Leaf-Curious in Dallas

[dfwJim]

Hi!

My gasoline car just turned 140,000 miles, and I've been wondering about my car future. Coincidentally, my place of work has recently provided free 4-hour charging stations for plug-in cars. After deciding the used plug-in hybrids were too expensive for my comfort I found that 2011 Leafs are relatively much cheaper and at the price point I was thinking for my next car.

For the first time I was inspired to roughly calculate the difference in fuel costs, and even assuming I do all my charging at home it's still staggeringly cheaper than gasoline. I seem to be on a 12,000-13,000 miles/year pace if I back out the road trips from my recent past. That is what I'd expect to put on a Leaf.

In my head I like the idea that I can take off anywhere on a whim in my gasoline car, but after thinking hard on it I'm pretty sure I haven't driven outside the range of a Leaf for nearly two years, except for a road trip or two, and I could rent a car for vacations if necessary. Work is about 22 miles away.

I test-drove a 2011 Leaf today. I am a big guy, but it fits me fine as long as nobody ever wants to sit in the back seat behind me.

I'll be looking through the forum to determine if a used Leaf in Dallas/Forth Worth is viable and a smart buy.

 

[HighDesertDriver]

In general, it would appear a used 2011 LEAF would work for your commute. Be cautioned, however, that any used Texas LEAF should be closely checked for actual battery capacity, not the number of capacity bars showing on the gauge. On the plus side, losing the forth capacity bar before 60 months or 60,000 miles will get you a warranty replacement battery. Check this forum for more details. Do you reading here first. It has been a good car for us.

 

[Boomer23]

Your commute length is perfect for the LEAF. And with workplace charging, even in the unexpected circumstance of a missed charge or a detour, you should be golden.

But when shopping for a used LEAF in Texas, you need to be seriously concerned about battery degradation that has already occurred. Read long and hard here about rapid capacity loss in hot climates, loss of capacity bars and the battery capacity warranty. Make sure that you understand these issues before you jump in and buy a used LEAF. I'd also recommend that you get a LeafSpy Pro setup, which consists of a small bluetooth device that plugs into the car's OBDII port below the steering wheel, and an inexpensive app that you can buy for an Android phone or tablet. With this device, you can check carefully on each used LEAF that you are shopping to see how many Amp Hours the battery has left. You'll need to read about the LeafSpy here to get an understanding of how to use if for this purpose.

 

[Pipcecil]

The leaf would seem perfect for you. I am actually curious where you work because there are only a handful of places that have installed 4 charging stations at a workplace for employees - I have my top guess bets

As was mentioned by a few people before, the higher heat here in Texas does degrade the battery quicker than elsewhere. I have had my 2011 leaf for 2.5 years and have lost ~30% of my original capacity - something that was not supposed to occur until 8-10 years of ownership. If you are looking at a used leaf, check the capacity bars to see how much the battery has degraded (these are the little square bars next to the long fuel bars). As an idea for range, my car now gets 50-55 miles until dead. Thats a drop from the 80+ when it was new (I averaged better than the EPA 73 miles usually).

As much as I hate "renting" the leases on the 2013's are spetacular, and I might recommend that since they are so low, and you get the bonus of getting to trade your car back in with a partially degraded battery before it gets worse. Plus the 2013's had greater improvements with charging speed (twice as fast), heater improvements (winter affects range greatly), and other efficiences to boost the car's range by 11 miles compared to a 2011.

Other things to consider:
Dallas-Fort Worth has a plethora of QC stations for the Leaf (23 in fact). These are very nice and convenient and will give your car a charge in 30 minutes, we are lucky because stations like these are not available in most of the US. The company that supplies them, eVgo, is doing a deal with 1 year free charging if you buy a new Leaf (otherwise its $40-60 per month depending how long a contract you sign with them). Even if you decide you not to purchase their services, I would get a car with the QC port - for 2011 this was optional. So if you purchase used or get a new (lease or purchase), I would strongly recommend a car with this port.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Remember there is no $7500 tax credit on a used Leaf so the price is the price. Typically people are getting better overall pricing leasing a new compared to buying used. Your scenario works for a Leaf for sure even with the 3.3 charger in the '11 your office charge puts you in a happy place. But with a used even with 15% (1 bar) off capacity you're still going to see 60 miles of available use during the summer (non highway). I would be concerned about long term battery degradation. If we get a summer like we did 2 years ago you can blow through a battery with a quickness.

The battery warranty was mentioned earlier in the thread but remember you're 2+ years into the 5 at that point.

