I have not yet gone to a supercharger since early march. but I have thought about it.
I do not charge at "home" but at a privately run garage that is monitored by attendants. Because on-street parking is plentiful and "Sunday rules are in effect" (no need to feed the parking meter) i've been parking on the street in front of my apartment building and visiting the parking garage (a block and a half away) roughly every 10 days just to top up the battery.
early on, the question then became:
do I drive out to a nearby unattended supercharger -- roughly 15 miles away -- to top up? where I can control the charging process or do I drop it off at my garage, and let the attendants park the car, plug me in, and just call it a day?
In the poll above I voted that I would only sanitize the SCer handle before plugging in. To be clear, I would only touch the handle with a wet-wipe (70% alcohol or Benzalconium Chloride) which will kill the virus. i would plug, and unplug the charger this way. in a sense i'm sanitizing the handle as I handle it (see what I did there?)
I would then either wipe my hands with another wipe or use hand sanitizer. once i'm back in my car.
I was worried about dealing with the attendants or other people at the garage where I park my car. thankfully the people traffic at the garage while i have been there is very very light. the 1st time I dropped off the car there was a healthcare worker in scrubs and a surgical mask picking up his car, the second time -- more than a week later -- a couple with their toddler, all wearing cloth face masks.
the attendants are wearing masks and gloves but its little comfort to me to be honest.
when picking up the car, when they hand me the Tesla key I take it from them holding a wet wipe and I sanitize the hell out of it before putting it in my pocket. I do the same thing with the driver side door handles (front and rear if I need to use the rear seat) and the steering wheel and once i'm in car.
in general, I have found that it is easier to drop off the car overnight for charging at my local garage rather than trekking out to an unattended SCer. so this is what i've been doing. i've had to drive less and less, so besides being a victim of vampire drain, the car has mostly been sitting idle and I have pleanty of range and no need to visit the garage. lets see when I will need to do so again...
How about just carrying some latex gloves in the car? Just put one on your preferred hand and use it to handle the charging wand. Pull it off and toss it when you're done. No need to disinfect wand or hand.
here's the thing about latex gloves: they are providing people a false sense of security.
Let's say your latex glove comes into contact with the virus. even if you remove the glove properly and carefully where do you
toss it exactly? in the trash bin nearby? fine. so far so good.
or.. do you first open your car door? do you take the gloves off when you are back in your car? (bad idea, the glove has touched the virus -- anything the glove touches now could/will get contaminated. ) do you use a second set of gloves when you exit the car to unplug? I think you have to, if you want to maintain sanity..er.. a sanitized environment..
thinking about washing your single-use latex gloves for re-use? (this is what MANY people I know are doing) bad idea.. the soap is breaking down the latex molecules... making the gloves useless.. oops. I think using alcohol to sanitize the latex gloves is ok, but i'm not an expert on this point so I need someone else to chime in.
hand sanitizer is the better scenario for how to keep the virus at bay while on the go. I hate using it too, it dries out my hands -- not that washing 100 times a day with soap is much much better -- but soap better in general. soap also does a better job of killing/getting rid of the virus, but lets not go into all that here.
honestly, in the absence of a "washing station" next to every SCer, hand sanitizer is the way to go -- otherwise you need several sets of gloves between exiting your car to use the SCer and driving off once done. It's a real pain.
stay safe everyone..
