ELROY
Well-known member
hyperlexis said:ELROY said:Went to the new DCQC in Thousand Oaks last night. It said my fee for the charging session would be $5 regardless of how much energy I was using. I checked the Blink app, and it looks like they are all charging $5 now. Based on my experience of using a few Blink QC stations the other week...it is hard to get to a 70% charge level indicated on my Bluetooth SOC meter even though I had the Blink set to 90%. So going from 20% to 70% (50%) would take about 4hrs tops on my level 2 home charging. At .38 cents an hour (.10kwh utility rate) Im looking at under $1.60 for the same charge level that Blink charges $5. So effectively I am now paying $10 a gallon gas equivalent fees. And suddenly the costs are no less than driving a Prius or high mileage ICE vehicle. And if you just needed to top off on your route to add another 20-30 miles of driving or so...it becomes even less cost effective. If we had 85kWh Tesla battery packs...that would be fine. Same costs whether you are taking 5kWh or 24kWh? Same costs day or night? Something has to be wrong with this pricing structure. Hopefully we can all convince Blink to come out with something a little more realistic. Should be per kWh, and be somewhat competitive with the home rate with perhaps a 25% surcharge. Not 300% more!
Its kind of like having a gas pump that charges you $100 whether your car can hold 1 gallon or 100 gallons. The one that benefits the most is the person with the 100 gallon gas tank. Not the person with the 1 gallon gas tank, or even the 100 gallon capacity car that only needs a 10 gallon top off to make it to the next destination.
It just doesn't happen in other real world applications of car refueling.
Here in Chicago the scam company that installed and ran our network of Chademo chargers (350green) was charging folks (anyone who would use their system in desperation) $8 per session! Regardless of the electricity used. Basically the equivalent of tanking up with two gallons of gas. About = 40 MPG then. Well hello Prius C....
Nissan must compete with Tesla regarding QC units in cities and on highways, where people either don't have home chargers, or need QCs for longer, or intercity travel -- like Tesla, Nissan needs to install its own units, at all its dealers, not just some, and they must be free for Leaf drivers. Because this whole privatization of the 'public' charging industry is not working well. Not with prices like that. Otherwise, if the state and federal governments really do care about clean air, etc., they need to install these units themselves.
Here in Illinois they had the brilliant idea to install L2s at dozens of Wallgrens and charge $2 per hour, with a min $2 charge. Who the hell goes to a drugstore for an hour or more....? Boggles the mind who plans these things. Free or fairly priced L3s are what the public needs. Hopefully the Nissan guy is reading these posts and telling his bosses what people experience in the real world.
Yes, they need to get this right. This is so crucial to the adoption of the EV highway. On my recent 200 mile trip, I was happy I was able to make the trip with access to 3 different quick chargers on the way. Had it cost me $15, (+ home charging costs), it would not have been that much better than a Prius, which could have made the trip non stop.