Definitely a good Leaf candidate but be very careful with a used purchase. Definitely don't spend too much for it.

 

[dfwJim]

Thanks!

I was getting pretty excited at the thought of driving a Leaf, but total cost of ownership is starting to concern me, or more specifically the useful life of the car and its affect on the cost of ownership.

By buying late-model-used gas cars I have kept my car costs low. Averaged out, my current car has cost me about $2500/year in purchase cost, but after selling or trade-in to liquidate its remaining value that number will be more like $2200/year. My current driving habits are costing $1500/year in fuel at $0.12/mile based on my actual fuel cost and consumption over the past 6 months applied to my current and projected driving habits of 12,500 miles/year. The same model (Hyundai Sonata gas) is still available at roughly the same deal I got 6+ years ago, so I expect I can repeat this cost cycle if I were to buy another gas Sonata.

At first glance with the 2011 Leafs being around $15k-$18k the Leaf with its much-lower fuel cost seems to be a better deal. Without going into detail I am projecting worst-case fuel cost of $625 per year for 12,500 miles (paying for all charging at home with 110v at $0.135 per kWh). Even stacking the deck against the Leaf as I did, the fuel savings is substantial. However two things give me pause about the expenses:

• Installing a level 2 charging station at home I'm guessing will cost me $1500-$3000 because I'm convinced I'll have to replace my breaker panel, too. With the free charger at work I might be able to get by without home level 2 charging, but it would further reduce my range for personal driving
• I don't know how long the battery's useful life will be. I can accept battery and range degradation to a point, but will I still be able to comfortably commute 45 miles round-trip in a 2011 Leaf with the original battery 6 years from now? If I can't, the lack of useful life severely increases the purchase cost per year.

Upon further thought, the level 2 charging station isn't that big a deal amortized over a 6-8 year life (in my possesion) of the car.

However, if the 2011 Leaf battery degrades to the point of being unusable for my needs in 3 years my ownership costs double as compared to a 6-year life.

I haven't seen yet how much a battery replacement would cost. I've read about the 5-year warranty and the $100/month (apparently in perpetuity?) battery plan, but do we know roughly what it would cost me to "write a check" to replace the battery in 2017? If the car is useful and has value through 6-8 years it may start to look attractive to me again at a cost-of-ownership-plus-fuel similar to my current car.

Edit: I had originally dismissed the $100/month battery plan out-of-hand, but at $1200/year--a little more than the difference in my calculated fuel costs--this might be what could ensure a 2011 leaf lasts to 2020 or 2022. I'll look into this plan more, but I would rather know that I could replace the battery for $x in Y years.

 

[adric22]

Edit: I had originally dismissed the $100/month battery plan out-of-hand, but at $1200/year--a little more than the difference in my calculated fuel costs--this might be what could ensure a 2011 leaf lasts to 2020 or 2022. I'll look into this plan more, but I would rather know that I could replace the battery for $x in Y years.

Nobody knows an official cost of a brand-new battery, however best guess right now based on the going rate of "like new" batteries being sold on the used market is around $5,000 to $6,000. That price will likely fall even lower in 2-3 years.

I'm also on your doorstep, here in Ft.Worth. I bought my 2011 new and I have around 31,000 miles on it. I just lost my second capacity bar this weekend. Fortunately, my commute is short so it won't be an issue. But it has got me reconsidering whether or not to keep the car at end of lease, which happens in a few months.

 

[RonDawg]

However two things give me pause about the expenses:

• Installing a level 2 charging station at home I'm guessing will cost me $1500-$3000 because I'm convinced I'll have to replace my breaker panel, too. With the free charger at work I might be able to get by without home level 2 charging, but it would further reduce my range for personal driving
• I don't know how long the battery's useful life will be. I can accept battery and range degradation to a point, but will I still be able to comfortably commute 45 miles round-trip in a 2011 Leaf with the original battery 6 years from now? If I can't, the lack of useful life severely increases the purchase cost per year.

1. Check with a local electrician to see what capacity you have with your existing panel. Remember, you don't have to go with the biggest, baddest EVSE in existence...with a pre-2013 Leaf, you only need a 16 amp one, which only requires a 20 amp circuit. 30 amp EVSEs require a 40 amp circuit and that can be too much if you have an older home.

