I live in an electrical vehicle heavy city and all of the charging stations are constantly full. At the charging station nearest my home, there are often 3 or 4 cars queueing for the next spot. I’ve seen this nearly come to blows since there is no dedicated area for queueing and no one knows who all is there or when one person was there before the other. Has anyone seen any effective queueing models in the setting of a packed parking lot?
I just wait for the happy, extroverted retired guy to climb out of his Mach e to politely direct everyone and call out updates.
"The Kia’s at 70% everyone, just 5 minutes left. Let’s get the polestar into that bay after the Kia, he was here first, and his drip makes me slightly self-conscious. The two Chevy Bolts are nearing 45%, no ETA from them, their owners are napping under a tree, they looked too peaceful to bother.”
Please just dont be the guy asking if he can unplug you “real quick like” because he just needs a taste, just a tiny taste, like just a half a kW.
@Thomas
I’m genuinely amazed you got all the stereotypes down perfectly there.
Amelia said:
@Thomas
I’m genuinely amazed you got all the stereotypes down perfectly there.
Polestar has “drip”? Mercedes? OK. Porsche? For sure. Lucid, Hummer? Yep.
Amelia said:
@Thomas
I’m genuinely amazed you got all the stereotypes down perfectly there.
Polestar has “drip”? Mercedes? OK. Porsche? For sure. Lucid, Hummer? Yep.
Retired guys in Mach-E’s don’t say drip anyway.
@Mark
I’m a retired person in an Ioniq5 and I had to google “drip” to be sure 
I would probably have said “swagger”.
Nathan said:
@Mark
I’m a retired person in an Ioniq5 and I had to google “drip” to be sure
I would probably have said “swagger”.
I assumed it was a drip coffee…I suspect I was wrong.
@Thomas
Lol! I’ve been the guy directing traffic.
martin said:
@Thomas
Lol! I’ve been the guy directing traffic.
I thank you for your service!
I personally pull up and talk to people… I once chatter with everyone and they let me skip to the front because I only needed 5 min to get home
jeff said:
I personally pull up and talk to people… I once chatter with everyone and they let me skip to the front because I only needed 5 min to get home
That sounds beneficial, but the downside is that it involves interacting with other people. Better to stay in the car with the windows up and hope nobody notices you.
I look forward to when it becomes cost-effective to have robot arms that automatically plug the car in, making EV charging into a true drive-through, never-leave-the-car experience.
jeff said:
I personally pull up and talk to people… I once chatter with everyone and they let me skip to the front because I only needed 5 min to get home
Do you, by any chance own a rivian?
Yeah this is a serious problem - and idk if reservations make this worse or better yet. I think worse if not everyone can make them (ie Mercedes charging network in the US)
Howard said:
Yeah this is a serious problem - and idk if reservations make this worse or better yet. I think worse if not everyone can make them (ie Mercedes charging network in the US)
It’ll make it worse. You’ll reserve a station. Someone will show up to empty stall and pull in. Then they’ll be pissed the machine is not working when you roll up. I can’t see that working out well
@Robert
Yep, and then someone passes you and plugs in cutting the line. They aren’t the reservation holder, they just know reservations time out after 15 minutes, so they block the stall until then.
I have a lot of reservations about this.
@Robert
Reservations with assigned waiting area and an attendant.
Imani said:
@Robert
Reservations with assigned waiting area and an attendant.
Great, so even more expensive to build and maintain. Even higher prices.
Imani said:
@Robert
Reservations with assigned waiting area and an attendant.
Great, so even more expensive to build and maintain. Even higher prices.
All those negatives are true, but when EV penetration gets high enough there will be a market for it. Especially if it’s a holiday weekend and the blue collar non-valet charging station next door has a line three hours long.
It’s similar to first class airplane seats. They are not at all the cost-effective option, and yet they’re still worth it to someone.
@Ronald
It’d cost less to just add more stations
jessicah said:
@Ronald
It’d cost less to just add more stations
Of course, just like it would cost less to bulldoze fancy restaurants and build more McDonald’s. There are many markets where there is money to be made by adding an upscale option.