Public Charging Stations – Page 2 – My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental

National Plug in Day 2012… Part 2… The Cypress event for Orange County.

Part two of my 2012 Plug In Day experience was down in Cypress. The Orange County event was held at the Mitsubishi North America headquarters and there was plenty of test drives around. This was an opportunity to try out the Mitsubishi i (formerly the MiEV) and see their Level 3 ChaDEmo charger in action.

One of the first things that I saw after I parked at the OC event was a Sparrow. Prior to my ActiveE, I was familiar with the Nissan Leaf, GM EV1, Chevy Volt, the Tesla Roadster and that was pretty much it. As I waited to be allocated my ActiveE, I started reading up on previous EVs and the Sparrow was one that caught my eye. It would never be a vehicle I would be getting, but it harkens to some of the trials and tribulations of EV predecessors to the current generation, after all, as George Santayana has written, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The Orange County event had more EV conversions than the Los Angeles County event.

A converted Geo Metro –

A homebuilt 3 wheeler –

A converted Miata –

A converted VW Pickup Truck –

There was some speeches and now Congressman-elect, and former GM EV1 Driver, Allan Lowenthal was there to meet with his constituents.

The Orange County event provided me with the opportunity to test drive the Mitsubishi i (formerly the MiEV) and a Honda Fit EV (from Toan Ngo). I also let a few interested parties test drive my ActiveE.

The Fit EV –

Here’s a shot of the Mitsubishi i from previous trip to the same site in Cypress –

In all it was a successful day, filled with EV enthusiasts and curious folks who, hopefully, will become EV enthusiasts.

Little Milestones reached today…

19,000 miles and 5 miles per kWh…

Here is 18,999 miles…

And now 19,000 miles…

I was parked at AAA Main Office in Downtown LA and used their charger while I did my business. They have you sign in to use their charger and I parked beside Toan’s Fit EV which I have still to write about for my Plug In Day event experience (here’s Part 1, which does NOT include the Fit Experience.) It was interesting to be parked beside someone’s car that I have actually test driven a month or so earlier. So, Toan, if you’re reading this. I accidentally interrupted your charging when I thought that the Aerovironment chargers worked like others (without RFID scan needed), I restarted the charge when I got the guy at AAA’s Smog Center to scan the RFID on both chargers for us!

It’s a nice ride… I like my ActiveE more, but his car is pretty good as well.

So. After my mid-day charge while I worked, I needed to run a quick errand and went flat for about a mile and change and noticed that I achieved a rate of 5.0 miles per kilowatt hour… This is insane. But I guess when you go between 20-25 mph and use regen to brake it could happen…

and further proof

Well, what do you know… Bumper to bumper traffic for about 20 miles after these shots ALSO allowed me to maintain the same rate!

Charge It! – Great food near public chargers #6 in an ongoing series – Valley Road, Montclair, New Jersey – Nauna’s Bella Casa and ActiveE #1

I still owe you guys my first National Plug In Day experience. However, to be a little more timely, I figure to update my Charge It! series.

As many of my readers know, I’ve been writing on a series of great restaurants to go to while you charge. Today’s post is a little different. It’s nowhere to be found in the Los Angeles area. It’s in Northern New Jersey, approximately 30 minutes (with no real traffic) from New York city – Nauna’s Bella Casa. No, I didn’t take several weeks to go from Los Angeles to New Jersey to go to lunch with my ActiveE. For this trip, I rented a Nissan Leaf from Hertz on Demand. Hertz car sharing subsidiary which allows members the opportunity to rent either a Nissan Leaf or SmartEV in the New York city area.

Nauna’s Bella Casa can be found at 148 Valley Road, Montclair, New Jersey, 07042. (973) 744-3232.

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So, what takes me from New York City to Montclair, New Jersey. Frankly, I wanted to meet this guy, Tom Moloughney, aka Mini-E #250 and more importantly to me, Mr. ActiveE #1 and the top mileage leader that I foolishly challenged to try to “catch up” on top mileage use for all of the other ActiveE Electronuts. As of the writing of this posting (in-flight from JFK to LAX) my ActiveE is waiting for me at LAX Lot 6 with 17,902 and Tom’s listed mileage on wotnogas.com is 27,795… Needless to say, this is a TOUGH challenge.