2. Check out the battery degradation model in the Wiki:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/wiki/index.php?title=Battery_Capacity_Loss" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[planet4ever]

By buying late-model-used gas cars I have kept my car costs low. Averaged out, my current car has cost me about $2500/year in purchase cost, but after selling or trade-in to liquidate its remaining value that number will be more like $2200/year. My current driving habits are costing $1500/year in fuel at $0.12/mile based on my actual fuel cost and consumption over the past 6 months applied to my current and projected driving habits of 12,500 miles/year.
<snip>
Without going into detail I am projecting worst-case fuel cost of $625 per year for 12,500 miles

So, not even allowing for the extra gas car maintenance costs (oil, tuneups, etc.) that gives you about $3,100/year as a break even point. If you could lease a new LEAF with nothing down and $260 a month you would match that point, and you would be driving a new car with a new car warranty instead of a used car for which you would have to pay to fix many of its possible problems. You may not be able to get that good a lease deal, but you should try to balance service and maintenance on the gas car against whatever premium you would have to pay for the lease. (By rotating their own tires, many LEAF drivers will have total service and maintenance costs of $0.00 by the end of their lease.)

With a lease you wouldn't have to worry about battery degradation, and I expect you can probably get set up with 240v charging at home for under $1,000. Remember that whatever charging facilities you add don't need to be amortized over the first EV you drive. You will probably want another EV after that, and yet another, and your charging setup will still work for those, no matter what brand they are. Even if it's only a 16A system it will still give you about 100 miles of driving every day for 8 hours of charging. Even if you get a Tesla!

Ray

 

[HighDesertDriver]

Not sure what leases are available in your area, but here is a recent one in California. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15428" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Since you seem to be focusing on projected monthly cost, the earlier comments on considering a lease should make it part of your evaluation.

 

[mkjayakumar]

Jim,

I would really caution you on buying a used Leaf or even a new Leaf here in TX:

- A used 2011 Leaf in Texas is guaranteed to have lost substantial capacity. You really need to plug in a Gid-meter to see what the capacity on a full charge. I have lost close to 25% capacity in 22 months/28K miles of driving.

- Buying a new Leaf is again prone to the same problems of higher level of battery degradation. Nissan warranty will replace your battery after you lose around 30% in 5years/60K miles, but your range will be reduced right after the first summer.

On the other hand leasing a Leaf for 24 months is a great way to reduce your per month costs, if you factor in the money you save on gas. At the end of 24 months you will be returning your Leaf anyway and the battery degradation is Nissan's headache. You will come out head when compared to an equivalent new gas car.

You should consider EVSE costs as something as an investment for all your future EV driving. Because once you get the taste of an EV, you will be driving an EV for life.

 

[Pipcecil]

I know its not an exact number, but its fairly good for calculations. When I try and compare for overall usage including tuneups and repairs of an ICE, I just take the state government standard rate, which is an average for all ICE cars. Currently its $0.56 per mile, which includes gas and other maintenence (belts, tires, hoses, everything). Note that cost does not include any loan payments, just the running and maintenece of the vehicles avereaged over lifetime of ownership (state assumes 8 years of ownership I believe). This cost would be ~$7,000 per year at 12,500 miles.

For the leaf, maintenece, if you follow the maintenece schedule on the book, will run you ~ $200 a year (conservative estimate here - you won't be doing maintence twice a year, but I figured its a good comparison). Add replacement tires - being conservative, $600 dollar for a set replaced in 3 years adds another $200. With your electricty cost, you get $1,025 a year - bump it to $1,100 for windshield washer fluid and replacing the wiper blades (again being converative). So you really got $7,000 vs $1,100.

 

[Harhir]

Sorry to hijack this thread but I am also in the DFW area and I am thinking getting a Plug-in Hybrid or an EV. The Volt is out of selection since it just does not provide enough headroom for a 6'3" guy like me.
I have not test driven the Leaf yet but if it "fits" I may be interested.
Plus I want to look at Ford. Their new Focus EV and their C-Max Energi have my interest. But no dealer seems to have a Focus EV in stock.

After doing some research on the batteries in hot climates and the potential huge depreciation in general I have decided that leasing would probably be the best option for me. Either 24 or 36 months. Not longer.
I have about a 18 mile roundtrip commute to work. My workplace does not provide any charge stations. So I guess I would get about 3 -4 trips without recharging.

I have a few questions for the DFW area Leaf owners:
- State incentive:
There seems to be a $2500 state incentive when you buy an EV. But I could not find details about it and how one would apply for it:
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/laws/laws/TX/user/3260" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- What are the prices here in the DFW area for 240V home chargers and install? I am not even sure I would need one if I charge the car every night after about 20 miles of use.

