Ev charging in camps expectation of availability, cost

[SDcampowneroper]

Evs in our region are primarily the few commuters or as tows behind MHs to use as tour the area vehicles. Commuters recharge at home maybe at work, though I do not know of any companies here that offer that service yet,
What I want you to post is as you travel with an EV towed, perhaps someday as a tow, how do you expect camp power supplies to be equal to charging your vehicle. An argument that EVs popularity growth will be met equally by growth in power generation and distribution has merit in metropolitan areas with steady power use curves. where the increase is anticipated. Its not so well defined in areas with regional high power use times,

Camps built yesterday did not -could not - put in the infrastructure to meet such massive electrical loads that serving the rvs and EV recharging. Where once 4/0 al cabling served by a 200a main to x # 50a rv sites, will quickly by overloaded with only a couple of recharging vehicles.
How is an existing camp to meet that load, pass the costs on?
How is a new camp to design for that potentiality, Pass the costs on?


I do not have a dog in this fight, we sold our camp last year and retired.

[Sjm9911]

msmith1.wa wrote:
Let me start this off by stating I own an EV, but it is not used by us when we RV, because we use a truck and trailer.

Why is it incumbent on the park to provide charging stations?

The charger that I have at my house I would call semiportable, it is kind of big, but it can be done. It plugs into the same outlet that a 50 amp RV would. I bought this version because if we were to travel with the car, some places have thus type of plug that they allow guests/customers to use for charging.

This is a big if, but if the power pedestal is wired properly it should be able to supply power to all of the plugs at their rated capacity. With appropriate adapters, when needed, both the RV and EV could be connected to the pedestal. One to the 50 and the other to the 30 if the pedestal is equipped with both a 50 and 30. If not, one to the 30 and the other to the 15.

I know this doesn't typically apply to a motorhome and toad combination, but most parks charge an extra vehicle fee. The park could just charge an EV fee in attempt to cover the added electricity use. Or the less popular option, raise the price for all sites.

Not knowing how the park sets up there ellectric, i will throgh this out there. Just because it has a breaker and can carry that type of voltage does not mean the lines coming into the park can handle it. For example, if i have a 100 amp electrical panel in my home, i can run a subpanel or two off my home ellectric at say 60 amps each. I cant get 120 or 220 amps out of that panel. At most 100 amps. This takes into consideration that not every outlet is used. Thats why some parks have a 1 cord per site policy. So the main in the campground does not get overloaded. I am oversimplfing it. But its the same idea.

[pianotuna]

DrewE,

Thank you for the correction! I'm amending my post.

[DrewE]

pianotuna wrote:

The current electrical code has 7 50 amp, on ONE measly 200 amp breaker. Since 50 amp is "rv speak" each one of the 7 is actually 100 amps. The code relies on not all air conditioners starting at once.

So just two pedestals in heavy use may "max out" the 200 amp circuit, even if it is "looped".

The 200A breaker is a two-pole, 240V breaker, so it's 200A per leg--just as the 50A electric supply is 50A, 120/240V split phase, with 50A per leg. Two fully-utilized 50A connections would not max out the 200A circuit, but rather load it to half capacity. Whether the pedestals are installed in a ring or a spur topology is immaterial here.

The general point that the minimum requirements for RV park electrical installations are somewhat outdated and undersized is entirely valid. Adding EV charging to any great extent will exacerbate that in many parks unless significant infrastructure upgrades are also performed.

[pianotuna]

msmith1.wa wrote:
This is a big if, but if the power pedestal is wired properly it should be able to supply power to all of the plugs at their rated capacity. With appropriate adapters, when needed, both the RV and EV could be connected to the pedestal. One to the 50 and the other to the 30 if the pedestal is equipped with both a 50 and 30. If not, one to the 30 and the other to the 15.

The current electrical code has 7 50 amp, on ONE measly 200 amp breaker, yielding 200 amps per leg. Since 50 amp is "rv speak" each one of the 7 is actually 100 amps. The code relies on not all air conditioners starting at once.

So just four pedestals in heavy use may "max out" the 200 amp circuit, even if it is "looped".

[msmith1_wa]

Let me start this off by stating I own an EV, but it is not used by us when we RV, because we use a truck and trailer.

Why is it incumbent on the park to provide charging stations?

The charger that I have at my house I would call semiportable, it is kind of big, but it can be done. It plugs into the same outlet that a 50 amp RV would. I bought this version because if we were to travel with the car, some places have thus type of plug that they allow guests/customers to use for charging.

This is a big if, but if the power pedestal is wired properly it should be able to supply power to all of the plugs at their rated capacity. With appropriate adapters, when needed, both the RV and EV could be connected to the pedestal. One to the 50 and the other to the 30 if the pedestal is equipped with both a 50 and 30. If not, one to the 30 and the other to the 15.

