I am shocked and gro$$ed out by some Charge Station Prices !

God help the person "long way from home" . Highway Robbery doesn't begin to cover a $6.95 convenience fee, plus 25 cent a minute to charge at 4-6 KwH !...

Blink shocked me the first time I saw the price. $6 bucks to go 60 miles ?
Then I started running across stuff that looks like the top line.

$20 to plug into 120v over night ?

Some folks just take a wild stab in the dark guessing at how much electricity gets used or what it costs.
( mom and pop RV)

But these big commercial gougers..know exactly what they are doing.
Some of them are built using Public Grant Money.. .and that my friend is a Crime.

blimpy said:

...Some of them are built using Public Grant Money.. .and that my friend is a Crime.

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Some, most or all are losing money even if they used public grant money. We've already had blink go bankrupt. If you tried to offer charging stations yourself for profit, you would realize the prices are more than fair. We aren't going to get a robust public charging infrastructure until we are willing to pay an appropriate amount. Making arguments akin to oil is basically just pulled from the ground so should be nearly free, won't help.

I guess that depends, in my city they (CarCharging Group) charges $.49/kWh, there are around 68 level 2 stations that sit mostly unused because of this high price. CCG has to pay the low power bill that these stations draw just to keep them on, so would it be better if they get used for $.20/kWh or sit unused? If you are going to lose $$ anyway, why not lose less? And btw, the few free charging stations are always being used, so it's not like there aren't any EVs around my area. Charging stations should be a loss leader, to get more business into an establishment, much like wifi....

Same problem here: Walgreens put in Chargepoint EVSEs at all the stores, but charged $.49/kWh. I never saw one being used -- and many seem to have disappeared at this point.

In Sacramento the only real charger I use is a local utility SMUD station that charges .35 fee with .24 rate per kWh on their quick charger.

Which to me is just fine because of convenience. I think it was slightly lower a year ago but it sure beat the PGE rates at my house during super peak summer.

KickinLeaf said:

I guess that depends, in my city they (CarCharging Group) charges $.49/kWh, there are around 68 level 2 stations that sit mostly unused because of this high price. CCG has to pay the low power bill that these stations draw just to keep them on, so would it be better if they get used for $.20/kWh or sit unused? If you are going to lose $$ anyway, why not lose less? And btw, the few free charging stations are always being used, so it's not like there aren't any EVs around my area. Charging stations should be a loss leader, to get more business into an establishment, much like wifi....

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Agree. A relatively new to my market, HyVee grocery chain all have free L2 Chargepoint charging stations. So far I've only seen a couple other EVs other than me using them but at the commercial electric rate that they probably get(~4 cents/KWh) someone parked there for an hour would cost them 25 cents. It's just about how long it takes me to shop and I'd probably not be shopping there if it weren't for the free charging station. I like your analogy of complimentary WiFi, they don't get paid for it but they make it up in other ways.
Now I suppose this wouldn't really work in a dense city or area where people could use the free charging station and shop somewhere else but in a area where your kind of contained in one area(similar to free WiFi) I imagine it works ok for the store.
I also agree on your pricing structure, lower prices and higher volume. I'd have to be very desperate to pay a high price for charging and would probably never do it but if it were more reasonable I may just do it, for sure more than if I felt the prices were too high IMO. In my area home power is ~12 cents/KWh and commercial rates are ~4 cents/KWh(the more the establishment uses the cheaper rate they get).

DanCar said:

Some, most or all are losing money even if they used public grant money. We've already had blink go bankrupt. If you tried to offer charging stations yourself for profit, you would realize the prices are more than fair. We aren't going to get a robust public charging infrastructure until we are willing to pay an appropriate amount. Making arguments akin to oil is basically just pulled from the ground so should be nearly free, won't help.

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This is true. Charging at home is cheap, but we shouldn't be surprised to pay a premium to charge elsewhere. It costs a lot to install and maintain much of today's EV charging infrastructure. Hopefully, EVSE prices and maintenance costs will continue to drop. But the cost of providing the electrical infrastructure will remain significant except where it's built in to new construction (governments should be requiring this).

I agree, though, that there's no point in charging so much that only a small number of drivers will use the charging stations, and Blink/CarCharging Group is doing just that.

That said, I've used Blink as well as Walgreens EVSEs from time to time in our LEAF, just to make some of our longer drives feasible. Even with a Tesla or a Bolt, Level 2 charging can be very helpful and worthy of paying a premium if it happens to be at or near a destination. In our recently acquired (used) Tesla, I'd rather pay an extra $10 or more for public charging that meshes with our plans than detour significantly out of our way to use a "free" Supercharger. I'll add, though, that I'm committed to driving electric whenever possible, so driving a gasoline car to save on "expensive" electricity isn't even on my radar. Besides, if the price of gasoline included all of the negative externalities, it wouldn't be so cheap.

OK. there is Economics... and then there is Greed.. then there is Ignorance/Stuidity.

It costs money to install charge stations. sometimes very significant money where underground infrastructure is involved.
It costs money to pay for the electricity sold.

How that is done and what it HAS to Cost...that is economics.
Anybody who can do math can figure it out.

What I said.. is that much of the Big Money is coming from Grants.
and we still take it in the shorts .. because no price controls were part of the Grant Requirement !

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Ignorance and Stupidity

That's where you price the electricity you sell... at MORE than the price of Gasoline.
sometimes 2 or 3 times more ! Because you simply don't know any better.
RV/Motel: " guess we'll charge you X..."

or the buis manager picks a number to charge out of thin air.
or gets sold a bill of goods by some service promoter.. in a profit sharing scheme
built on sand.