-Public charging stations:
I am mainly roaming around Plano/Allen north of George Bush Turnpike and east of the Tollway. Every other week there could be a longer trip towards Dallas or McKinney.

1. Are there any free charging stations? Carcharging "gouches" $0.49 cents per kwh which makes the whole EV car ownership not worthwhile financially when I can get home rates for around $0.10 per kwh.

2. Are Blink stations $1/hr for members any better? I am not sure how many kwh they will provide within one hour.

3. Do the local Nissan dealers offer any free or cheap charging?

4. The EVgo plan for 1 year free which comes with a new Leaf does not provide any advantage for me. I live and work in Plano and as it looks like there are no EVgo stations in the area. I would probably hardly ever use them. And making a 10+ miles detour to charge the car does not make sense.
- Are there any QC stations besides EVgo? And how much does EVgo charge anyhow? I could not rates on their website.

5. Would it make sense to get a special electricity rate for cheaper rates at night? Most of my electricity is used by the two power guzzling AC units which are running mainly during daytime hours. Not sure there are electricity plans with the same day rates but cheaper night rates to charge the car.

Sorry for all the questions but I am just trying to figure out if an EV really makes sense to me since I normally buy cheap used gasoline toy cars.

Thanks
Stefan

 

[dfwJim]

Hijack away!

Stefan, I am 6'2" and very heavy, and in my brief test-drive I found that the Leaf fits me about like a Prius [gen 2; the Leaf actually fits me better than a gen 3] in the driver's seat--well enough, but of course not as roomy as a full-size--but there is no way even a child's legs would fit between the back seat and the back of the driver's seat while I'm driving. But since I pretty much always drive alone, that's not a factor for me. When buying gasoline cars I usually envision how comfortable it will be on a road trip, but the Leaf's range can be used up within an hour or so, so it's not a place you'll be sitting for hours at a time.

Being able to roll the federal tax credit into the lease to reduce payments makes leasing a financially attractive option for cost per year, even compared to buying used gasoline cars. However I have several other objections to leasing that I can't overcome, so I am not considering leasing one. Also, in TX, you have to pay sales tax on the full purchase price of the car when leasing which skews the numbers when you amortize that tax across two or three years' "ownership".

There are free charging stations, at least around Irving. Pipcecil who has posted recently in this thread has links to area charging stations and regularly updates this thread with additions and removals in the DFW area.

I don't have a Leaf, but I have mentally gone through several iterations in my mental model of driving a Leaf, and I don't think the public charging infrastructure is a factor for me. I don't see stopping and topping-off like gas cars unless the place I'm already going and staying for 1+ hour has a charging station. So home, work, family's houses on occasion, and maybe if a mall or movie theater installs a station it might be worth plugging in while I'm there, but for a vast majority of my potential EV driving I just don't see the public charging stations being a factor. *I* am not going to plan my driving around spending 1-3 hours at a charging station to extend my range on a regular basis.

For me, the public- and especially the free work charging stations are what inspired me to assess the viability of an EV in the first place--and that's a good thing--but after looking at it I realize the public charging stations in my case are nearly a nonfactor, and really they're just a range-anxiety-reducing security blanket.

For my projected driving which is longer than your commute I figured I could make do with the 110v home overnight charging, even I didn't have charging available at work. *If* I didn't charge at work, and I had plans to drive to e.g. Addison for a night out from Irving after my round-trip work commute then I'd start worrying about range and considering a faster top-off somewhere or making other transportation arrangements.

Edited to add: Somewhere on this forum is a chart of kWh/hour used by the Leaf at various speeds. For my electric estimation I chose 3.6 miles per kWh (which I think is the 60mph rate) and a 75% charging efficiency using a 110v home electric charger (240v charging is more efficient as well as faster) which makes for 2.7 miles per kWh-at-the-home-meter. I figure this is a worst-case scenario. At $0.135 per kWh--higher than my last-6-months average--this would be $0.05 per mile, and I consider that a stacked-against-the-Leaf estimate. I think real costs would be slightly lower to half depending on real costs and how much free charging I would get at work. I haven't considered the "free nights" plans, but I know during the summer my A/C is currently my main electric consumption during the day; my WAG is that the A/C uses more juice than the car would, but I could be very wrong. You can schedule the Leaf's charging, so you get home, plug it in and then it charges when you tell it to, not necessarily when you plug it in, so you could charge in the wee hours without having to wake up and go plug it in. I am also told you can pre-heat or pre-cool the interior while plugged in, which is very cool if not necessarily relevant to the topic.

