Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Preparing for electric cars on site

[Jerry McIntire (jerry.mcintire]

Diana, if you add EV charging spots in your general parking areas, just put
them in the "bad" (more distant) spots-- or if the community wants to
encourage EV ownership, put them in the "good" locations. Either way,
prohibit non-EV's from parking in those spots. A blocked charger is of no
use-- though they can be located between two spots, so they can be accessed
from either.

Jerry

Jerry McIntire
Stone's Throw Ecovillage, in the heart of Wisconsin's beautiful Driftless
region
http://stonesthrowcommunity.wordpress.com/
1-608-637-6620

On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 8:40 AM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> We, mosaic commons, unfortunately did not prepare for electric cars so we
> are now having to figure it out after the fact.
>
> In our community, we have two types of parking: carports, which were
> optional to purchase at the beginning, and general parking lot parking for
> those who don't have carports.
>
>   The carports have electricity already installed.  Each carport houses 4-6
> cars, but the circuit that provides the electricity has enough power for
> one or at most two electric cars. (This is the "we didn't plan for this"
> issue.)
>
> So far, two people have purchased electric cars, and both happen to be
> people who already owned spots in carports...separate carports,
> conveniently.
>
> We required those two owners to install an electricity monitoring device to
> keep track of how much electricity their cars use, and reimburse the
> community for the cost of that electricity. This works out okay for now
> when we have just the two, but totally doesn't scale.
>
> There's a group in our community working on plans to build an additional
> carport. ( fortunately we do have space for this.). The new carport would
> be built with sufficient electricity for all the spots to have electric
> cars.  This will give us an additional 6 or so spots suitable for electric
> cars, but will only be available to those who can afford the purchase of a
> carport, which is in the vicinity of $8k.
>
> With the new carport in place, our community of 34 units will be able to
> support some 10-12 electric cars.  If we need more than that, we are going
> to have to do some serious thinking about economical ways to address the
> issue.
>
> Less technically difficult but perhaps more challenging are the social
> ramifications: other than those with carports, our community parking is
> undesignated, and the "best" spots (those closest to the units) are taken
> on a first come first served basis.  (Hotly contested, let me tell you!).
> If we set up charging spots outside of carports, how do we make sure that
> the people with electric cars can access those spots when needed?  Do we
> reserve them just for individuals with electric cars?  Is that fair to
> everyone else, who are now competing for even fewer "good" spots in the
> lot?  We have not yet addressed these questions but I'm guessing before the
> decade is out we will need to.
>
> Hope this is helpful.
>
> Diana
>
> On Saturday, February 14, 2015, mburkel [at] juno.com <mburkel [at] juno.com> 
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Winslow Cohousing is beginning to recognize that electric cars are here
> > and have started working on a plan.  I see a 2010 cohousing-L posting
> that
> > asked many of our questions but received NO responses.  In case more
> > communities have looked at the issues since then, I'm restarting that
> > thread.  Our shared electric car died several years ago and hasn't been
> > replaced but 2 members now have electric cars on site and more are
> > expected. From 2010:"I wonder what Cohousing communities are doing to
> > prepare for electric vehicles, owhich are likely to become more common as
> > the plug-in hybrids (Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt) become available. On
> this
> > list there are a few references to individual with electric cars, but not
> > much in detail or in the last couple of years.
> >  Questions: Where will such cars be parked?How many spaces are you
> > planning for?Who will pay for the infrastructure (outlets, etc)?How will
> > the electricity used by paid for (metered or flat fee paid by the owner,
> or
> > paid by the community)?Are there objections in the community to
> supporting
> > electric cars (Examples: "Internal combustion vehicles are more
> > eco-friendly." Or, "Electric cars will be acceptable only after we put in
> > the infrastructure to capture/generate renewable energy ourselves.")?
> Marci
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