I live in L.A. and am always amused by the blue rectangular information signs on the streets and freeways directing one toward electric charging stations. There are more of these signs than electric cars on the road.

http://www.erau.edu/db/degrees/bs_elec_engineering/images/sign2.jpg

With the demise of the EV-1 the only EV cars on the road in any numbers are the electric RAV4s owned by the city which you've found.

I see charging stations more often than the cars that can use them. If you go to the museum district in L.A. every parking lot has special parking spots with chargers for EV.

I've always thought those blue informational signs are funny anyway. I mean, who's going to say "ah, a charging station at the next offramp. Now I can spend the next 8 hours in a Denny's waiting for my car to charge!" :-)

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I don't know a lot about electric cars, but it does seem irritating that not all charging stations you find are compatible with all EVs. There appear to be three different charger types (Avcon conductive, large-paddle inductive, and small-paddle inductive) and most locations only have one of the types. So if you're in a Ford or Honda EV that requires an Avcon-style charger you have to find a station that specifically has an Avcon-style charger.

Here's a list and map of all the charging locations in California, Georgia, and Arizona:

http://www.evchargernews.com/#regions

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There are a few charging stations I've seen in the bay area - but usually not in use.

I did see a Rav4 EV parked up & sipping juice at the Sunnyvale Frys' chearing space a few weeks back; it didn't have any badging on it to indicate it was a city-owned vehicle... are there still private owners of Rev4 EVs?

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Yeah, Hugo, I believe some are still owned privately. I've seen them floating around now and then on sites that post EV's for sale. I've seen OEM Ford Ranger EV's as well.

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I was at Costco in Burbank this weekend and they had two EV charging station spots. I took out a paddle and thought "what could this be used for?" But it was the same as the charger in these pictures so I guess its for the RAV4. One of these

I was thinking the charger on the RAV4 and EV1 (and Honda EV) were all different -- I assume all of the EV1 chargers are gone, right?

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Adrian: Burbank's my hometown!

To answer your question, the EV-1 used inductive charging, I believe using a "large paddle" (that's the type of plug that plugs into your car). The RAV4 uses a small paddle inductive charger so you can't use the EV1 chargers. The Honda and Ford use Avcon conductive-type chargers.

So it's a big pain if you have an EV. You have to print out maps of locations of your particular type of charger to take with you in case of emergency. You can't assume because a place has a charger that you can use it in your car.

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A couple of years ago I rented a Rav4 EV for a couple of days to see what it was like from EVRentals. I believe they also offered leases and sales of used vehicles.

Here in Santa Monica I used two charging stations - one on the pier (as pictured) and one at the Ralph's on Olympic at Cloverfield.

Presuming that there is no battery memory (not an assumption I'd take lightly) if you took 30 minutes to an hour to shop, or if you were at the beach for a few hours, you could get some significant charge. For free, I might add.

As for driving it, it was really a pretty good drive. Acceleration was better than acceptable on the freeway, and it was quiet, responsive and smooth. Unfortunately, my driving habits are of the lead-footed variety, and so I would have been lucky to get 60 miles on a full charge. However, if the distance between charges was improved to 200+ miles, this would be a very pleasant mode of transportation.

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