Storms

[Brian May]

Living in the Dandenong Ranges, East of Melbourne, I have not had any power since Wednesday. And the estimated time to get power back will be Tuesday. Which is likely to get pushed back, based on past experience.

My car is starting to get flat. Any ideas on how to recharge? The nearest supercharger (Camberwell) is some distance away (45 minutes drive in good conditions) and just past the 25km limit imposed by the pandemic. I see that there are 4 22kw chargers at Eastlast Shopping Centre, Ringwood, but a bit nervous about driving all the way only to find that all bays might all be in use (I have no idea how likely this is but based on feedback in plugshare it does happen).

Any other suggestions? Other then use the petrol car more?

 

[Hairyman]

Living in the Dandenong Ranges, East of Melbourne, I have not had any power since Wednesday. And the estimated time to get power back will be Tuesday. Which is likely to get pushed back, based on past experience.

My car is starting to get flat. Any ideas on how to recharge? The nearest supercharger (Camberwell) is some distance away (45 minutes drive in good conditions) and just past the 25km limit imposed by the pandemic. I see that there are 4 22kw chargers at Eastlast Shopping Centre, Ringwood, but a bit nervous about driving all the way only to find that all bays might all be in use (I have no idea how likely this is but based on feedback in plugshare it does happen).

Any other suggestions? Other then use the petrol car more?

No local knowledge at all, but it’s open 24/7 so you could pitch up outside shopping hours and settle down for some Netflix etc in the car

 

[paulp]

Living in the Dandenong Ranges, East of Melbourne, I have not had any power since Wednesday. And the estimated time to get power back will be Tuesday. Which is likely to get pushed back, based on past experience.

My car is starting to get flat. Any ideas on how to recharge? The nearest supercharger (Camberwell) is some distance away (45 minutes drive in good conditions) and just past the 25km limit imposed by the pandemic. I see that there are 4 22kw chargers at Eastlast Shopping Centre, Ringwood, but a bit nervous about driving all the way only to find that all bays might all be in use (I have no idea how likely this is but based on feedback in plugshare it does happen).

Any other suggestions? Other then use the petrol car more?

Its too late now, but if you had solar and a battery to keep the solar live you’d have power in your house, and therefore your car.
Another thing you could do is go on a spontaneous holiday (within 25km?) to somewhere with power.

 

[Flatbat]

How Flat is your car? Our power was out for three days. Charge was at 70%. Initially I used the car to charge devices, using up about 15% over several days while the car was idling for periods in camp mode. Then when I thought the outage could drag on until next week, I stopped using it as a power bank. I thought I better save the battery and my strategy became dont use any power. You should be able to keep loss at or under 1% per day, if you don't use the car and let if go fully to sleep. So no sentry mode. Dont open doors to wake it. In the end our power came back after three days & I still had over 50% charge.
My suggestion would be to not touch it and let it sit until the power returns. Alternatively if you can make a safety case and you feel you really want to get it recharged I suppose you could sneak in to Camberwell or Richmond on your way to a "friends place". What to do in an emergency | Coronavirus Victoria Read the section on Power Outages. It can arguably trump the 25km rule depending on circumstances.

 

[Brian May]

Last I checked we were under 200km left out of about 380ish. Not going to check it now though, it would mean waking the car. We regularly need a car for food. And maybe school trips too, when at least some schools reopen on Tuesday (not sure yet what affect the power outage is going to have on the local school though).

We are surrounded by large trees that provide shading during large parts of the day. Some of these have come down, but we are still concerned that solar power might be limited significantly by shading.

Best bet might be to try Ringwood. We should have anough to get to and from without a charge. If that doesn't work, conserve power and revert to Petrol for now.

 

[Brian May]

Got power back now, so hopefully car will charge overnight and won't be an issue anymore.

 

[Vostok]

Got power back now, so hopefully car will charge overnight and won't be an issue anymore

Good news.

I’m not familiar with the VIC restrictions this time, but last year the travel distance limit for shopping for essential goods/services did not apply if the closest provider of that good/service was further away than the limit. However you needed to take the most direct route there, only procure that good/service, and then immediately return home. You could not wander around and do other things while you were there.

Based on that, I think you would have been perfectly entitled to drive to the nearest Supercharger even if it was more than 25 km away. If someone was >25km away from the nearest petrol station you’d imagine the same exemption would apply.

 

[paulp]

Good news.

I’m not familiar with the VIC restrictions this time, but last year the travel distance limit for shopping for essential goods/services did not apply if the closest provider of that good/service was further away than the limit. However you needed to take the most direct route there, only procure that good/service, and then immediately return home. You could not wander around and do other things while you were there.

Based on that, I think you would have been perfectly entitled to drive to the nearest Supercharger even if it was more than 25 km away. If someone was >25km away from the nearest petrol station you’d imagine the same exemption would apply.

Big risk though, as the risk of catching covid must increase exponentiallly when more than 25km from home….otherwise why have the rule?. Lucky we have that biowarfare fallout ventilation system….what did tesla know back then?

 

[cafz]

Any other suggestions?

There's an Evie ultrafast site at Caltex Dandenong: PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You

 

[Vostok]

Big risk though, as the risk of catching covid must increase exponentiallly when more than 25km from home….otherwise why have the rule?

Well it’s simple maths. The more people are mobile, the more risk an infected person spreads it to others. It’s a risk continuum between two extremes: people are locked in their houses and not allowed to leave for any reason, which would make it really hard for the virus to spread anywhere, and completely unrestricted movement (including internationally) which would make it really easy for the virus to spread everywhere.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Well it’s simple maths. The more people are mobile, the more risk an infected person spreads it to others. It’s a risk continuum between two extremes: people are locked in their houses and not allowed to leave for any reason, which would make it really hard for the virus to spread anywhere, and completely unrestricted movement (including internationally) which would make it really easy for the virus to spread everywhere.

It's probably not that simple maths
That's why they use 25km for everyone. If the maths was simple they would be able to tell each addressee their unique range that correlated to whatever the acceptable transmission risk was.