free blink charging ends spring 2012

[solardude]

Blink Plus
Charge as low as $1.00/hr.

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Use multiple charger locations or don’t have a home charger? This is the plan for you and provides the lowest cost charging available
50% savings for frequent charging
L2 charging as low as $1 per hour
Discounts on DC Fast Charging coming soon
Rewards coming soon
Cost
$30 annual membership fee (Sign up now and we'll waive the fee)
Pay as you charge
No minimum credit card balance
Blink Basic
Charge as low as $1.50/hr.

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Big savings for regular use
L2 charging as low as $1.50 per hour
Discounts on DC Fast Charging coming soon
Rewards coming soon
Cost
FREE – just register your credit card with your Blink account
No annual or monthly membership fees
No minimum credit card balance
Pay as you charge – no equipment purchases or lengthy contracts
Blink Guest
Your charge: As low as $2.00/hr.

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Drop by anytime
L2 charging as low as $2 per hour
DC Fast Charging coming soon
Drive for as little as 15.1¢ per mile or $3.40 per gallon*
Interested in reservations? Become a member
Cost
FREE
No annual or monthly membership fees
Pay as you charge

 

[abasile]

A non-trivial benefit of the 2013 LEAF's 6.6 kW charger will be less time spent at L2 units that charge by the hour. With our 3.3 kW chargers which actually draw about 3.8 kW, $1/hour translates to paying about $0.26/kWh. That's not bad, but $2/hour translates to $0.52/kWh with the current 3.3 kW chargers, more than I think most people would want to pay for significant amounts of charging.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

translate that cost anyway you want but at a quarter per K, it sounds like dirt cheap insurance against walking to me.

one thing that is becoming REAL obvious is that what Blink lacks in L3 progress they are really making up in L2's. just discovered a half dozen more in my near area including this group of 3 at Sears only a few miles from my house.

this encouraged me to jump on the blink map while charging (didnt need a charge but did want to warm up the car on someone elses dime!) and found two other Sears with 3 chargers as well.

i have to say i missed Sears announcement that they were providing chargers.

i cant help but laugh because Costco is a place i have been charging at for years and they announce they are pulling out while everyone else is jumping in. wondering if Costco is getting ready to eat some Crow?

 

[oakwcj]

I would LOVE to be able to drive the Leaf to Las Vegas for a vacation, for instance, but until there is an L3 charging "corridor" on the Interstate 15 route, I am not going to try it.

You might also want Nissan to lift their "1 quick charge per day" requirement for the battery.

At the BayLeafs meeting with the LEAF Chief Vehicle Engineer and many other Nissan employees, it was made clear that there really is no "one quick charge per day" rule. The key variable is battery temperature. If the temperature is in the normal range, you can do as many QCs as you want. If the temperature rises above the normal range, the car's charging circuitry will slow down the charge rate or completely stop the charge to protect the battery. The example they gave was Phoenix in the summer. It may well be too hot to do even one QC very quickly. In cooler climates, there should be no limit on the number of QCs. If the car accepts the charge, then it's safe.

 

[eMaS]

Blink got to be kidding.
I would ever only charge in an emergency.
The Nissan Leaf is a slow charger anyways.
Where I live there are enough alternative chargers from other companies.
They will fall on their chin and a lot of businesses that they talked into putting up chargers and 'making a fortune'.

Now if they offer L3 QC charging - that would be a different story.
A lot of people want to make money off electric cars but don't understand the concept
Happens every 10 years or so.

 

[saywatt]

I would LOVE to be able to drive the Leaf to Las Vegas for a vacation, for instance, but until there is an L3 charging "corridor" on the Interstate 15 route, I am not going to try it.

You might also want Nissan to lift their "1 quick charge per day" requirement for the battery.

At the BayLeafs meeting with the LEAF Chief Vehicle Engineer and many other Nissan employees, it was made clear that there really is no "one quick charge per day" rule. The key variable is battery temperature. If the temperature is in the normal range, you can do as many QCs as you want. If the temperature rises above the normal range, the car's charging circuitry will slow down the charge rate or completely stop the charge to protect the battery. The example they gave was Phoenix in the summer. It may well be too hot to do even one QC very quickly. In cooler climates, there should be no limit on the number of QCs. If the car accepts the charge, then it's safe.

That's great and good to know—but it is in the owner's manual. Here in the Northwest, we should never have battery heating issues thats for sure. But I, and I'm sure others, would like to see Nissan make it absolutely clear as in "issue a statement" regarding the issue. It's all moot at this point anyway as we don't have any QCs yet in WA. :shock:

 

[smkettner]

If most places charge ANYTHING where I am spending money as a customer I will also cancel.

So, some places can charge, but most can't?

How do you handle your petroleum purchases, if any? If we all adopted your method to gas, EVs would be HUGE!!!!

