smkettner said:
I find the $1.50 per hour misleading also when the charge is $1.50 minimum even for a few minutes.
I plan to never use Blink again unless I can charge for close to a full hour.
One explanation I heard for Blink's coarse time granularity is the high per transaction credit card processing fees. On my credit card bill I have two or three separate $1 charges from Blink for usage last month. I don't understand why Blink doesn't use the same pre-paid model used by Chargepoint and Semacharge, not to mention Skype and Google Play. You'd put a balance on your Blink card with a single credit card payment of $20 or more and then spend from that balance, with automatic recharge when the balance hit zero.
That, together with pricing granularity by the minute, would give Blink lower credit card merchant fees, give customers a true price rather than one artificially inflated by "lost" fractions of hours, and would encourage rather than discourage plug sharing resulting in higher charging availability for drivers and higher revenue for Blink.