[dannycamps]

As someone who lives in a state with minimal EV charging infrastructure, I always get excited when I travel somewhere else and see public charging stations.

Today was an example of this when I went to a neighboring state (PA) for a doctor appointment. The doctor's office had EV parking spots and some Blink chargers which I found to be exciting. Less exciting was one of the spots being occupied by a hemi-equipped Dodge Charger but I digress...

This being my first experience with Blink, I decided to plug in while at the doctor. In the hour or so that I was at the doctor, I charged up 3.89kWh at a rate of $0.49 per kWh for a total of $1.89. This seems extremely pricey to me for what amounted to about 12 miles of added range.

Building this out further, if I charged from empty to full, it would've cost about $7.00 for what would essentially be the equivalent of 1.5 gallons of gas. I found it strange that EV charging would be more money than if I put the same amount of gas in my car.

At first I thought the doctor's office was just setting the price high to make some money but when I looked on the web, it appears that the prices are actually set by Blink and vary by state. PA just happens to be a state where Blink charges $0.49/kWh.

Not being that familiar with public charging in general, I wonder if this is typical with EV charging stations or does Blink just have really high pricing. Full disclosure, I went to a hotel last summer in PA and they had a ChargePoint EVSE which was free to use for guests so I have seen/used some other types of public charging.

 

[jcanoe]

As someone who lives in a state with minimal EV charging infrastructure, I always get excited when I travel somewhere else and see public charging stations.

Today was an example of this when I went to a neighboring state (PA) for a doctor appointment. The doctor's office had EV parking spots and some Blink chargers which I found to be exciting. Less exciting was one of the spots being occupied by a hemi-equipped Dodge Charger but I digress...

This being my first experience with Blink, I decided to plug in while at the doctor. In the hour or so that I was at the doctor, I charged up 3.89kWh at a rate of $0.49 per kWh for a total of $1.89. This seems extremely pricey to me for what amounted to about 12 miles of added range.

Building this out further, if I charged from empty to full, it would've cost about $7.00 for what would essentially be the equivalent of 1.5 gallons of gas. I found it strange that EV charging would be more money than if I put the same amount of gas in my car.

At first I thought the doctor's office was just setting the price high to make some money but when I looked on the web, it appears that the prices are actually set by Blink and vary by state. PA just happens to be a state where Blink charges $0.49/kWh.

Not being that familiar with public charging in general, I wonder if this is typical with EV charging stations or does Blink just have really high pricing. Full disclosure, I went to a hotel last summer in PA and they had a ChargePoint EVSE which was free to use for guests so I have seen/used some other types of public charging.

Unless you get lucky and find a free place to charge at work or while on a trip you are always better off charging at home. Those DC Fast Charging sites that everyone is so excited to use with their EV cost $10-12 for 30 or 40 minutes of fast charging. Even Tesla's SuperCharger network costs unless you received unlimited SuperCharger access when you purchased your Tesla vehicle (not free for Model 3 owners.)

 

[Guest]

In SFBA where I live, not far from Tesla HQ, there're public charging stations everywhere. However, they're pricy. My home electricity rate is very costly at 0.21 c/kWh. It's still way cheaper than charging at any public stations around here. Same as you, I don't see the benefits of charging at the public stations if pretty much all of them cost way too much.
Some stations charge by hour. At $1/h, it's cheaper for me to put gas into the Volt minus the hassle of going back, unplug and move the car when it's full.
Fortunately, there're 3-4 spots with unrestricted EVSEs near my office that I can use.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[bjrosen]

At least they were charging by the KW and not by the hour. The few places that I've seen with non-free charging always charge by the hour which means that a Volt pays twice as much per KW as a Tesla. Unless the charging is free it doesn't make a lot of sense to charge a Volt at a public charger, both because it's so expensive relative to home and because the Volt charges so slowly that you won't usually enough power to make a difference.

 

[Tacoma]

In our area the public chargers are owned and operated by the local utility. Rates are $0.14 per kWh, close to home electrical rates.

 

[JRRF]

In our area the public chargers are owned and operated by the local utility. Rates are $0.14 per kWh, close to home electrical rates.

When that is the case (or it's free), then be all means the Volt can be charged outside the home. But gouging is pretty common yet not a concern for Volt owners. We have an engine and can run pretty cheaply on it. So there's no use paying a nickel more than you would at home. It's the BEVs that have no choice but to charge away from home sometimes. And if you have to charge, any port in the storm will do, regardless of the price.