I know this doesn't typically apply to a motorhome and toad combination, but most parks charge an extra vehicle fee. The park could just charge an EV fee in attempt to cover the added electricity use. Or the less popular option, raise the price for all sites.

[valhalla360]

qtla9111 wrote:
A lot of state and national parks are opening charging stations. I've never understood the haggle over hookups when you have a 45ft motorhome with three A/Cs and a popup next to it with the same overnight fee. So why the haggle over having an EV using a hookup?

Generally speaking that 45ft MH with 3 air/con units does pay more...50amp sites cost more and the main reason is they use more power.

If you are on a 30amp site, you aren't running 3 air/con units

[mowermech]

For those advocating the installation of electric meters at each campsite, I have a tale to tell!
We stayed for three months at an RV park near Oceano, CA some years ago. They were in the process of installing meters for all the "long term" sites, then suddenly they stopped, and all the already installed meters were removed. It seems they didn't realize that if they were charging for electricity, the meters had to be checked for calibration, and calibrated if necessary. They had to send all the meters in to be certified, then they could install them. By the end of our stay, the meters still hadn't been installed.
Buying, certifying, and installing meters isn't exactly inexpensive. The ROI might be a long time!

[Reisender]

Sjm9911 wrote:

magicbus wrote:
Seems like a much better business opportunity to install a diesel pump at the campground as I am almost always in need of a fill-up when I arrive.

Dsve

Lol.
Why stop at electric, there will be hydrogen cars and TVs that need fuel, natural gas also. We should demand all the campgrounds install whatever we need to go there. Oh , wait.....

If you have an EV you will go where it can get charged. Simple. If the campground doesn't accommodate it you probably will not go there. If electric is the future they will eventually add it to the infrastructure or go out of buisness. If electric vehicals get replaced, then they will install whatever else is the new future. Lol. This will be costly and not happen anytime soon. So be prepared to pay extra for the EVs now and use the site pedistals that are there.

Totally agree. Using the pedestals that are already there has been working for us. But long term there will be Improvements and they will draw clients.

[Sjm9911]

magicbus wrote:
Seems like a much better business opportunity to install a diesel pump at the campground as I am almost always in need of a fill-up when I arrive.

Dsve

Lol.
Why stop at electric, there will be hydrogen cars and TVs that need fuel, natural gas also. We should demand all the campgrounds install whatever we need to go there. Oh , wait.....

If you have an EV you will go where it can get charged. Simple. If the campground doesn't accommodate it you probably will not go there. If electric is the future they will eventually add it to the infrastructure or go out of buisness. If electric vehicals get replaced, then they will install whatever else is the new future. Lol. This will be costly and not happen anytime soon. So be prepared to pay extra for the EVs now and use the site pedistals that are there.

[magicbus]

Seems like a much better business opportunity to install a diesel pump at the campground as I am almost always in need of a fill-up when I arrive.

Dsve

[wapiticountry]

Electric vehicles account for around 1% of the vehicles on the road in the US. Even if those percentages equally applied to RVers (which they are not, since there are almost no electric vehicles towing trailers and very few being used as tow cars since 4 wheel down towing is currently not available) a park would lose at most only 1% of their business by not having EV charging available. To chase that 1% would involve both a capital investment in charging equipment and installation of that equipment. Even with RV charging it is likely the park would capture less than that potential 1% since some people would not have a requirement to charging available when they choose where they are going to stay. The park would be much better served financially to invest that money into advertising or amenities that would attract the 99% who do not require EV charging.
Even if the most optimistic projections come to fruition, it will be a decade or more before EVs become even a large minority of the vehicles on the road. It is very likely that the technology and infrastructure for recharging will greatly evolve over that time. There is really no reason whatsoever for a RV park to make an investment in EV charging at this time. It isn't always necessary or wise to be part of the leading edge.

[CharlesinGA]

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
O P here.
Met with our SD district 30 reps today in a mid legislative session crackerbarrel . Hb 1153 passed by supermajority levying a $50/ annum surcharge on SD our registered 162 personal EVs inthe state.
Its a crack in the wall to raise fees equivalent to road use taxes in our user pay for road use service.
It was accepted that the % of EVs registered in state will grow beyond ICE powered vehicles. exponentially.

$50 a year is probably not near enough but at least they didn't go the other way.

I leased a 2015 Nissan LEAF from May of 2015 to late April of 2017. It was a 2 year, 24k mile lease. I turned it in a couple of miles short of 24K. In 2016 the Georgia legislature was pondering the road use tax issue for EV's and one legislator calculated about $100 (which was darn close to the tax paid on gasoline for my 32 mpg Vibe for 12K miles, but what did they do? the a$$ hat went "well $100 is OK so lets go with $200!!!!" and that is what they did in the legislation. Total ripoff. Hybrids such as a Prius only had to pay $100 a year. To be fair, I got a $5000 state income tax credit for that lease, which just about paid all of my state income tax for one year.

