Off Street Parking: Fill & Download for Free

There are only two reasons that I can think of:You can't afford it.You don't have anywhere to park it where you can plug it in.Those two things actually rule out a lot of people. The Tesla S is an expensive car and the savings you will make on fuel and maintenance plus the tax breaks won't make up for it. You can buy a very nice ICE car for half the money and so the purchase can't be justified on cost alone.The other point is more significant for potential customers outside the US. A large proportion of people living in the UK or Europe do not have off road parking at their home because they live in apartments or urban areas with older housing built before the majority of people owned cars. If you live in a place like this:... it is not convenient to leave your car on charge overnight.And it's not just poorer people who live in such places. Where I live there are houses worth close to a million US dollars with no off-street parking, and there are apartments in London worth much more than that which don't come with a parking space at all. Even in the US there are plenty of people living in downtown areas with no parking appropriate for daily recharging. That makes owning an EV a difficult proposition.

No one is planning to ban petrol and diesel cars. They’re planning to ban the sale of new ones. You can keep your ICE car, and you can buy a secondhand one.But even so, there will need to be many, many more charging points. Especially for those people without off-street parking.The simplest solution I’ve seen in London uses some obvious, existing structures. They’re already there at kerbside. They are robust. They have a wired-in supply that is on already.Lamp posts.Every lamp post in my street has been converted already. So there’s 20 charging points within a few hundred yards. I can’t see why there can’t be a charging port every few yards on every street in every city.Not hugely fast-charging, true, but the point is to leave them there overnight.The only downside I can see is that dogs might get one hell of a shock if the safety systems aren’t up to scratch.

My father was a store construction field supervisor for The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P Grocery Stores) during the early ‘50s. During his understudy period, his supervisor regaled him with amusing stories of his days with the company that stretched back more than 40 years. One story was about less than expected sales at a brand new store.Below, a typically thrilled crowd packed in tightly at a new A&P Supermarket Grand Opening:The new store was a success: larger, better stocked, off-street parking, new and exciting interior. Sales were way up over the old store it replaced, but not nearly as much as other new stores in similar neighborhoods. Because it was at the low end of sales and profit increases, it got extra scrutiny.Secret shoppers reported that the store was open and thriving during its assigned hours. That the shelves were stocked. That the customers were jamming the aisles. That the shopping carts were being heaped high. That the employees seemed diligent in monitoring for shrinkage, yet shrinkage was determined to be sky high. Auditors were sent in to check receipts. The eight registers were being fully and completely tallied. Secreted observers with binoculars saw no evidence of vehicles driving off with bulk loads of merchandise. Shoplifting seemed to be in line with other stores. The manager was reported to be present, engaged, and energetic in his duties.The fellow my father worked for was asked to review the layout of the store to see if something was wrong with how shoppers were being navigated through it. He went in and walked the aisles, saw nothing unusual. He followed numerous shoppers through the store and through the checkout lanes and out to the parking lots… nothing amiss. He was standing in line at one of the checkout counters one day about a week into his sleuthing and analysis when out of boredom he idly counted the checkout lines. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Nine. Wait. What?He counted again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… nine.He left the store and informed his Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company bosses that the store’s layout was indeed the issue: the manager was embezzling by having installed a bootleg ninth line but was reporting only the sales of the authorized eight. My dad’s supervisor swore that he’d told his bosses, “well, either we need to fire the manager or else put up a new sign that says A&P&Fred’s Supermarket”.They went with “fire Fred”, naturally.