SFO long term parking charging

[Sparky]

Can someone comment on the reliability and the availability in the long term lot?

 

[stumbledotcom]

SFO claims to have level 1 spots in the long term garage and surface parking lots. But the non-holiday September weekend I took the i3, the garage was full. The attendants didn't know anything about EV parking. Just tried to funnel us to the overflow lot adjacent to the United maintenance hanger. Typical of my prior experiences. In all the years the long term garage has been open, I've managed to park in it exactly once. Every other time, I've been sent to a surface lot or the overflow area.

Rather than driving around looking for a spot next to a charger, I went to a nearby off-site lot I'd read about. Park SFO has level 2 chargers and promises to have your car fully charged when you return. The only catch is that you must use their valet service rather than self park. Still their outdoor valet option is $1/day cheaper than SFO Long Term. And the website offers coupons to make it even less. I used the app to monitor the charge. They plugged it in the day before we flew back so it was fully charged and waiting in the pick up area when we stepped off the shuttle. Impressive service.

SkyPark is another off-site lot (but on the other side of 101) that offers charging. It hosts a DriveNow station in fact.

Needless to say, the next time I take the i3 to SFO I won't bother with SFO Long Term.

 

[Sparky]

Great help, thanks.

 

[websterize]

A related thought: I can't think of a better place for Level 3 DC Fast Chargers (both CHAdeMO and SAE Combo) than an airport cell-phone lot. In and out in 30 minutes. Lots of turnover. Lots of monitoring of lolly-gagging, regardless of engine type. The spots would need unambiguous signage and asphalt paint for the DC charging spot. In EV friendly states such as California and Maryland and several other, the airports could get the hardware at a heavily subsidized price. In Maryland, it's 50% off. They're serious about a robust DC infrastructure across the state.

If there were a few DC spots at the cell-phone lot at BWI airport, I could drive the ~50 miles to pick up family, even in winter, no problem. (Well, I'd keep the speed down.)

The MEA is supposed to announce locations of its DC Fast Charging Network soon, maybe this week. http://energy.maryland.gov/Transportation/evip.html

 

[Sparky]

Great idea.

 

[stumbledotcom]

SFO announced plans to install Greenlots Chamedo and SAE CCS fast chargers at the Cell Phone lot back in June. No sign of install work starting last month when I was last at the lot.

http://www.flysfo.com/media/press-releases/sfo-hosts-clean-vehicle-event

http://www.fleetsandfuels.com/fuels/evs/2014/06/open-source-ev-charging-for-sfo/

 

[Sparky]

BTW, I was an early Stumbler.

 

[Codrew]

I park at ParkSFO http://www.parksfo.com/ whenever I fly out of that airport. I let them valet my BEV, and they will charge it overnight for free. I've gone on week-long trips and i3 charge barely dropped after the initial full charge.