 

[BAZINGA]

This is why Tesla's SC/Destination chargers make sense and is the gold standard. EV adaptation will suffer because of crap like this. But the Volt doesn't require charging away from home so I'll never test that out. I charge at home.

 

[Norton]

... Those DC Fast Charging sites that everyone is so excited to use with their EV cost $10-12 for 30 or 40 minutes of fast charging. ....

This is a pretty broad statement that isn't true for all users across the country. It varies.

For instance: In my 82 mile rated BEV (w/DCFC capability) on my last 'Airport Run' I stopped at a 50kW DCFC station for 10 minutes.

Which cost me $1.69.
Which breaks down as:

$0.272 / kWh (home rate is $0.125 / kWh)
$0.07 / per Mile ,,, which is still cheaper than most gassers, and cleaner!
The app says this was 6.21 kWh / 24 miles added.

I was early for the flt pick up and I stayed longer than the normal 80% SOC. Half of those minutes were during the taper down to 24 kW.​ (With no climate control running I was getting great EV mileage on that trip)

These are all 'approximates' and vary by the season.
L2's are less expensive in this network. You'd expect to pay more for the DCFC, those stations are big honkers.

 

[emg77]

Yep, I won't use a charger that I have to pay for. Even worse for Volt owners are the ones that charge based on time rather than kWH, since we have a relatively slow charging rate. The free ones I know of are typically at shopping centers, grocery stores, and casinos where they want you to park and come in and buy things or gamble. Other "free" ones in Detroit are many of the parking garages. I say "Free" because you are paying for parking, but I'm typically there on business and reimbursing my parking expenses to a project, so I'm happy to take the power. Luckily, in the Detroit area, I've run across very few that charge for the power.

 

[tacman7]

My rate at home is $.48 peak rates from 2-10pm, $.12 off peak 10pm-8am.

Whine...

Delayed charging works fine for my situation.

How many kWh's is a full charge?

 

[jcanoe]

My rate at home is $.48 peak rates from 2-10pm, $.12 off peak 10pm-8am.

Whine...

Delayed charging works fine for my situation.

How many kWh's is a full charge?

For your Gen 1 Volt I'm not certain; for a Gen 2 Volt's 14kWh usable battery capacity requires approximately 16.5 - 17 kWh depending on whether the battery is being heated or cooled while charging.

 

[bjrosen]

It's not gouging, they are entitled to charge whatever the market will bear. If you want a charging infrastructure to be built out then you should want it to be profitable. Aside from Gen1 Leaf owners nobody has to charge at a public charger, it's merely a convenience. Obviously the Volt never needs to use public level 2 charging but neither does a Bolt or a Tesla because they have enough range to get home without charging.

While I think that the owners of public EVSEs are entitled to charge whatever they want I don't think there is any business case for paid public level 2 EVSEs, there just won't be enough customers for it. There is a case for free charging. It's certainly worth it for a mall to give away 75 cents worth of electricity to attract a customer. When I go to the opera or symphony in Boston I park in the Christian Science Center garage which has free charging instead of the Gainsborough St garage which doesn't have any charging. They both cost $25 are are equally convenient but I'm picking the one that gives me $3 worth of electricity so the CSC garage makes $22 off of me and the Gainsborough garage makes nothing. In the future all hotels and motels will offer charging, my guess is that the budget motels will give it away while the expensive hotels charge you. That's counter intuitive but it would follow the pattern where the cheap motels give you free parking and free waffles while the expensive ones charge you $50 to park and $25 for breakfast.

 

[wws]

A small portion of why I bought our Volt was to explore the local EV infrastructure - prior to going full EV. So on occasion I do use public charging. It is fun - kinda like finding geocaches. Using them helps show the need to whichever Powers That Be that there is demand for the service, helps keep my voltstats numbers good, and sometimes you get a better parking spot. It usually only costs a couple of bucks so who cares.

I did get thrown out of one location because plugshare indicated it was public, but in practice was otherwise. It has since been properly marked as private.

I think workplace charging is a different category. Like lots of Silicon Valley companies, my wifes employer offers free charging - though each car only gets a two hour time slot. Her previous employer had the same policy. That is enough to cover one direction of her commute. If it wasn't free, and cost significantly more than charging at home, we probably wouldn't bother since she can make the whole round trip on one charge. Whether it is worth the hassle is an individual decision. She actually likes the excuse to get up from her desk and walk around a bit.