-----

Greed.. that's where you do the above and understand exactly what you are doing.
Example : adding a $6.95 to $25 "convenience fee" on top of a 25c per minute rate to charge at 3-6 KwH.
Making the average leaf more expensive to run than Swartenegger's Hum Vee.

------------------

EVSE prices are INSANE. plastic box with a DPST Relay ( contactor) and a dime store PCB board that talks
to your cars computer to control the charger/EVSE.

We have really competent companies ( clipper creek) and mom and pops ( juice box)
and Chinese robots made stuff.. all in the market place at the same time.
All selling at 3x what they should.

big bulk of the evse costs is the UL and CSA safety certificates, but they keep charging us for it even though they probably made it back by now.

right now you can buy a coupon book for 20 free small slurppies (oe $1.29 off any other size) for $5. that is 25 cents per slurppie which means you are only getting ripped off "royally" instead of "obscenely royally"

that is where we need to concentrate our fight against high prices!

For EV charging provided by a business in order to encourage you to shop there, it is quite simple, you do it the same way you do free/paid parking. You start the charging by using your credit card, and then when you shop, your receipt prints out a "free charging" code at the bottom. So if you purchased something, you enter the code just before you unplug your car, and your charging session was free, otherwise you're charged a nominal rate. That's just like how it's done for parking getting your parking ticket authorized inside the casino/store/etc.

I don't see much commercial market for L2 charging.

Quick charging, yes, L2 not so much.

remarquian said:

I don't see much commercial market for L2 charging.

Quick charging, yes, L2 not so much.

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all about perception really. I see L2's viable anywhere that the stay at a business will be more than one hour. This could be malls, movies, playgrounds, sporting events, work, school, park and rides, etc. There will be times were L1s should bolster the network just L3's should.

What I am seeing is everyone wanting a network that costs millions (L3s) but refusing to pay a few bucks to use them... hmmm???

What we need is more coverage, more options. Without willing to spend any money, we simply have to aim lower...

I'm certainly willing to pay for L3 charging, but only if it make economic sense versus a gasoline car. If I get charged a $5 fee because I use L3 so minimally plus the charging amount of $6 for 30 minutes of charging, that makes for $11 to go 60 miles. That's 2 gallons of gasoline in my 30mpg car, which is $5. That's double the price. I think the $6 price is just fine, but the extra $5 or an extra $15/mo doesn't make sense.

DaveinOlyWA said:

remarquian said:

I don't see much commercial market for L2 charging.

Quick charging, yes, L2 not so much.

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There will be times were L1s should bolster the network.

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Regarding just even having an L1 available, a few years ago I was going to try a 1600 mile round trip. It would have been an adventure, as well as going somewhere.

I carefully planned everything out, several Nissan dealers had L3, there were some other places that I could get L2. Then there was that 120 mile or so stretch where there was nothing. I don't think there was even a residence on Plugshare. There was one little town, somewhat at 80 miles or so, within potential reach, so I emailed them and asked if it would be possible to plug in to a 120V outlet somewhere and pay for the bit of charging I would do.

I never heard back from them, but then also I had to abandon the trip because the dates changed to be a Sunday coming back, and the Nissan dealers weren't open at all on Sundays. And because of the time change, I couldn't even drive an ICE vehicle, not that I would have wanted to.

Durandal said:

I'm certainly willing to pay for L3 charging, but only if it make economic sense versus a gasoline car. If I get charged a $5 fee because I use L3 so minimally plus the charging amount of $6 for 30 minutes of charging, that makes for $11 to go 60 miles. That's 2 gallons of gasoline in my 30mpg car, which is $5. That's double the price. I think the $6 price is just fine, but the extra $5 or an extra $15/mo doesn't make sense.

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Part of the problem is because gas is way too cheap in the USA right now. Just because we have the technology to suck it out of the ground at an alarming rate doesn't mean we should. If gas was $9/ gallon as it was in Europe a few years ago less people would buy SUV's to drive back and forth to work.
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As far as charging infrastucture goes, I don't see a viable comercial model for a lone private company to do it all for the above stated reasons. Electric vehicles are so efficient that the actual energy that is sold is fairly small compared to the trouble it takes to get it there. Highway systems will have to build in charge stations at rest stops as an expense using road tax money. And the automakers will have to install big charging stations ala Tesla. Convenience stores and malls will put in charge stations. All at L3. All will charge us 3 times what we would have paid at home for the electricity plus a parking fee per hour. And gas must phase in a carbon tax over the next 10 years to make EV's financially attractive and force the general public to make a market shift.
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There is good investment opportunity to start up manufacturing L3 comercial roadside charge station hardware. Too bad we had to end up with 2 (3-Tesla) different standards. This is the next thing Tesla could easily step into and dominate if it had time to take on one more undertaking.

Gas is comparatively cheap because it is heavily subsidized by our government. Most other developed countries don't do the hand-out we do to the oil companies.

I talked to the manager of my local Costco the other day about putting L2 charging stations in as an inducement for customers to shop longer. He was interested and said the General Manager was in the store that day and would pass it along.

Here's hoping!

oleviking said:

I talked to the manager of my local Costco the other day about putting L2 charging stations in as an inducement for customers to shop longer. He was interested and said the General Manager was in the store that day and would pass it along.

Here's hoping!

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I remember a thread a while back about Costco and L2 charge stations.....not sure where it went, it might have even been a petition to have L2 chargers installed at Costco....I agree it would be nice

oleviking said:

I talked to the manager of my local Costco the other day about putting L2 charging stations in as an inducement for customers to shop longer. He was interested and said the General Manager was in the store that day and would pass it along.

Here's hoping!

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I've emailed a few businesses locally, including Kroger grocery stores about the possibility of installing L2 charging stations. Whole Foods is about the only place around here with a charging station as part of the shopping experience.