOC) in 30 minutes. Yes, you read correctly, you get up to 80% of your range in 30 minutes. Mitsubishi and Nissan support a Japanese standard called CHAdeMO. BMW, GM and others all decided to go with extending the J1772 format for L3 and that is not quite done yet.

Lucky for you that the food at Church and State is SO great and the wine selection is SO good that you want to stick around for several hours ANYWAY to wait for the L2 charger to finish.

So, what makes it Great! It’s definitely the food in one of the best French Bistro’s in Los Angeles.

We started our meal with the Beef Marrow and Bread. It was AWESOME.

You get some of the marrow and spread it on your bread and munch. No need for the butter, also as you can tell, it’s definitely carnivore food for that course!

To go with the Moelle de Boeuf, I went with the Tarte Flambee and it was a very good flat bread.

Since we were dining in the summer and it was a nice, hot day, figured a Riesling was in order and the one recommended by the Sommelier was very refreshing.

For our Mains we went with Scallops and Pork, the other white meat. Both were exquisite! I ordered the Pork, but swapped meals with the better half!…

The scallop was tender and plump. It went well with the wine that we chose as well the asparagus on the plate. The Better half let me take a bite of her, formerly my, pork dish and that was great! The Figs and Pork made great accompaniment with each other.

The dessert was scrumptious. We chose a nice, sweet chocolate tarte and paired it with a glass of the 2005 Prieure D’Arche Pugneau Sauternes that was on the menu.

I would say that Church and State rivals another of my favorite French Bistros in Southern California and gives Bouchon in Beverly Hills a run for its money.

Now the negatives, the Sommelier was very good and helpful, however, our server was not as interested in taking care of us. The restaurant had a lot of people, however, the restaurant also had adequate staff to cover all tables. Our server had a disinterested demeanor about her when she did get around to following up with us. Luckily, it’s a French bistro, so such behavior makes me think of other bistros I have been to in Paris… Wait, that’s not right, I’ve had better, attentive service in Paris.

However, the biggest negative for me is really the location. It’s on the scary Arts District on the way East side of Downtown Los Angeles. Fine in the summer, really dark in the Fall/Winter. The neighborhood directly between the restaurant and charging station parking lot is well lit, but the rest is really dodgy.

Here is the Google Map to the restaurant

View Larger Map

Here is the Google Map to the Parking Lot, it’s across the street from the restaurant.

View Larger Map

That being said, Church and State does have great food, well-lit blocks between it and the parking spot and charging stations. The parking spot is $5 to park, lots of ample parking on the street for free. Blink Network chargers and this was free to charge at the time that I used it, however, a lot of these have gone to whatever plan you’ve signed up for with Blink!

Coming up next on the blog will be my post on Real Goods Solar and how they won my business from Solar City with the partnership with BMW and good timing on the deal announcement as it related to my Solar City installation. I’m figuring out my math (and getting a whole new napkin to do that calculations with.)

Charge It! – Great food near public chargers #4 in an ongoing series – Abbot Kinney Blvd – Venice, CA

I’ve been too busy enjoying the driving and eating to have updated the Charge It! series, but here’s a place that I went to a month ago in the Abbot Kinney section of Venice Beach.

The chargers are located in the aptly named Electric Lodge which has five Blink chargers on the wall located on 1416 Electric Avenue, between Milwood Avenue and California Avenue.

View Larger Map

However, after 7 pm, they CAN be ICEd by folks going to the Electric Lodge. The electric only restricted parking is only enforced during the day, 7am-7pm daily.

Since it’s after 7pm, THIS guy IS allowed to park there:

This area of town has been a “hip” part of Los Angeles for quite a while and two of the restaurants in the area have been in eater.com’s Top 38. I liked both Tasting Kitchen and Gjelina, but today’s post is about Gjelina.

We started our dinner with a nice bottle of a dry furmint Tokaji from Bottpince Winery. This was the perfect summer wine to complement our meal. It’s akin to a dry Riesling, but slightly sweeter.

The plates on the menu were categorized between smaller and larger plates and we opted to dine Tapas style and enjoyed two starters, the Copper River Salmon Crudo with lemon Aioli, Horseradishe, and Chive AND Grilled Monterey Bay Squid w/ Melon, Celery, Chili & Salsa Verde.

The Copper River Salmon Crudo was excellent. The fish was fresh and very refreshing. It was melt in your mouth good. The dish went well with the wine and would’ve been excellent without it.

