Sunday April 6, 2025 – Destination Charging - It has been a while since I last did an entry in my blog, but I have been tossing around an idea in my head on destination charging and wanted to get it written down. Feel free to use this idea for setting up destination charging.

A few weeks ago, I attended an event at the Universal City Hilton and it was likely that I would have a long drive after the event. I went on Plug Share to see if they had chargers. I found that they had a total of 16 chargers plus one NEMA 14-50 outlet.

There are two banks of chargers and I used the ones on floor 3. I happily plugged in and went off the event. Later, I used the Fordpass ap to check the charge progress and saw that it was charging at only 3KW. If I had been more diligent in reading the descriptions on Plug Share, I would have seen that there were 2 ChargePoint chargers and the NEMA outlet in Valley Parking, and two Tesla chargers on Level 2.  All the other chargers would only charge at 3 KW (about 9 miles per hour).

I thought that this was pretty bad, but while parking is expensive, the chargers were free and, in the end, I didn’t have to do the long drive. I also realized that I would have had sufficient charge to complete the trip it if it had been necessary.

This experience got me thinking and I realized that most visitors to the Universal Hilton would be there to visit the Universal Studios theme park which is just across the street from the Hotel. If I assume that someone arrives in the evening, visits the park the following day, then leaves the day after, that would leave their car parked for at least 40 hours. Assuming 9 miles of charge per hour that would give them 360 miles of range, which for most current EVs translates to 100% charge.

That works for destination chargers for the hotels near theme parks but what about other destinations? I thought long and hard about this and then an idea hit me.

One of the biggest complaints I hear about destination chargers is that they often hogged by PHEVs. My old Plug-in Prius would reach a full charge on a 3KW charger in about 1.5 hrs. Something like the RAV-4 Prime, which has a lot more range than the Prius Plugin would be able get a full charge in about 5 hours. At places like hotels, where people are plugged in overnight, EVs can sometimes not get a charge because a PHEV sitting fully charged at the charger while the owners are sleeping in their hotel rooms.

One often suggested solution to this is that Plug-in hybrids get banned from using the chargers, but in the end, this only serves to reduce electric miles travelled. Some hotels have placed chargers in the valet parking area so the valet can move cars from the charger after they are full. This works well if the valet takes care to check the chargers periodically to see when the charge is complete.

My thought was to have two banks of chargers, one with a group of regular level 2 chargers that are reserved for EVs, and a second bank of slower chargers that can be used by Plug-in hybrids. A charger or two in the valet area, that could be managed by the valet would give the PHEV driver who is only visiting the hotel for a short event an option to get a charge at standard level 2 rates.

When possible, these banks of chargers could be paired with a solar canopy and battery back-up to provide charging with renewable energy. I have said for a long time that parking lots, especially here in the south-west would be a great place for larger scale solar.

In my younger days I used to like taking road trips. Typically, I would try to drive about 100 to 150 miles per day then stay one or two nights before driving to my next destination. One of my favorite trips was to drive from LA to Monterey with stops along the way in places like Santa Barbara, Pismo Beach, and Gilroy. I recently tried to plan this trip using only destination chargers along the way but found it very difficult to find hotels that had chargers in places where I wanted to stay.

I find in many cases that hotels that have destination charges will have just one J-1772 charger and one Tesla charger.  This was fine 10 years ago but now, given the number of EVs and PHEVs on the road here in California, it is becoming harder and harder to find available chargers at hotels. Adding some slower chargers would be a lower cost solution to adding chargers for hotel customers.

I have advocated for more destination chargers for a long time and my solution above would make a huge dent in the perception that there is insufficient public charging. I think that this would also be a good solution for workplace charging also.