 

[snic]

I charge outside of home only very rarely, mostly for the giggles more than that I particular need to juice up the battery. (The Volt has a gas engine!) Typically it's substantially more expensive than what I'd pay at home. One exception is a local shopping mall that charges for parking. The city actually owns the garage, and they decided to add a few chargers. The cost is something like $1/hr over the cost of parking, and that works out to only slightly more than the typical electricity rate of $.21/kWh.

 

[Dutch]

At this moment in time I feel like most of the public charging stations are like the "last stop" gas station before you drive into the desert. A pure EV driver, who is running out of electrons, will pay to get where he/she is going.

As more and more people join the fold, this business model is going to face some changes and I actually think that the electric utilities are going to be a positive part of this wrestling match because they WANT more EV drivers because it means increased revenue for them in an age when electric use is actually leveling off (or even dropping in some cases).

 

[jcook01]

Here in the DC area I've seen $0.45/KWH for members (Blink Simacharge etc.), non-member pay five or ten cent premium on top of that rate.

Even though we're members of the local charge providers when compared to our rates at home $0.07/Kwh that's a steep increase. As a result we don't use the pay for play infrastructure.

Luckily some of the local malls etc have free plug in charging. Most of the time they're not ICE'd. However during Christmas season all bets are off.

 

[bjrosen]

At this moment in time I feel like most of the public charging stations are like the "last stop" gas station before you drive into the desert. A pure EV driver, who is running out of electrons, will pay to get where he/she is going.

As more and more people join the fold, this business model is going to face some changes and I actually think that the electric utilities are going to be a positive part of this wrestling match because they WANT more EV drivers because it means increased revenue for them in an age when electric use is actually leveling off (or even dropping in some cases).

It's not like a last stop gas station because level 2 charging is so slow, nobody would stop to buy a quart of gas. The better analogy are the free samples at Costco, they aren't a meal just a cracker with some cheese or a slice of sausage, but everybody likes a free snack, plugging in at a mall doesn't get you enough charge to be worthwhile but if it's free you aren't going to turn it down especially if the EV parking spots are close to the entrance. The only time I find that I find public charging is really worthwhile is when I go to the opera, that's because operas are 3-5 hours long, throw in an hour for dinner and there is enough time to do a full charge. My trip to Boston is 50 miles which I can make one way on battery, if I'm seeing an opera I can get a full charge which allows me to do the entire trip on battery. A symphony isn't long enough so I'll end up using a little gas on the return trip.

 

[jcanoe]

Here in the DC area I've seen $0.45/KWH for members (Blink Simacharge etc.), non-member pay five or ten cent premium on top of that rate.

Even though we're members of the local charge providers when compared to our rates at home $0.07/Kwh that's a steep increase. As a result we don't use the pay for play infrastructure.

Luckily some of the local malls etc have free plug in charging. Most of the time they're not ICE'd. However during Christmas season all bets are off.

Don't forget to include the energy distribution charges, grid fees, taxes etc. that are in addition to what you quoted as the power generation cost of electricity ($0.07/kWh.) All in I estimate that my Maryland PEPCO costs are ~$0.16/kWh. A simple way to determine your cost per kWh is to take a recent utility bill and divide the total amount of the utility bill by the kWh consumed.

 

[Guest]

IMO, 50 cents per Kwh isn't gouging. We may not like it because it's more than gasoline costs, but if there wasn't any money to be made installing chargers, nobody would be doing it.

Supply and demand will eventually control the prices. If the price is truly out of line, few people will use that charger. For Volt drivers, the price may always be higher than driving using gas because BEV drivers will pay more since they don't have an option and that will keep prices higher than we feel are proper

At ANY price, nothing frustrates BEV drivers more than not being able to charge because hybrid drivers who can get where they are going without recharging are 'ICEing' the charge spots. One way to 'regulate' that is with prices which are higher than gas prices . . . . and it's working for the most part

Don

 

[JRRF]

Don't forget to include the energy distribution charges, grid fees, taxes etc. that are in addition to what you quoted as the power generation cost of electricity ($0.07/kWh.) All in I estimate that my Maryland PEPCO costs are ~$0.16/kWh. A simple way to determine your cost per kWh is to take a recent utility bill and divide the total amount of the utility bill by the kWh consumed.

I was just thinking the same thing. My BGE delivery/tax/fee charges are about equal to the cost of the energy. And that's rising as the cost of the electricity declines.