RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Discussion about EV/Battery charging infrastructure, Electric highways etc.
mikedufty
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by mikedufty »

photomac wrote: try http://chargestar.com.au
There you can track usage and pre-load the card


Maybe I am not looking properly, but I can't find any information on that site on what the charges are.

It does tell me how many "units" are on my account, and a cost for buying them, but I can't find out what the units are or how they are calculated.

There really should be some way to let people know what they are going to be charged before they use it shouldn't there?
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by mikedufty »

Aha, finally found something tucked away on the about page
https://www.chargepointgenie.com/Chargestar/Home/About

This says the "Our chargepoints are currently free to use", which if true still leaves the questions about what the units and negative balance mean.

Does currently free to use, mean they aren't charging yet, but will document a debt and ask for it later?
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by photomac »

Once you have logged in under the [ABOUT] tab
https://www.chargepointgenie.com/Chargestar/Home/About

"PAYMENT METHOD
Payment for charging your car is made using charging units. You can buy charging units at any time and they cost 10 cents per unit, i.e. $10.00 buys 100 charging units. You must keep your account topped up with units in order to use our service. You can do this manually, or by choosing to allow automatic top ups, which will automatically buy units when your account balance is low. The minimum purchase is 10 units which costs $1.00"

but yes that is a little hidden
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by E-STATION »

mikedufty wrote: Aha, finally found something tucked away on the about page
https://www.chargepointgenie.com/Chargestar/Home/About

This says the "Our chargepoints are currently free to use", which if true still leaves the questions about what the units and negative balance mean.

Does currently free to use, mean they aren't charging yet, but will document a debt and ask for it later?


I just spoke to Mike and he has made a couple of useful suggestions that we will implement.
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by mikedufty »

My wife just got a parking ticket while charging at the RAC west perth charger. The offence being "unauthorised parking"
I'm hoping its a mistake.
Anyone know if there is any restriction on parking there other than charging and paying for the charge?
$55 is an expensive charge.
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by E-STATION »

The Mandurah DC charging station is offline and will be unavailable until further notice.

Please contact Charge Star on 1300 661 895 if you have any questions.


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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by reecho »

mikedufty wrote: My wife just got a parking ticket while charging at the RAC west perth charger. The offence being "unauthorised parking"
I'm hoping its a mistake.
Anyone know if there is any restriction on parking there other than charging and paying for the charge?
$55 is an expensive charge.


Don't think there is a time limit.

Ring up the parking company and contest it. Ask them what the issue is....
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by mikedufty »

They have agreed to waive the fine, but it is kind of a stock letter that doesn't actually admit they shouldn't have fined us, and reserves the right to fine us if it happens again. Currently seeking further confirmation from them.
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RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by mikedufty »

Finally got a reply acknowledging that we should not have been fined.

"We apologize for the inconvenience, you are welcome to use this bays as long as it is use to charge your vehicle not other purposes."
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Re: RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by E-STATION »

The Charge Star network commenced operating in March 2016, just over two years ago. There have been 5500 charging sessions on the network since then. Total power consumed; 43 MWH. The most kWh consumed in a single session was 86.350 kWh at Bridgetown on 12th June 2017.

www.chargestar.com.au
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Re: RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by Jimbob »

Is it correct that only one car can be connected to the big units at a time? I tried to connect two cars, one to AC and one to DC but it wouldn’t activate the second car. Is that an error or intentional?
(Busselton 7/9/19 2x Kona EV- type 2 and CCS2)
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Re: RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by MDK »

Jimbob wrote: Sat, 07 Sep 2019, 11:54 I tried to connect two cars, one to AC and one to DC but it wouldn’t activate the second car. Is that an error or intentional?
(Busselton 7/9/19 2x Kona EV- type 2 and CCS2)
It should work, or at least it worked in 2016 when we tested an i3 on CCS and a Tesla on AC at the same time

Note that the beacon lights at the top of the charger are both blue (which means AC and DC are charging) and the display shows two charging sessions.
Busselton-dual-cars.jpg
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Busselton-dual-display.jpg
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Busselton is not the most practical location for two cars though.
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Re: RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by g4qber »

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Love the lateral thinking.
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Re: RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by g4qber »

Should this post be moved to “charging infrastructure”
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Re: RAC Electric Highway(TM) Feedback Thread.

Post by coulomb »

g4qber wrote: Thu, 09 Jul 2020, 05:43 Should this post be moved to “charging infrastructure”
Done.

The original Australia's First Electric Highway topic I'll leave for now, with a link to this one in the first post. When it started, it was still in planning, and seems appropriate to the EV Motoring forum. But I'll listen to arguments.
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