I can see paying at a public park, beach, stadium, museum, zoo, etc. Especially since I will be there 3 to 6+ hours.
Retail store where I have a choice to buy somewhere else, I expect charging to be free. Especially since I will generally be there 60 minutes or less.

It is just not the same as a gas station where you are only there 5 minutes to grab 300+ miles of energy.

A QC station on the interstate I can see paying but alas I bought no QC port I will take the Subaru or F150 when needed.

 

[solardude]

i thought i would post this exchange between myself and Blink regarding the upcoming fees for charging.

ME:
“charging per hour will cause inequity in "Fuel" costs depending on the vehicle being charged. for example, the Nissan LEAF comes with a 3.3 kw charger. The ford focus EV will have a 6.6 kw charger. this means the LEAF owner will be utilizing chargers twice as long as the Focus owner for like charge level and thus will pay double the "fuel" cost in comparison to the Ford focus EV owner. The fair way to equally charge for power used is to charge by Killowatt/hour consumed rather than by time. also, if one's car gets finished charging while one is finishing a meeting or meal, they are getting charged while not receiving any power; essentially being charged for nothing, except for perhaps for parking fees. Please charge for power consumed not time parked.”

Blink Marketing Team:
“Hello, and thank you for your feedback. We intend to honor our membership pricing rates through the end of 2012, and meanwhile gain a sharper understanding of price sensitivity directly from our customers. While only utility companies are allowed to charge on a per KW basis, we believe that our hourly charging fees will enable our users to get the charge they need, as well as motivate drivers to vacate parking spots once their charge is complete so that other EV drivers can charge up as well.”

Man, i really want a 10k external 240 charger that i can plug into the level 3 port!

 

[Pipcecil]

To me, it ends up being a cost comparison. While this charging price is good for retail businesses its NOT good for buisnesses that installed these chargers for their employees. My work is putting in some chargers and were really excited that they would get used right off the bat. Now I will rarely if ever charge once the pricing goes into effect. I can't justify 3 times the cost when its not needed, only a luxury (for pre heat/cool and not having to drive carefully in the winter). So those chargers will sit there, unused until a random person finally uses them for a cost.

The cost ends up being only effect for people whom drive a karam or volt as the electricty cost on the best play is cheaper than the gas cost would get them. But even the plug in prius would get better cost using gas than charger. Thats sad to me when gas beats the electricity cost.

Again, I don't mind paying if its a random use while I am out and about running errands. But paying 4-5 dollars a day just to charge for "convience" (assuming its the "as low as $1/hour," it could be higher!!!) plus the 30 dollars annual, thats more than my wife pays for toll roads (which she uses them a lot).

One final thought, I would go out of my way to farther places because they had chargers at those locations (all of them blink) and even went to new places I have never been because they had chargers (all of them blink because they are more prolific here). This will all end. There is no reason to drive farther to a mcdonalds if i will have to pay extra because I went out of my way. No thank you. All those new places, sorry, that won't be the deciding factor anymore (iits more of a deterant now).

Maybe if there were more EVSEs around, maybe if the leaf had a faster onboard charger, maybe if there were more plug-ins to use these. But as it stands right now, I think this payment is too much too soon. I predict a extreme drop-off in charger usage. I will go from using at least once a week (and once every work day once the blink gets installed at work) to maybe once every couple of months, if that.

Makes me wish chargepoint had more chargers in this area....

 

[camasleaf]

only utility companies are allowed to charge on a per KW basis

Maybe this needs to change. Gas stations do not charge based on time. It does not make any sense for a charging station to do so.

Where do we lobby for this change?

 

[Stanton]

Does anyone know exactly WHEN Blink will begin charging for charging (so to speak)? Will we receive some sort of "now" email or will it be clearly stated on the display @ point of sale? Unfortunately, when that happens my "opportunity" charging will cease (or at least require some re-thinking).

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Does anyone know exactly WHEN Blink will begin charging for charging (so to speak)? Will we receive some sort of "now" email or will it be clearly stated on the display @ point of sale? Unfortunately, when that happens my "opportunity" charging will cease (or at least require some re-thinking).

this spring is the word. i would monitor your QC installs in your area. i strongly suspect the "cash on" time will closely correlate with Blink's value in our eyes and without QC, they really dont have much value for me. i have several public charging alternative in L2 here

 

[walterbays]

Whenever I use a public Blink charger I get a notification on my phone (which has the Blink app) that I'm plugged in, at what address, and that I'm charging. When I unplug to go, or presumably if someone else unplugged me, I get a notification of that. Pretty neat!

