EV ARC’s 2nd Week at Hawaii Community College

April 26, 2022
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Where the focus is…

Over the past week, my focus was on ensuring that the latest pricing and accessibility policies were working well for the Hilo community. For clarity, the pricing policy has been updated charge $2 per hour after 2 free hours of charging; the accessibility policy allows EV owners to charge their vehicles from 7am to 6pm every day. These policies were enacted to give all EV owners a greater chance of having a reliable charge, as otherwise the battery is prone to being drained.

Top concerns…

The battery has been drained twice thus far, but it only took around half a day to recuperate for usage again.

Session numbers have been rising quickly- I estimate that by the end of April the charger will have just over 40 sessions in Hilo
A majority of these sessions have been from unique drivers, or first-time users. This means that the charger is attracting EV owners onto the Hawaii Community College campus- a great sign for GreeInvest, as we plan to advertise for local businesses in the near future.
This metric will be more reliable next month when the device has been in Hilo for 30 days, but for now it’s indicative of hour-long sessions.

Key Takeaways

Overall, the policies worked very well- session numbers are increasing rapidly, drivers are not occupying the device for more than two hours, and the charge of the battery is normally in the 75-85% range, and often has a chance to get back to the 90-100% range (it’s currently at 100% and 57.1 Volts as a write this on April 26 2022 @ 12:44pm (HST). Confusion over how to navigate the new policies is present but rare- I’ve gotten a few phone calls and messages from EV owners who were unable to activate the EV ARC. These complications are likely due to users not having their credit cards linked to their ChargePoint accounts, which is now necessary due to a pricing policy being instated.

Update