Drive Farther for FREE

My daughter is a Slug, which means she attends UC Santa Cruz. Our family lives almost 80 miles north of Santa Cruz, in San Francisco. In the last two months we have dropped her off and taken the round trip ride in our 100% electric KIA Soul EV, two times. 

On our way to UCSC

My wife and I took turns driving her down. I may have planned it a little more carefully, but both instances were quite enjoyable and uneventful. I took our daughter on the first trip and once again I used PlugShare to plan the trip. We arrived in Santa Cruz and had close to twenty miles left on the guessometer. This gave me plenty of range to find another free charging station in the vicinity, in case the one I was planning on using were to be busy or not working.

Luckily the charger I found on PlugShare was available and we were able to charge while my daughter and I watched a movie. Afterwards we had dinner and did some shopping downtown.


OK, this is big: FREE charging! Problem is, the particular parking garage I used, Soquel & Front Garage, will not offer free parking & charging for much longer. Come January 2015 they will start charging for parking. I believe the charging will still be free. 

Today almost every city in California has EV charging stations, many of them FREE. If you plan your trip carefully you can drive to places that once seemed too far for an EV. It will just take a little longer because you have to account for charging time. Not a big deal when you consider the cost for charging half of the trip? FREE.

My daughter and I had a nice time in Santa Cruz and she had the chance to get some inexpensive pants at the Heavenly Couture store. Hey, $16 or less!

On my Wife's trip they had dinner and went Christmas shopping. They did have to spend extra time driving around looking for an available charger. ( what did you expect would happen during the busiest shopping season? ) All in all, they had a good time and were able to charge The KIA for FREE.

OK, so it's not the same as driving there and back on an internal combustion gasoline vehicle. Yes, you can get there and back much faster in a conventional gas engine, but what's the hurry? Plan to stay for a couple of hours - slow down, live a little. Besides, FREE is FREE!

FREE local Volta charging station in Stonestown Galleria Mall in SF

Public charging stations in the Bay Area and beyond, thanks to PlugShare.com