Here’s a picture of Tom Moloughney and me in front of Tom’s New Jersey EF-OPEC (AKA Active E #1).

So, how’s the food. It was good, home-style Italian food at a great value. I had the lunch special which was Soup, Entree, soft drink, coffee (or tea, I believe) and dessert for $9.99. As opposed to other posts in this series, I have NO picture of the food. I was too busy enjoying the discussions between Tom and myself on the Active E, EVs, new BMWs, Teslas, Energy Independence, etc.

For my choice of soup, I picked the Pasta Fagioli. There were other choices, but I really like Pasta Fagioli so I had that. For my entree, I went with the Fusilli e Pollo which is the spiral pasta with grilled chicken & spinach. I really enjoyed the Fusilli e Pollo, but since I went out to Nauna’s in Day two of my trip to the East Coast, the meal was biologically breakfast for me, so the portion size was a little larger than I could finish, so I brought the rest to go. I skipped coffee and had ice cream for dessert (chocolate). The meal was very good and felt home-cooked.

How about the chargers? Nauna’s has two J1772 chargers, one on Chargepoint and the other on the Blink Network. If you’re eating here, the charging is gratis, otherwise, the network fees would apply, I believe that the Chargepoint is free, but the Blink is based on your membership plan, so to get that charging at no cost, check in with the restaurant before you plug in.

How did I do getting to Nauna’s. Well, I picked up the Nissan Leaf (was hoping for a SmartEV, but that will have to be a different post) from Hertz On Demand’s location at 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. This drive was approximately 20 miles away, but my consumption is closer to 35 miles from the range. This was my first time driving a Leaf for ANY extended period and I must say that it was not as fun as my Active E, at least it seemed to perform better than the Coda that I test drove a few months ago.

So, if you find yourself anywhere near Montclair, NJ. Even if it isn’t that near, give Tom a call and see if he’s available and you can enjoy a tasty lunch and have some fun “talking EV and stuff”. I’ll probably get around to plug in day 2012 (Part 1, Part 2 to follow) and my Hertz on Demand SmartEV rental fiasco.

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 –

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The Orange County one at Cypress –

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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

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

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

Public Charging stations and being mindful of the parking situation

Currently, the biggest challenge with public charging stations is when an internal combustion engine car is taking up a charging spot so that an EV can not use it. This is what is meant when an EV driver mentions that a spot is ICEd.

Most public charging locations try to solve this problem by properly marking up their spots AND in some locations actually ticketing violators of their signage.

See this BMW X5 at the Americana at Brand –

and a close up of the ticket issued to the driver –

I really appreciate centers and police departments that enforce these EV only spots as it hopefully actively deters the practice of ICEd locations.

This is an easy violation to spot.

The thing that I believe we need to come up with a solution for is the fellow EV driver that picks a charger that blocks out others from being able to use either the parking spots or other EV chargers at the location. Let me attempt to explain this. If you have a charging port on the opposite side of the car where the charging station is and a charging station that is on the same side of the car, some drivers will pick the one closest to their charging port, EVEN IF doing so will effectively make a spot or another charger unavailable for the next car to use. I don’t know what to call this violation, but here are a few pictures:

At L.A. Live, Lot W (West Lot), I’ve seen this Plug-in Prius park in spot 2 while using the charger from spot 3 to charge with.

I made this crude diagram to demonstrate the point. The Os are the Blink EVSEs.

By using the charger in Spot 3 while parking in Spot 2, the plug in Prius effectively blocked out use of Spot 3 for MOST cars.

Here’s the same Prius doing the same thing at this location at another day –

To solve this, and to allow others, should they arrive I moved from Spot 1 and parked in Spot 3 and used Spot 2’s EVSE to charge to allow Spot 1 and Spot 4 to charge, should some other EVs need to take the spot.

