What the dealerships DO tell you

The dealerships, in selling these electric vehicles, will talk up several things, including:

• the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electric vehicle;
• the free or nearly free electrician who will come to your house to hook up the faster charging system

Both of these things are true - and are good selling points.

What I was unprepared for is the extent to which your privacy is compromised because of the newness of the technology and the research going on in this and other countries around the electrical usage.  You must give up certain amounts of your privacy in order to obtain some of these goodies.

The dealerships will give you the link to this site which is where you begin your journey into the EV world.  Here you will sign up to see if you qualify for the ecotality project to put a charging station into your home.  If you qualify (that depends on the state of your home, evidently) an electrician will set up a time to come look at your site, check your electrical connections, ask you questions about your wi-fi capabilities, then schedule a time for someone to come out and install a charging system.  If they need to do some extraordinary amount of work, they can charge you extra for the extra work, but I understand it is a nominal charge.  I was lucky and they didn't charge me anything extra.  They will install what is known as a Level 2 charging station - 220v that can take 4-6 hours to recharge your battery, instead of 8-12 hours using a trickle charger.

There is something known as DC Fast Charging (440v) but you cannot install this in your home.  This charges your battery in minutes, not hours.  You can find these chargers around Portland and on I-5.  I haven't used one yet, so I don't know much about them.

My charger was installed about two weeks after I got my car.  I've used it twice, and it's never taken longer than 3 hours to charge my batteries.