RTPEV
Active Member
Station reliability: Get promises of station uptime. Many subsidized stations end up broken with nobody in a rush to repair, as the subsidy paid for them but not for operating them. Larger stations with many stalls are more reliable because having one station broken is not a big deal.
This would be great, but I don't know how you can work this into a grant application/award. You can certainly award based on reputation of the applicant with past projects, but I'm going to guess that if you want to try to build in some kind of service level agreement into the T&C's, that it's not going to pass muster with the applicant's legal team. One possible issue is how many years would the SLA apply for? 5? 10? 99?
Apps aren't always bad, and sometimes the opposite is true. My wife got free charging at Electrify America (I think it's 3 years) when she bought her car, but to get that she needs to use the app to initiate the charge (her car doesn't support plug-to-charge). Also accounts/apps would be beneficial for frequent users that might want to be on a high-usage plan where they can get access to discounted rates in return for a monthly fixed fee.Ease of use: Insist on Plug-to-charge or a very simple way to pay with a credit card. This is to be preferred over specialized apps.
That said, in the context of awarding grants, I think it's probably sufficient to state that there needs to be a way to use (pay for) the station reliably without the need for an account or a vehicle capable of plug-to-charge working through a widely accepted intermediary account (Aeon Charge? or Tesla for Tesla vehicles). Perhaps this implies a reliable credit-card capability. But I would award bonus points for applicants that can provide plug-to-charge capability and other easy-to-use payment methods in addition to the default method.