drees said:
When in reality - you probably should expect to pay the equivalent of a 25 mpg car driven on gas. At $4/gallon that's 15c/mile which comes out to really close to $2/hour.
Why? If I wanted a 25mpg car, I would still be driving my Passat. Would you pay that for DC fast charging?
drees said:
A couple points:
1. You paid a huge price premium to have the option of driving electric or on gas with the Volt. Presumably you did this because you dislike burning gasoline for one reason or another. Presumably you'd be OK for paying $2/hour while shopping simply because this is not a lot of money - and public charging infrastructure is far from free.
I don't dislike burning gas, I dislike sending money to OPEC. Since those things are coupled right now, it's hard to separate them. "Burning electricity" is less directly tied to OPEC (where I live it's nuclear, coal, and natural gas sourced). So when I have an option, I prefer to defund the terrorists.
I may be an idealist, but im not stupid, and the math doesn't change - paying twice the going rate for energy is dumb, even if it's funding terrorists. There is an outlet mall near me that recently changed to pay charging. I won't charge there because it doesn't make sense economically. I may shop there, but the charging station isn't a draw.
drees said:
2. Sure - we're talking about L2 here, but in real life an hour of L2 here and an hour of L2 there makes a big difference in EV range for those who need it.. Case in point today - 2 hours of L2 let me drive 90 mostly freeway miles without worrying about range. 1 hour of L2 would have been enough to make the trip driven a lot more carefully.
Is that worth $4.00 to you? How much extra range did you get? 20 miles? 20mpg Leaf! That's the headline I see from that. That's tongue-in-cheek, but you see it illustrates the failure of Pay L2 charging at above-market premium. The market won't bear that premium.
drees said:
3. If you're only charging for convenience and don't need it for the EV miles - why are you charging at all? There's a chance you may be preventing someone who _needs_ the charge to make it do their destination.
uh, bummer dude? That is a debate topic much broader than this one, and that "need" is a feature of your vehicle, while mine came with the "always for convenience" feature. I'm not a jerk; I generally stick a charging protocol card in my window saying its ok to unplug me when it's for convenience (which you could argue is always), but there are times when my convenience outweighs your need, and that's my perogative. In your example above, that sounded like 1 hour of need and 1 hour of convenience. Weren't you "preventing someone who _needs_ the charge to make it do their destination?"
drees said:
Is free charging at retail establishments a nice perk? Sure is! But at the same time I realize that installing and maintaining these charging stations is far from cheap and if you want to see this infrastructure stick around - expect to pay for it.
Perhaps a good compromise would be the hosting retailer offering discounted or free charging with a minimum purchase.
Kinda like parking validation?
That's a reasonable compromise, but note the tie-in to my original complaint: making the charging a perk provides an attraction for EVs, making it an additional fee doesn't.
drees said:
All that said - do I particularly like paying $2/hour to charge at 240V/16A from a 32A capable station? No - biggest reason is that I feel that I'm paying twice as much as the 240V/32A capable vehicles - I think that cost to charge should be adjusted based on some combination of rate of charge, time spent charging and time spent plugged in (being plugged in and not charging prevents them from otherwise collecting money from actively charging customers).
I have to say I've never used a pay station, so I don't really know the difference between the advertised rate and the actual charged rate. These all seem reasonable to me.