Sign'o'th (greener) times

[sbisson]

Charge my car
Originally uploaded by sbisson.

An electric car charging station on a London street.

Spotted originally with a small vehicle actually plugged in - and with what appeared to be an official photographer at work, snapping away while the car was disconnected.

I suspect that it's a fairly recent installation...

Covent Garden, London
March 2007

Comments

[mnelson.livejournal.com]

The charging stations would be more popular if they were designed to look like a TARDIS...

[megadog.livejournal.com]

Or a Dalek?

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Just wait until the next Who episode, when they're all posessed by Cyberchargers....

If you see electric cars in Cardiff, start worrying.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Does it work though, or was it just a repainted plastic dustbin brought along by the photographer?

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

it went from blue to green when they plugged the car in...

fast charger then...

[tanais.livejournal.com]

or

Someone needs to talk to them about User Interface Issues especially use of colour

Re: fast charger then...

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

thinking about it, we saw it plugged in and we saw the light go from green to blue when it was unplugged, so green could = finished charging. Would amber for charging or green for you have power make more sense here? Need to see it from scratch to be sure; wonder if we could get a review model...

Re: fast charger then...

[tanais.livejournal.com]

That would make more sense from a UI perspective but that was not what you initially said.

Every charger in my house indicates Green as an optimally charged state. Red is universally regarded as "Low" so Blue could indicate an interim state.

I'm wondering how we can be sure this is a green evergy source? Any indication as to who and how the electricity was generated? What is its idling consumption? Just because its an alternative to burning petrol/diesel doesn't mean its green.

Re: fast charger then...

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

some chargers show green; some turn the light off; some make it flash. the colour codes are horribly confused.

this comes out of what I'd want to call the National Grid. It's a great big wall socket. So the power comes from wherever power comes from overall... no wind turbines in Covent Garden and no more idling than any other socket AFAICT

Re: fast charger then...

[tanais.livejournal.com]

That light when not used requires power no matter how miniscule. Plus there might be various traffos inside away (presumably 110VAC to 24VDC) which might have a draw when idling.

The assumption it is greener because it doesn't burn diesel/petrol is a bit lame if the energy came from a traditional non green source.

Is this a standard power interface BTW? Will we see other vehicles using this or is it just for a few select designs or council vehicles?

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

What do they expect you to do if your battery's flat but the charging stations are all in use? Are they going to put a charging socket next to every other parking space in the country?

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Go for a pint with the other driver and celebrate the bizarre coincidence.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

we did actually see two of them yesterday; one blue one black (as I initally assumed it was the same one twice)

[zecherman.livejournal.com]

Sure would be nice to see more of that over here in Canada...everyone here is driving fucking Suburbans and other SUVs...it's sick, and stupid. There is apparently no market for fuel-efficient cars here...no one cares...