I cannot see how a campground would be able to afford to add the infrastructure needed to support even Level 2 chargers at every campsite. Now, RESORTS, those places I would never go, but the guy with the 40 diesel pusher with an EV on a trailer behind it would go to a place like that, so with sites being $90 a night or more, they could afford to do an upgrade.

If I were running a basic mom and pop campground near national parks and other out of the way places where electricity is limited, I would probably just install a couple of level 2 chargers somewhere close to the incoming power and set up some fee schedule for their use. The only other alternative would be something like the charge point system we had at work. I lived far enough from work that the first year, I could not drive the LEAF to work and home, Then they put in ten Charge Point connections and you flashed your card and it would deduct from your account. When the account got down to some amount, I don't recall what, i think it was $10, it would charge your credit card for an additional $25. I worked a Fri-Sat-Sun 12 hr days and a make up day every third week so on the weekends when the chargers were open, I would park on them and I would get a text message when it was fully charged and I would usually move it off the charging station (mostly because I wanted the car closer to me at the end of the shift, the stations never got full on weekends so there was no dying need to vacate the space.

My drive to work one way was about 47 miles, mostly interstate and the typical cost to charge was just shy of $2. I still have a $17.22 balance on the account and the last time I used it was April 23, 2017. I have two level 2 units here at the house, one on the back of the house, and another just inside the shop door. They were/are relatively inexpensive, so when GA Power made me an offer for a flat bill (no make up at the end of 12 mos) on the house, I put the one on the back of the house and drove for free for that first year. I dropped the flat bill after that, since it was going up about $30 per month due to my extra consumption the previous year.

Charles

[time2roll]

Just chasing the boogyman

[Reisender]

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
O P here.
Met with our SD district 30 reps today in a mid legislative session crackerbarrel . Hb 1153 passed by supermajority levying a $50/ annum surcharge on SD our registered 162 personal EVs inthe state.
Its a crack in the wall to raise fees equivalent to road use taxes in our user pay for road use service.
It was accepted that the % of EVs registered in state will grow beyond ICE powered vehicles. exponentially.
As I tendered in my opening this thead, Evs will first most heavily impact the daily use, touring people, most for now from out of state to visit .
Recharging those growing #s vehicles in public and private parks is the issue in our static in ground power supply designed per NEC to meet rv needs.
I echo wapiticountrys posts, remote charging stations will not bode well, that pianotunas remotely metering at site with pay for use.
SD is one of many states that only allow a pass on charge for utility, SD cannot upcharge our kw\hr rate, thus the infrastructure to provide facility can only be recovered by a daily increased site fee. Our state parks are most heavily impacted, seeing KWhrs/ site/ night rise 10-20% YoY.
to those who do not use that facility, it is wrong to raise site fees to subsidise those who use an extraordinary amount of utility. Pay to Play Plan.
Just how it can work and be satisfactory is yet to work out.
the argument about pools, CATV playgrounds and such is moot. They amount to pennies/ day/guest, easily justified in a business plan.

I still think consulting with a company like Chargepoint might be helpful. They have helped everybody from golf courses to shopping malls sort out the issues. And they look after all the billing.

Jmho.

[SDcampowneroper]

O P here.
Met with our SD district 30 reps today in a mid legislative session crackerbarrel . Hb 1153 passed by supermajority levying a $50/ annum surcharge on SD our registered 162 personal EVs inthe state.
Its a crack in the wall to raise fees equivalent to road use taxes in our user pay for road use service.
It was accepted that the % of EVs registered in state will grow beyond ICE powered vehicles. exponentially.
As I tendered in my opening this thead, Evs will first most heavily impact the daily use, touring people, most for now from out of state to visit .
Recharging those growing #s vehicles in public and private parks is the issue in our static in ground power supply designed per NEC to meet rv needs.
I echo wapiticountrys posts, remote charging stations will not bode well, that pianotunas remotely metering at site with pay for use.
SD is one of many states that only allow a pass on charge for utility, SD cannot upcharge our kw\hr rate, thus the infrastructure to provide facility can only be recovered by a daily increased site fee. Our state parks are most heavily impacted, seeing KWhrs/ site/ night rise 10-20% YoY.
to those who do not use that facility, it is wrong to raise site fees to subsidise those who use an extraordinary amount of utility. Pay to Play Plan.
Just how it can work and be satisfactory is yet to work out.
the argument about pools, CATV playgrounds and such is moot. They amount to pennies/ day/guest, easily justified in a business plan.