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

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?