But I noticed that after I leave, I continue to get plugged and unplugged notifications for several hours afterwards. I suppose these are other drivers who visit the charging station after me. I don't know whether they had to use their Blink cards to activate the unit, or whether it remained activated. Right now it's just a curiosity. But by the time they start charging money for charging, they'd sure better have their billing system worked out. I don't necessarily want to pay for everyone who charges after me.

It's not necessarily an easy thing for them to get right. I've come to think that the Car-J1772-EVSE connection is a "dumb" connection. At home if the car timer is activated when I plug in, the Blink isn't aware that the car is plugged in; and if instead the Blink timer is activated when I plug in, the Car isn't aware that it is plugged in. So the obvious and elegant solution of using a "car ID" to establish a charging session probably isn't supportable by the hardware.

That seems to leave the obvious and awkward solution of asking you to swipe your Blink card and press a button to terminate your charging session when you unplug. If you forget they could time out your session after some time. That seems to be what they're doing now, since there is no "logout" button on the Blink, but the session seems to time out after maybe 4 hours and anyone who comes within that time period may be counted as charging on your account.

You might think they could avoid the mis-billing problem entirely by terminating a session immediately upon disconnection of the plug. At best that would be awkward. If you reseated the connector for any reason you'd have to authorize with your card again, possibly subjecting you to a duplicate minimum fee if any. If a curious person unplugged and plugged you back in your car would stop charging. I don't know whether the Blink can tell the difference between a car that is unplugged and a car that becomes fully charged. If it can't then subsequent charge events during a single connection would not be possible, as the car does for cell balancing, and as you might want to do for climate pre-conditioning.

I'll try to ask the Ecotality folks how they intend to handle this. One way or another, before they charge money for charges, they have to have a billing system that is totally reliable and which doesn't make the charging less reliable.

 

[Luft]

I guess I don't understand who will be willing to pay even $1.00 / hr to charge at a L2 station. I suppose if I travelled more than half my range and needed a few extra electrons to make it back home but that would be pretty rare.

I'm much more interested in using DC quick chargers to significantly extend my range. That gives me something that drastically changes the way I can use my car.

 

[smkettner]

only utility companies are allowed to charge on a per KW basis

Maybe this needs to change. Gas stations do not charge based on time. It does not make any sense for a charging station to do so.

Where do we lobby for this change?

All Blink (and others) have to do is have a power option lever/code/button. 50 cents/hr 15a max or $1/hr for 30a max. Easy peasy.
Could even program it into the RFID card by user.

 

[walterbays]

All Blink (and others) have to do is have a power option lever/code/button. 50 cents/hr 15a max or $1/hr for 30a max. Easy peasy.
Could even program it into the RFID card by user.

Good idea! And in California it's even easier since non-utilities can sell by the kWh. http://www.plugincars.com/how-much-will-it-cost-charge-your-electric-car-public-106551.html

 

[ttweed]

Good idea! And in California it's even easier since non-utilities can sell by the kWh.

Walter--if the PUC has ruled it is legal for non-utilities to sell by the kWh, why are Blink and Evoasis and others saying they have to charge by "time on station" only? I don't get it--this seems to be contradictory.

TT

 

[walterbays]

Good idea! And in California it's even easier since non-utilities can sell by the kWh.

Walter--if the PUC has ruled it is legal for non-utilities to sell by the kWh, why are Blink and Evoasis and others saying they have to charge by "time on station" only? I don't get it--this seems to be contradictory.

TT

I assumed it was because they were talking about business policies to operate in many states, not just California. We'll see what they say about it at the meeting today.

I had read many times that non-utilities can sell EV fuel by the kWh, but when I searched for a reference all I found was the above article with that information as a comment, seemingly by one of our forum members. It may be that I read it many times all repeating the same unreferenced source. Who is always nagging us to give references for any claims of fact, EVdriver? I forget. I can't find a reference to it.

 

[Luft]

Blink's pricing is outrageous! At 250 pennies per hour we would be paying over 28 cents per mile assuming we get 70 miles on a full charge!!

Oh yeah Blink that's a winning strategy. At 100 pennies an hour it would still be over 11 cents a mile if they didn't soak us for a $30.00 access fee! My ICE costs less.

I can hardly wait to find out how much they'll demand for the use of their QCs.

Nissan really should consider installing DC QC stations at their dealerships to controle price. It will be a hard sell to convince people to buy a vehicle that costs more to buy, has a limited range AND costs more to fuel if the owner wishes to take it outside the range of a home charge!

 

[phxsmiley]

Blink sent an email with a 'membership FAQ', that provides a little more information.

It sounds like Membership plans go into effect on March 1st, quoted from their site:

"After this date, InCards not linked to a membership level will no longer be functional, but can be activated at anytime by signing up as a Blink Plus or Blink Basic member"

https://www.blinknetwork.com/membership-faqs.html

I assume that's their target date to start 'charging for charging'