prolly a couple council members with dislocated shoulders from patting themselves on the back too...
Posted on 09/28/2013 10:11:23 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
Hoping to play a bigger role in the electric vehicle revolution, the Palo Alto City Council embraced a proposal Monday night that would require new homes to come pre-wired for chargers.
Council members were unanimous in their support for the building code change, which was floated in a colleagues' memo by Mayor Greg Scharff, Vice Mayor Nancy Shepherd and Council Member Gail Price.
The city council also backed related proposals to streamline the process for obtaining a permit for a charger as well as develop strategies to further encourage electric vehicle use in Palo Alto.
"Let's figure out as a council what we can do to remove the obstacles to owning electric vehicles in Palo Alto," Scharff said before the 9-0 vote. "I think what we really need to do is make it convenient, easy and economical."
"The thing that caught me is how simple and easy and fairly inexpensive it is to rough-in the wiring," Shepherd said. The cost is often under $200 for a new home, or four times less than what it runs to install a charger at an existing home, Scharff said.
Several council members noted that Palo Alto was on the leading edge two years ago when it first started pushing chargers, but it hasn't managed to keep pace with a recent surge in demand for electric vehicles.
"They really are starting to catch on and get some market penetration," said Marc Berman, "It is important that we create the infrastructure necessary to allow that to happen. In Palo Alto, of all places, we should absolutely do that."
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
To show how silly this is, there are virtually NO new homes built in Palo Alto. The town is 100% built-out; there is no land anywhere.
The kooks on the City Council want to "remove obstacles" to owning electric vehicles. Perhaps they should mandate a minimum annual wage of $150,000 for every resident. Then everybody could afford these luxury toys for the über-rich.
Lastly, this is the same intolerant town that a couple weeks back decided to throw all the people living in their cars out of town.
Collectivism, mandating people to do stuff that they wouldn’t do otherwise.
The nice thing about having the chargers handy is they could be used on the council members’ private parts after TSHTF.
There are fewer actual laws to obey in North Korea than California. Seriously.
The only land available in Palo Alto to build new houses on is the ‘foothills’ - a very large area but effectively closed to new building by the local politics. SO, this new ordinance will actually impact almost nobody.
ps:
The median single family home price as of September 22 2013 for PALO ALTO is $2,288,918. It ranges UP from there in most of Palo Alto’s immediate suburbs (Woodside, Portola Valley, Menlo Park, Atherton, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills).
(I hate to say it, but if anybody is able to secure a building permit in P.A, he can probably afford a silly electric outlet for his car... anyway. A bad ordinance, but not one that is going to hurt millions of people like Obamacare.)
Palo Alto, if my memory serves me correctly is “buying electricity” from P.G.& E., and “reselling it” to its residents. So the unanswered question is “if everyone in PA has an electric car and they all plug them in after work together, will their “grid” support the load?
Aren’t we just talking about an extra 220 V dryer outlet in the garage?
Even if you don’t want an electric car, it would be good for your kiln, air compressor or welder for your other hobbies.
shouldn’t that be up to the homeowner instead of the local Nazis?
If I were building or remodeling a house I would have 220 run to the garage without a second thought. I would probably even have outlets in a couple different places to save having to stretch extension cords.
My PG&E bill has a tiered rate. Baseline at so much per kilowatt hour and a higher rate for anything over that and then it raises again if you go over a certain amount. Do they raise your baselines if you have an electric car?
Yes, most smaller lathes and mills will need 240V, single-phase power.
120V circuits can’t really haul more than about 1HP single-phase motors. To get a 3 to 5HP motor, you’ll need 240V.
If I were advising someone building a new house, I’d recommend at least 100 amp, 240V service run to the garage or shop as an “of *course* you’re going to need that” sort of thing. If I am building a new home with a shop or garage, I’d have 200 amp/240V service in the garage alone, and then another 200 amp service for the house. If a house has natural gas, and then has natural gas hot water, heat and kitchen, you’d use almost none of the 200amp service for the house.
Once you fire up a heat treating oven and a welder at the same time, you’ll use every bit of a 200 amp service. Never mind the stupid Smurfmobile with a battery and wind-up motor.
“My PG&E bill has a tiered rate. Baseline at so much per kilowatt hour and a higher rate for anything over that and then it raises again if you go over a certain amount. Do they raise your baselines if you have an electric car?”
Like you, I have PG&E, but no electric car so I can’t say if ( or how) they would know that you are charging your EV. I suppose with “smart technology, they could figure out when your “smart car charger” was in use, but I’ve seen noting about special rates for this kind of consumption. Used to work in Palo Alto. It’s a liberal loony bin, only eclipsed by neighboring Atherton and Menlo Park. The whole area is full of “Stepford People,” with the exception of East Palo Alto (aka Nairobi), where the residents sleep in their cast iron bath tubs to avoid being hit by a stray bullet from a drug dealer.
I lived on a 19th fl apt in Manhattan. Wonder if they’’ll make the cars small enough to fit into the elevators and the apt’s for charging.
Excellent! Anyone earning less than that could be subject to a fine.
prolly a couple council members with dislocated shoulders from patting themselves on the back too...
Yes, probably.
However since we are talking new construction the added cost is negligible and the result is useful, not just for dumb electric cars...:^)
The code defines lots of other things, like how many outlets be room. I just see this as a useful extension to that. If it was left to the builders you would get one 15 amp outlet per room...:^)
Seems to be a huge waste where a bicycle rack will do.
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