BEFORE

AFTER

However our cords were crossed during this time, and would’ve been a hazard. Mr. or Ms. Plug-In-Prius could’ve solved this by just taking Spot 4, and this is exactly the point I am trying to make. Pay attention to how the spots are configured and ensure that the charger and spot you are taking will allow the maximum number of fellow EV drivers to park in the location.

I don’t know what we should call this sort of EV violation. It’s not ICEing the spot, since the car IS an EV (yes, even Plug-ins with Range Extenders (gas engine backups are such), however, the person needs to be more mindful of what they’re doing.

Another example can be seen at the Americana at Brand on Thursday, July 12. The same day that the BMW X5 above was ticketed for ICEing the spot.

This Volt was charging while parked in Spot 2 using the charger on Spot 1. I understand that their charging port is on the driver’s side, but if the other spots had been taken, another car MAY not have been able to park in Spot 1 to use the charger in Spot 2 without possibly crossing Spot 2. The driver of the Volt should have used the charger assigned to Spot 2 and left the charger in Spot 1 available for someone else to use.

The charger was available AND long enough to reach the Volt’s front Driver’s side charging port.

I don’t know if we have a word for this fellow EV driver erroneously using the wrong charger, but if all indications are correct and there will be more of us on the road, we really need to be more mindful of what EVSEs are appropriate for whatever parking spot we decided to take.

Currently, there are still not that many of us on the road sharing these public stations, but there are definitely more EV drivers than in the past. And the projected sales figures show a little over 3x as many this year as last year. So, the EV community needs to be more mindful of how to approach this inadvertent blocking of the precious few charging spots and locations to charge.

Long Range Test… planned but not implemented… (or Long Beach to Santa Barbara, but chickened out).

Ok, so I live in Long Beach, the southernmost city in Los Angeles County (and the county’s second largest city).

According to Google Maps, about 135 Mile Trip between home and some of the Chargepoint Public Chargers on Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara.

So, to make it from home to Santa Barbara and back in the same day, I would have to seriously plan this out AND have the time to execute.

Under ideal circumstances I MAY make it there, but after 4 months of driving the ActiveE I know that this is near impossible for the way that I drive, so I needed to PLAN my trip between the two locations AND have the time to charge each way AND midway.

So, what was my plan…

I’ve always attested that the range on the ActiveE is UNLIMITED… You just have to make sure that you have enough time to charge in between stops. My destination was 135 miles away, there are chargers about 60 miles away and another around 90 miles away, so I had identified two locations. Additionally, to charge for the difference, I figured that I would need at least two hours before my appointment to ensure that I feel confident that I would have enough charge to make it to my destination.

So, I identified two possible charging stations.

1) Thousand Oaks – Janss Marketplace, 275 N. Moorpark Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360. These chargers are on the Blink Network, and showed up as available on the application. (About 60 miles from home)

2) Ventura, CA – Pacific View Mall, between Sears and Red Robin. These are some non-networked Clipper Creek chargers that I would not have known the status of, until I got there (there are several pay Chargepoint chargers in the City of Ventura (another 5 or so miles further, if I had been more daring).

At the start of the day, I just couldn’t get up early enough to charge for a few hours mid-route, so we ended up ICEing it up to Santa Barbara. The weather was nice and we at least went convertible, so there was something that the ICE did that the ActiveE did not to minimize my “guilt” over ignoring the ActiveE for the day.

After my lunch in Santa Barbara, I decided to do a survey of a few of the city of Santa Barbara charging stations. The stations themselves are free, but parking will cost money. The first 75 minutes are complimentary, and every hour (or fraction thereof is $1.50. Parking is limited to 72 hours continuously and the lots are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Pictures of the two Chargepoints at 1221 Anacapa St, Santa Barbara, California 93101

Down the street from there are a couple of other Chargepoint stations at 1115 Anacapa St, Santa Barbara, California 93101.

So, having surveyed a few spots to charge along the way to Santa Barbara. With enough time to wait in between, a weekend drive to Santa Barbara may well be in the plans for the future… I just have to get my car back from BMW Service since they’re taken it for its 10,000 mile checkup (and now replacing the e machine…).