Yes, that is my fall back option. I still keep the charging cable that came with the Leaf in the trunk, just in case!
So far, I haven't needed to go to the fall back option. I charge at a l2 host place near my work, and once a week I go to a fast charger near some restaurant.
A 6.6 kW L2 charger should put about 20 miles per hour of charging, so for 3 hours that's 60 miles. I do believe the 2012 Leaf gets maybe 40 in total, since battery degrade and older Leafs actually tell you how much your battery has degraded.
With that exact example of $3/hr, yes it's more expensive to use p2p charging than driving your Camaro. There are hosts that offer cheaper or free charging. The $3/hr is an example based on public charging rate in the Bay Area. Another case is if the host happen to be in a highly visited location and charge $10/hr for charging and parking.
EVs are still overall a bit more expensive than gas cars. That's why there are still subsidies. In the bigger picture, it's still paramount we switch to a cleaner and more sustainable energy source, and electrifying transportation is an inevitable step. I'm confident the technology will mature and will mature fast.
I can tell this problem has affected you and you have thought about it deeply. Really appreciate your feedbacks. Overall I agree with you completely.
The biggest assumption regarding this startup/project is that the p2p charging market can be build up to a substantial size beyond just one-off emergencies or long road trip cases. This is something some folks doubt and something I'm betting my blood, sweat and tears in.
What makes me confident is my own experience. I was FORCED to try the couch surfing type of charging with Plugshare first that I was super skeptical of myself, and LUCKILY my first experience worked really well. I also noticed with just 2 simple features the experience can be mostly consistently good.
There are more than 10,000 hosts on Plugshare, and if the experience can be consistently good, it could turn into THE largest charging network in the world. We are not there, but I want to get there.
There are definitely more than one way to solve a problem, and ampUp is just one of the many efforts out there trying to alleviate the range anxiety issue.
The way you phrased seem to suggest everyone should install home charging, which is definitely not possible when more people adopt EVs. I started having a problem myself, then trying to use existing solution to solve my problem first, and finally offering something I think works better.
Let's talk!
That sounds very interesting. We firmly believe in the reservation based model. Taxis use to be hailed, but now we reserve them. tom@ampup.io
Thank you for the encouragements! There are still a ton of work to be done to get the user experience to what we envision. Please keep the feedbacks coming!
You have a point on this one. However, it's not my service that's causing this. The price suggested was based on public charging rate, and the money will go to the hosts. There's no way to guarantee profit for the hosts always given electricity rates will change and gas prices will likely drop. The miles per kWh also changes depending on how you drive and the weather. Typical users will have a combination of home, workplace, public, and peer to peer charging. The total should still make EVs cheaper to drive. If all chargings are done via ampUp, yes the cost maybe as high or even higher than driving gas car. It's not likely, and peer to peer charging does add the reservation/predictability benefit to it.
EV growth is much higher than charging infrastructure growth. The current network of public chargers are predominantly level 2 chargers. There are many things that limit public charging installations like architectural changes and grid upgrade involved that need approvals from different entities. Some apartment management refuse installations because the architectural changes would violate rights of some tenants. I have heard a year's time was taken from the moment HOA approved EVSE installation to the actual EVSE being installed. The most optimistic projection for EV adoption world wide by 2025 is 14%, and I strongly doubt charging infra will be sufficient or have caught up by then. This problem will get worse before it gets better. If we change the time frame to 10 years, many many things could happen and I hope ampUp can continue to adopt.
We are still working on a long list of exciting features collected from user feedbacks and my personal experiences. Please stay tuned for those by following our Twitter: https://twitter.com/ampup_io
Our goal is definitely not make this a business for every hosts. We still have hosts that offer help in case of emergencies, and we love them. They are critical for more EV adoptions. Right now, we have hosts that indicate their chargers are open for emergencies only. ampUp also allow hosts to set a sharing schedule, so limiting the sharing hours within 10am and 2pm when kids are at school could hopefully alleviate the concerns there. Or just offer it for emergencies only! :).
Yes, we have a ticket in the back-log to offer a feature that recommend pricing for the hosts. Taking into account public charging rates, utility rates, and traffic.
The smart switch also has the purpose to distinguish charging vs just parking. So in some areas, we want to offer a separate rate for parking in the future.
Ratings and reviews are coming. Right now hosts on ampUp are nearly all hand picked.
A lot of home chargers in the Bay Area are installed outdoor, and for the ones installed in door the current hosts are all very nice people. I've been to a bunch of them myself. For term of use and liability, we currently roughly follow the same used by Airbnb, but we definitely plan to update.
I'm not too concerned about hosts asking for high prices, because public charging will always be an option, so public charging prices will act as a reference.
You know your stuff. A major problem the utilities face with EV charging is that there's only 1 meter per house. Utilities actually want to offer lower rates for EV charging, but with a single meter they can't tell what's being used for EV charging vs others. Currently it's the special rate over night. We have a smart switch prototype coming out in a week that can add internet to a switch and supposedly revenue grade metering. Of course, getting things approved by utilities could take months if not years.
At this point if the charger is in an access restricted place, the host will need to somehow allow access. In California, there are many that have the charger installed outdoor and use the garage as another room or a gym. In the Bay Area, for instance, 36% of people who share their charger have it installed outdoor. For chargers installed outdoor, it's fully automated. Working with remote controlled garage opener and some security camera partners are definitely in our plans. We are also looking into the option of extending the charging cable, so it can be left outside.
Yes, the calculation is based on $0.19/kWh charged by PG&E, with tiered rate, that cost does go up. So hosts will need to adjust the hourly prices depending on local cost and actual traffic. The $270 is from hosts with solar panels that have credits stored up. One user living in Santa Clara has 15000 kWhs saved up from almost a decade use of solar.
Fully juiced. haha.
Well, I think many people are jealous of you, me included. I actually live in a single family house, but my electric panel is all the way in the backyard. I don't have a sub-panel in the garage. The quotes I got are all around $2000 total to install home charging for me. I wanted to install one and share with people, but so far haven't been able to pull the trigger.
That's definitely a big part of the problem. Many people actually don't have dedicated private charging even today. To get more adoptions to EVs, we definitely need to make sure folks that lack home or workplace charging can predictably charge their cars.
That would definitely be the ultimate goal. Tesla just released the V3 charging, 75 miles in 5 mins. Hopefully others can follow quickly. I do think reservations can add quiet a bit of convenience or at least the predictability that feels good. Taxi were hailed, and currently we basically reserve them.