New HD Truck - Atlis

Chainwright wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:

Groover wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:

Reisender wrote:
Campgrounds won’t be required to upgrade their services to provide for EV charging. No more than hotels are required to have EV charging for overnight stays. Of course, we won’t stay at a hotel if they don’t have destination overnight charging. It’s up to them if they want my business.

Will the power fairy just sprinkle pixie dust on the services to allow for the increased loads? The concerns aren't about the one guy who tows a Tesla behind his Prevost, it is should EVs become ubiquitous, how the heck are they going to be charged. I agree, if I wanted to allow it, my parks could easily handle charging one electric vehicle overnight. The problem arises when that one vehicle becomes 30 or 40, when it isn't just topping off the battery, it's recharging a couple dozen of these Atlis trucks (this thread) from nearly discharged to full capacity so they can go 500 more miles tomorrow. It isn't about using a 120 volt charger that adds 5 miles of range an hour, it's about how do you supply 480 volt, or even 1000 volt services to each site if the answer to the recharging question is charge at your destination because that is what is going to be needed to recharge the type of vehicles used in RVing. In my opinion, EVs will only capture the major transportation market when and if charging becomes similar to refueling an internal combustion vehicle in both time and convenience.

I don't think that anyone here is expecting you to do it for free. However, I do suspect that you charge extra for sites with 50amp service. I think that it would be prudent of you to expect power demands to increase in the future and to consider that when doing any work on your grid and be prepared to charge appropriately for extra power provided. As for charging vehicles, if I were in your place a I would consider putting in a few EV charge stations near the main office in the future.

Nope, don't charge extra for 50 amp. In the real world of RV park ownership there actually is negligible difference in the daily cost of having a fully electric RV in a 50 amp site and a pop up camper in a 30 amp site. What the big class A uses in electricity cost, the popup makes up by using the park's showers and restrooms. Heck, on a hot day, the Popup very easily uses more electricity running a rooftop air trying to cool the canvas walled RV than the big 45 footer uses cooling the much better insulated rig.
There is much more to charging EVs in volume than just having a charging station. Real estate has to be dedicated to the charging station(s). Allowances have to be made for what to do with the drivers and passengers as they wait for the vehicle to charge. Even the massive Megachargers being discussed (yet not available, so they are just theory at this point) apparently take 20 minutes plus to completely charge a vehicle. That would mean if three vehicles are in line (common in modern gas stations), the business would have to accommodate the passengers and drivers for 1 hour. A well run RV park would not allow random people to roam the park for an hour, so there would need to be some other solution.
Fueling internal combustion vehicles is not very profitable. That is why most have convenience stores, or less frequently, repair shops attached. There is no reason to assume that fueling EVs would be wildly profitable either. I doubt anyone has not noticed that fuel stations take large amounts of staffing and need to be open long hours (often 24/7) and don't close seasonally. All of those run against my business plans. Other than the fact that both RVs and EVs need to plug in, there really is no overlap between the businesses.

Exactly...IT Goes against YOUR business plans. So like REISENDER said: you wouldn't get his business, he would just go to the next HOTEL (CG) that's offers that Service.
IN the grand scheme of things you are a "MOM and POP" shop. I wish you continued success, but you see what the Walmarts (Corporate America) and Company have done to Mom and POP shops. And the RV world has their share of "Walmarts." So it's in your interest to come up with something that keeps you competitive, if not I see you exiting this business in about 10-15 yrs.

Although the networks like Chargepoint. EVGO, Flo obviously make money providing charging stations I think a lot of the money they make comes from the offering of the service itself, not from the the EV driver. Meaning the restaurant or hotel or whatever pays the netwrok fee. I would be interested in seeing the breakdown of how it works for the vendor or property provider. I suppose one could just contact a company like Chargepoint and ask.

I also think the numbers are a lot different for level 2 and level 3 facilities. Level 2 is inexpensive for a business to add especially if there is an extra 50 amps or 100 amps available in the main panel. Level three is a substantial investment though. Hotels just add level 2 as that is all that is needed. A dozen 240 volt 20 amp breakered plugs is all most hotels would need. Mounted wall chargers are nice but unnecessary as every EV comes with its own EVSE ready to plug in. Having said that we see more and more parking areas (especially the covered ones) going with this idea. The local casino partnered with the city and put in 24 of these. These are 32 amp which is nice but overkill. These are networked with chargepoint but the casino decided to make them free as a loss leader to get customers into the hotel and restaurants. That also seems to be getting more common. The apartment dwellers that currently don't have access at home can pick up their daily 6 or 10 KW while they are shopping or getting lunch. The mini mall or group of stores write it off to advertising. There are 8 on this picture but there are 24 in total. The ones in the shade are occupied much more often. :0




Full day or half day type parking like you would find at work is usually much slower. 16 amp 240 or even 12 amp 120 for the full day type parking is all that is needed. For apartment dwellers up north it is already common to have these for block heaters usually connected to the renters meter.