Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Urban Planning
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 10-18-2012, 10:01 PM
 
10,553 posts, read 9,601,118 times
Reputation: 4784

Advertisements

With more and more people buying electric and hybrid cars it has always made me wonder, where can you plug in your car in condos or apartment complexes? In most cases you can't.

Even in Canada, where there are outlets for people to plug in block heaters, apparently condo associations don't like the idea of paying for the 'fuel' for a resident's car, even though the cost is low.

Condo owner must pay for meter or unplug electric car - Ottawa - CBC News
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-18-2012, 10:21 PM
 
28,455 posts, read 84,928,817 times
Reputation: 18723
New problems will require new solutions. Eventualy meters will all comunicate data about who is using what energy / when it is used -- Smart meter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia When combined with chargers that send info about the battery back to the meter / utility specialized billing can be done == Power line communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-18-2012, 11:29 PM
 
10,553 posts, read 9,601,118 times
Reputation: 4784
But it's going to be a long adjustment period. I looked around the basement parking garage of the condo building I live in now, I couldn't even find any outlets.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-18-2012, 11:41 PM
 
28,455 posts, read 84,928,817 times
Reputation: 18723
Default Imagine how hard things would be if you got a solar powered car in the basement...

Sorta kidding, but only a little. Ultimately electricity is a whole lot easier to extend than say hydrogen. If ultimately the power plants are not really wind or solar or nuclear or hydro-electric then they are gonna be fossil fuel and the jury is still very much out on that...




Quote:
Originally Posted by ellemint View Post
But it's going to be a long adjustment period. I looked around the basement parking garage of the condo building I live in now, I couldn't even find any outlets.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-18-2012, 11:51 PM
 
Location: NYC
7,305 posts, read 13,441,275 times
Reputation: 3714
It would seem like the cost of the cars energy usage per month could easily be assessed and billed to the owner.

HOAs are dummies sometimes.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-19-2012, 02:29 AM
 
Location: Canada
4,869 posts, read 10,468,385 times
Reputation: 5504
Quote:
Originally Posted by chet everett View Post
Sorta kidding, but only a little. Ultimately electricity is a whole lot easier to extend than say hydrogen. If ultimately the power plants are not really wind or solar or nuclear or hydro-electric then they are gonna be fossil fuel and the jury is still very much out on that...
Why would people continue to burn fossil fuels for electricity in the future? Greening the electricity grid is the easiest step, the low hanging fruit, of moving to a low carbon economy. It's the thing every jurisdiction does first.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-19-2012, 08:41 AM
 
28,455 posts, read 84,928,817 times
Reputation: 18723
Default Seen cost per megawatt numbers lately??

Quote:
Originally Posted by BIMBAM View Post
Why would people continue to burn fossil fuels for electricity in the future? Greening the electricity grid is the easiest step, the low hanging fruit, of moving to a low carbon economy. It's the thing every jurisdiction does first.

It is darned near impossible to beat the cost of modern NG fueled turbines -- Cost of electricity by source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia beyond the cost the tiny footprint of turbine powered generation stations and the ease with which they fit into the existing power transmission grid makes them the obvious choice over sprawling wind or solar options.

While technically methane itself can be generated by other means (like biogas sources and as a by-product from some industrial processes) the VAST majority of it is extracted alongside oil or coal -- Natural gas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia so most folks classify it as a fossil fuel.

The even sadder fact is that NOTHING and I mean NOTHING in the realm of power generation scales like coal. It is unlikely that coal will be eliminated from any country's energy diet especially when lunatics freak out over nuclear.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-19-2012, 09:22 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,011 posts, read 53,154,008 times
Reputation: 15174
My old apartment had a plug outside that the guy living in another unit used to run an engine block heater for his old diesel VW. I think the plug was metered to our apartment.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-19-2012, 10:29 AM
 
Location: MMU->ABE->ATL->ASH
9,317 posts, read 20,901,735 times
Reputation: 10443
I don't think the condo Assoc should be paying for his car and anyone block heaters.

Was in a high-rise condo in FL for month. I was renter but in the utility room area of the condo, it had a bank of small digital meters, One for:
Water/Cold
Water/Hot
Electric
AC/Heat

In the parking deck, there were locked outlets (that had small digital meters above them) that you could plug in your LSEV (street legal Golf Carts). you un-lock the outlet, plug the car in, then re-lock with the plug in.

I would guess the unit owner got a bill once a month for there usage.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-19-2012, 06:50 PM
 
10,553 posts, read 9,601,118 times
Reputation: 4784
Quote:
Originally Posted by flyonpa View Post
I don't think the condo Assoc should be paying for his car and anyone block heaters.

Was in a high-rise condo in FL for month. I was renter but in the utility room area of the condo, it had a bank of small digital meters, One for:
Water/Cold
Water/Hot
Electric
AC/Heat

In the parking deck, there were locked outlets (that had small digital meters above them) that you could plug in your LSEV (street legal Golf Carts). you un-lock the outlet, plug the car in, then re-lock with the plug in.

I would guess the unit owner got a bill once a month for there usage.

I would think that's the way they'll go for electric cars.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Urban Planning
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top