Chargning in Lodi?

Has anyone used any of the chargers at the public buildings in Lodi?

I just bought a blue Rav4EV and am interested in taking it to my house in Volcano (thats 133 miles, @ 3300' of elevation, so i'm looking for a good midpoint chargning location. Lodi seems to be pretty close to optimal, as long as i can get there from Mountain View or Fremont. However i havent seen the chargers there and dont know if there's any trick to using them.

If I was to make that trip, I would stop at the SemaCharge station at the Walgreens at 7850 West LN, Stockton, CA 95210.
This is based on my quick perusal of PlugShare.com. The Lodi City Hall charger is probably also OK, but sight-unseen I would go with a commercial charger (Chargepoint/Blink/Semacharge) that has network monitoring. Also, since the Stockton charger is first on your trip, try that one first. Lodi City Hall can be your backup. Maybe on the way home try City Hall first. Although, coming down the mountain, you could probably make it easily to one of the several free charge points in Dublin/Pleasanton.

Click here for PlugShare data around Lodi, California.

I have not plugged into the Lodi charger at City Hall but I did check it out a couple weeks back. It is a Clipper Creek with a 6.6 kw output. It does not look like it gets much use. Power is supplied by the City of Lodi and appears to be free. It is about a two block walk to downtown with many restaurants and a movie theater to kill time.

The Lodi chargers are available to the public after 3PM on weekdays. You could also charge at the library in Dublin for free. That would be sufficient to get you to Volcano.

you think Dublin to Volcano would be an ok drive?
(there'sa 3000 foot elevation change is one reason i'm a bit squeamish). Charging in Dublin would be pretty good becuase i wouldnt have to actually charge for long).

And i'm assuming you mean on an "extended" charge. I havent acutally done that yet but i'll try it tomorrow at work. (might as well soak up free electrons before the weekend).

IMHO, charging only in Dublin on the way to Volcano is not advisable. You should charge in Stockton or Lodi on the way up. Coming down, you should easily make it to Dublin.
The rule of thumb is that you will use an additional 2kWh for each 1,000 feet elevation gain in addition to the normal energy usage for odometer distance covered.

So, for example, Stockton to Volcano is about 55 miles. Assuming 3.0 miles/kWh, you will need about 19kWh to cover that distance, plus 6kWh more for the 3000 ft climb. So you should have at least 25kWh on the fuel gauge. 12 bars is 26kWh, so to be safe, you should charge to 3/4 in Stockton. Mountain View to Stockton is only 83 miles, so that's no problem.

Dublin to Volcano with a full extended charge is easily doable if you keep at or below the speed limit. I made it from San Francisco to Angels Camp on an extended charge and two hours of 120 volt, snail slow, charging in Stockton only (133 miles), so Dublin to Volcano with a full charge is not a problem in the Rav4 EV.

Bassman said:

Dublin to Volcano with a full extended charge is easily doable if you keep at or below the speed limit. I made it from San Francisco to Angels Camp on an extended charge and two hours of 120 volt, snail slow, charging in Stockton only (133 miles), so Dublin to Volcano with a full charge is not a problem in the Rav4 EV.

Click to expand...

Well, Glen is more of an expert on mountain driving than me.... However, the trip is starting around Mountain View. Waiting for a full Extended Charge in Dublin would take more time than driving through to Stockton and charging just enough to reach Volcano. The reason is that the charge rate slows down at the end of the Extended Charge. Charging from gauge readings of 50% to 75% simply takes less time.

And i tried this the first time on Thursday.

I actually charged in Livermore, then in Lodi then at the Amador Transit location in Sutter Creek.
(I didnt need to charge at all those places, but i was doing it mainly to familiarize myself with the charging locations).

The trip from Mountain View to Volcano measures 153 miles and ends 3300 feet higher than it starts.
using the formulas for elevation change + range, the "calculated" amount of range needed was 169 miles. I ended up using 148. (14% less)
Since i started with 129 miles on the GOM, i only "needed" to add 19 miles of "charge" to arrive at my destination. As it happened, i added a total of 53 across the 3 stops, and ended up with 34 miles "left" when i arrived.

I'm doing the reverse trip tomorrow, so i'll compare how that goes (the -3300 feet of elevation should eliminate the need for 10-ish miles of range). (whats more, i'm going to a location which is 16 miles closer to my house). So theory says, i should be able to *just* make it. However i will likely stop and pick up some charge along the way becuase i dont want to be running out of it.

Interestingly, i used climate control for about 50% of the trip on Thursday (it was *hot* in Livermore->Lodi). however it had cooled down by the time i went to the Farmers Market in Lodi (1 block from the chargers!) so i didnt on the rest of the trip.

and reverse trip completed.

130 miles, 101 miles of "range" on the GOM, no charging. -3200' of elevation.
Done with the climate control on Eco Hi the entire time too. (it was up to 106 degrees out there).

Wasnt even close, i had 21 miles left on the GOM when i got home. I did stop at my first charging location, but there was a Leaf already using the charger and i decided to go to my 2nd charging location rather than wait. However when i got there (Livermore) i still had 35 miles left and only 21 on the ground to go, so i just bypassed and went home.

Im getting better at this, the things i notice help a lot are:
- use "B" when descending (or in stop and go traffic). It seems to work really well
- use cruise control whenever you can (note that you cant cruise control in "B", but you dont seem to need to either)
- dont go over 65 (I did a little on highway 5 but that segment wasnt that long)
- driving on roads that have 45-50mph speed limits (and not speeding that much) really extends your range.