The grilled squid salad and melon’s only flaw was the fact that I wanted a bigger dish. However, as a single starter it would have been better, but having to share it with the better half left me hanging for more of the dish.

Luckily, I had other dishes that were still to come as this is Tapas style, after all people and we ordered more dishes.

The anchovy burrata toast was yummy! Nope, not a loss for words, just required ONE WORD – Yummy!

The next several dishes were our warmer ones AND the the restaurant was getting darker, so I have to apologize for the photos having to be touched up to be seen, but such is the challenge of photographs with iOs devices with no flash.

Our next two dishes were both Pork dishes. Luckily, I’m not restricted from eating pork as both dishes were awesome. The Pork Meatballs were nicely sauced and very flavorful. The meatballs were a great contrast to the light seafood that we had to start our meal.

After the meatballs, the Crispy Niman Ranch Pork Belly was the piece de resistance. The pork belly presented the same protein in a different yet delicious way. The pork meatballs is comfort food with a nice solid bite. The pork belly was both crispy (as the name implied) and ideally marbled underneath the sauce and chili.

If it had been an Asian restaurant, the pork belly would’ve come with rice, and I suppose that would’ve made the rice that much better, but it would not have gone with the flow of the meal. So, no fault of the restaurant, but this dish would’ve been great with white rice. But that’s a matter of personal taste, and the dish was excellent without is.

The culmination to this meal was the Banana and Chocolate Bread Pudding with Fresh Cream and Caramel. The dessert was great. It doesn’t look great, but it sure tasted that way. As plain as it looked, the dessert spared no expense in taste. What it lacked in looks, it made up for in the packed flavor in each bite.

Oh and Tasting Kitchen was great too… But I’ll have to write about that at another time. Just too stuffed after this one.

Ping…

Yes, I’m still here.

I’ve been busy with our ActiveE and have been on vacation on top of that… I promise at least two more ChargeIt! articles for two really great food AND charging facilities (here’s one of them – Gjelina at Electric Avenue in Venice). [Here’s the other Church and State – Mateo Street Charger, now caught up for the Great Food series.] However, trying to decide on whether to do the next article on joining the Solar powered movement.

Still haven’t received my “official” PTO, but I did notice an off-cycle close to my SCE account this past Friday (August 17) (when I logged in to my SCE account on Saturday) and followed up with a call to SCE on Saturday morning. According to the telephone representative my permission to operate (PTO) letter went out last week and I am now generating my own energy via the Solar Panels on the roof of the house.

Thanks to BMW and its partnership with Real Goods Solar, I was able to get a system at a bigger discount than I had originally negotiated with Solar City. But that will have to be the subject of a subsequent post. As well as updates to my Back of the Napkin Math series (1) and (2).

As those that have followed this blog, I’m not an “environmentalist”, I just like to save money. As long as one has a “long” view, the money savings will follow those that do things that are “environmental.”

012345 on the way to 67890

Almost there…

Got there today…

Pictures say a lot more than words…

I like the count up… 012345, now the question is whether I can get to 67890 BEFORE I have to return the car to BMW.

One mile in four hours… That’s because I have to charge 3/4 of a mile away from the office.

It’s also fortuitous that I was able to take both pictures whilst parked in the garage as opposed to the other “significant” mileage times.

Here are 012345 points that I learned these past 012345 miles:

I really LIKE the car and truly enjoy driving EV. I’m not looking forward to February 2014.
The weight I originally lost in my first few months of at least a 3/4 of a mile walk (to plug in at the nearest J1772 plug to my office) has been regained because of my Charge It! series of blog posts (and other restaurants that I’ve been to since Post 1, Post 2, and Post 3 (as well as upcoming, not yet linked Post 4).)
The car really does have an unlimited range, as long as you have access to public charging and the TIME to wait for it to charge.
Have to factor in the potential LONG stays at the dealership during the service intervals.
Drive, baby, drive… Trying to catch Tom (and others) is going to be tough.

It will be a fun 19 months of trying to catch them and try to get to 67890 miles!

Space… the Final Frontier. The difference between built Electric and a converted ICE Electric

This weekend, I was challenged by my better half to fit everything we needed to haul up to my sister-in-law’s house for our niece’s Fourth Birthday party. She thought that we needed to use our ever reliable X5 to do it’s hauling duty and I asserted that I thought we could take the ActiveE. Figuring that after many years of marriage, the worst that could happen was that I would have to accept defeat, I decided to prove it.

