High-speed charging station installed behind Glendale City Hall
A new charging station behind Glendale City Hall, known as a “level 3” model, requires the swipe of a credit card for use and can be accessed by the public at any time.
It may sound like a promotion a pizzeria would advertise, but 30 minutes is all a new fast-charging station recently installed behind City Hall needs to juice up 80% of an electric-car battery.
The station, known as a “level 3” model, requires the swipe of a credit card for use and can be accessed by the public at any time.
It was paid for mostly by grants that will also cover the rollout of at least 10 slower “level 2” facilities in Glendale throughout the year.
“Level 2” stations take four to six hours to get a full charge, but they’re still requested by residents in different various parts of the community, including Montrose, said Steve Zurn, general manager of Glendale Water & Power.
One is already up and running in the Civic Center parking lot.
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Zurn said he’s seen photos of someone getting creative in finding a way to get a charge on the storefront-heavy Honolulu Avenue in Montrose.
“They brought their own chord and plugged it into the outlets that serve the Christmas lights,” Zurn said.
Montrose would likely be one of the target areas for level 2 chargers, along with Brand Boulevard and a couple of parking garages such as the Orange Street lot, he said.
While he hasn’t used the level 3 charger yet, city employee Craig Kuennen makes daily use of the level 2 facility in the Civic Center lot.
The level 3 station is only the second one, so far, installed by the city of Glendale and cost $80,000, while the level 2 model costs $18,000, said Steve Zurn, general manager of Glendale Water & Power.
Kuennen, the business transformation and marketing administrator for the city, lives in Thousand Oaks and drives an electric Ford Focus.
“It’s great. It’s absolutely wonderful,” Kuennen said of the car charger. “I charge at home every night and when I get to work, I charge there.”
However, because they’re for the entire community to use, people have to be mindful of how much time they spend plugged into the charging stations, Zurn said.
The station can let a user know via text when their vehicle is fully charged, a feature Kuennen said he uses, and he has overspent his time at the station only once.
“Someone left a note on my windshield that said ‘move your car when it’s charged. Other people want to use it,’” he said.
But not everyone stays until their battery is fully charged, Zurn said.
Some people just plug in to get enough juice to get home and spend as little as $2 or $3 on a charge, he said.
The reason for charging electric-car drivers is to recoup the cost to provide the service, Zurn said.
Electric car chargers have been popping up throughout Glendale over the past few years at locations such as the Whole Foods on Glendale Avenue and at the Americana at Brand.
The level 3 station is only the second one, so far, installed by the city and cost $80,000, while the level 2 model costs $18,000, Zurn said.
About two-thirds of the level 3 station was paid for through grants and the motivation for the project was triggered by the state government’s push to get 1.5 million zero-emission cars on the road by 2025, he added.
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Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com
Twitter: @ArinMikailian
