In case anyone has been wondering what the end of the story was on getting our charger installed... well, it's not over yet. I hadn't added anything here, because there's not much to add. As of today (3/5/97), exactly 3 months after taking delivery of our EV1, we still do not have our special EV charger meter (the time-of-use [TOU] rate meter) installed!

Back in early February, a representative of Edison informed me that the hangup with getting the meter installed was the City of Cerritos. Apparently, Edison needed to inform the city and get some variances approved. The "negotiations" were still proceeding...

The first objection that we found we could do something about was that the conduit added to bring 220V service to the garage needed to be painted. This we did as soon as we knew that this was a problem.

Finally, on 2/19, the city inspector looked at the installation. Basically he said everything was OK except that he wanted to look inside the charger to see the power connection, but we couldn't figure out how to remove the cover. He told me that he would talk to Edison and that it probably wouldn't be a problem.

... and then a deafening silence. I think it's time I emailed my Edison contact...

In the mean time, it turns out that the charger is hooked up to bypass our standard meter. In effect, we are getting "free" electricity. Apparently, this is a normal procedure, and this power really is free since it is usually a very temporary condition. However, Edison won't let 3 months go by without doing something, so after the charger is installed, they will back-charge us for the estimated usage. I suppose all good things must come to an end.

It looks as if there will be at least a part 5 of this story!