So, as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother would say, “Challenge Accepted.” In retrospect, I should’ve taken pictures of all the items that I had to pack into the ActiveE, but we had a kid’s birthday party to help get set up, and didn’t really have the time to dawdle. So the picturess are of the stuff IN the car…

To remind everyone… This is what I had to work with:

I also have a backseat where the seats fold down to carry stuff with, which I used, but the electric motor hump really does take the space. (that’s the section that has the ActiveE written on the carpet.)

These next three shots are what was packed behind the front seats with the passenger seats folded down.

Here it is closed:

Right side of the trunk:

Close up –

Left side of the trunk:

Needless to say, we packed a lot of stuff.

Distributed throughout the back are 8 bottles of wine (for the adults, not the 4 year old kids, of course.) The rolled up dusty thing is a rug that we use to lay outdoors. You would’ve also noted a 3 course buffet server in the backseat.

So, not only was the challenge accepted, I was also able to accomplish the task. Being an Electronut means being very motivated to try to stay away from driving any ICE, EVEN something as fun to drive as a BMW X5.

The balloons, were for a giant popcorn display that my better half made for the party (it was a Princess party with a movie at the end of the night, Beauty and the Beast, if you must know.)

If you’re paying close attention, you may have noticed that we DID lose a couple of balloons, but these were lost AT the destination, and thus not in the transport or difference between traveling with the X5 vs. the ActiveE.

So, what did this exercise prove. The ActiveE can make a quick stand-in for the X5, in a pinch, but it’s definitely one of the reasons that my Costco trips have gotten cheaper. I really can’t carry much there. Just more than I initially thought.

Which leads me to the second part of the thesis. These challenges occurred because we’re using a converted 1 series BMW. The hump does not exist in the Coda or the Tesla Model S.

Here are two shots from the Coda’s cavernous trunk:

or the Tesla Model S

I am sure that neither one will haul as much as the X5, however, I would guess the upcoming Tesla Model X will. I am sure that either the Coda or the Tesla Model S CAN haul more than the ActiveE.

I would think that the upcoming BMW i3 will ALSO have more hauling capacity than the ActiveE.

More i3 Pictures here.

So, as much as I really enjoy the ActiveE, the only positive of having to give it back to BMW at the end of the two years is I have something to look forward to with the NEXT generation of EVs.

Charge It! – Great food near public chargers #3 in an ongoing series – Malibu Country Market

Been enjoying going to lunch at the Americana at Brand, but those are my work-day eateries and I will probably write about those later… However, today’s Charge It! location is Malibu Country Mart. To recap, Helm’s Bakery and Santa Monica Place were our first two locations for the series.

View Larger Map

The charging station at this location is not on either of the two charging networks that I use (Blink or Chargepoint) and thus its a matter of faith to determine whether or not the charger will be available when getting there. It’s an Aerovironment charger that Recargo’s notes says requires an RFID card, however, this was not the case when I got there (luckily). The charger station is right at the entrance to the Malibu Country Mart market area.

It works great (as has been my experience with OTHER Aerovironment chargers.)

The Nobu in Malibu has been in existence for over a decade (1999, I believe). Being Malibu, have to blend in with the natives and my better half requested that I NOT take pictures of our meal, therefore, a food entry with no pics. However, seeing that Nobu Matsuhisa has been in business for a while, I do recommend that you peruse the link to his website for the food pictures.

As with a lot of Japanese restaurants, Nobu is best experienced if you enjoy the meal sharing many small dishes with your dining companions. I did not enjoy the Miso Black Cod at this location, though that is quite a good standby for anyone who visits Nobu for the first time.

Since this was our first trip to the Malibu location, we decided to try a few of their specialties, so we had the Tai Sweet Shiso with Crispy Shiitake and several of their Mini Tacos. Additionally, the sushi at Nobu is top-notch. However, it is also priced higher than other Southern California sushi bars that feature fish at the same quality level. At the end of the day, a lot of less expensive restaurants feature food at the same quality as Nobu Malibu without the location or the expense.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy myself and the food was excellent. However, other restaurants have caught up to the quality of meal that Nobu provides at a fraction of the cost. Charging your EV may be free, but you’re definitely paying for the meal.