 

[dfwJim]

As an update to my own assessment, while leasing mitigates the battery risk, is the easy way to get the value of the tax credit, and in the case of the Leaf brings the yearly cost-of-"ownership" competitive to buying used gasoline cars, I have other objections to leasing that I can't overcome:

• In TX, have to pay sales tax on the full purchase price
• Have to replace the car on a predetermined schedule instead of time of my choosing
• Have mileage limits
• Have wear-and-tear limits
• Have to work with a dealer twice, at lease begin and lease end (I don't like working with dealers, and I only have two feet to gnaw off)

As for buying used, I would need the range to remain serviceable for 6-8 years and/or about 100k miles from purchase to be competitive with my current cost-of-ownership. That would be a bare minimum of 46-mile range, but as long as there is charging at work I could get by with a bare minimum of 23-mile range, but in reality I don't want the car to be dying as I pull in the garage, so a bit more than that. I don't have confidence that is the case, and I can't estimate the cost of battery remediation.

So for now I'm going to continue driving my 140k gasoline car which needs struts and a timing belt but otherwise seems to be running fine. But I'm going to watch what happens to Leaf prices as more off-lease Leafs hit the market, and I'm going to watch how the battery situation evolves...do the batteries continue losing 10%-20% capacity per year in TX? Do they level off? Do we get a buy-a-replacement-battery option? That's what I'll be watching for.

 

[Harhir]

As an update to my own assessment, while leasing mitigates the battery risk, is the easy way to get the value of the tax credit, and in the case of the Leaf brings the yearly cost-of-"ownership" competitive to buying used gasoline cars, I have other objections to leasing that I can't overcome:

• In TX, have to pay sales tax on the full purchase price
• Have to replace the car on a predetermined schedule instead of time of my choosing
• Have mileage limits
• Have wear-and-tear limits
• Have to work with a dealer twice, at lease begin and lease end (I don't like working with dealers, and I only have two feet to gnaw off)

I hear you. These are my objections on a lease as well. Therefore I am still reluctant. I have never leased a car because I don't like to be bound to time and miles and have to pamper a car. Plus having expensive comprehensive insurance. All my last cars have always been used cars. I like to have other people to pay for the depreciation. So far it has worked great except for my current car which has cost me quite a lot on repairs with more coming. This is why I want to get rid of it. Therefore I am looking at all kinds of options.
I would never ever buy or lease a new "regular" car but with the tax incentive on the EVs and plugin hybrids I started looking into this option. But a lease on a Leaf for 3 years would still cost me about 3-4 times more than what my previous car cost me for 3 years which I sold for $2.5K less than what I bought it for without any costly repairs during my ownership.
And there is one more factor: So far I consider all these EVs and Plugin Hybrids some sort of "Nerd" cars. They are boring. Hatchback or Sedans. And maybe an SUV. But I am a convertible freak and have been driving convertibles on and off for about 9-10 years and except the discontinued Tesla roadster there are not really any "fun" cars out there.
So besides the cost factor I also have to overcome the fact I would have to dump my toy car for a "logic" car.

So thanks for all the inputs so far.

 

[RonDawg]

Plus having expensive comprehensive insurance.

Here in California, it's not the comprehensive coverage that's expensive. It's the collision and liability coverages that are expensive.

My Leaf only costs $28 every six months for comprehensive coverage, with a $250 deductible. That's a fraction of the collision coverage cost (with double the deductible) and an even smaller fraction of the liability part. In fact I'm paying more for just liability coverage (albeit to my insurer's maximum limits) than my comp and collision coverages combined.

 

[Pipcecil]

Sorry to hijack this thread but I am also in the DFW area and I am thinking getting a Plug-in Hybrid or an EV. The Volt is out of selection since it just does not provide enough headroom for a 6'3" guy like me.
I have not test driven the Leaf yet but if it "fits" I may be interested.
Plus I want to look at Ford. Their new Focus EV and their C-Max Energi have my interest. But no dealer seems to have a Focus EV in stock.

After doing some research on the batteries in hot climates and the potential huge depreciation in general I have decided that leasing would probably be the best option for me. Either 24 or 36 months. Not longer.
I have about a 18 mile roundtrip commute to work. My workplace does not provide any charge stations. So I guess I would get about 3 -4 trips without recharging.

I have a few questions for the DFW area Leaf owners:
- State incentive:
There seems to be a $2500 state incentive when you buy an EV. But I could not find details about it and how one would apply for it:
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/laws/laws/TX/user/3260" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- What are the prices here in the DFW area for 240V home chargers and install? I am not even sure I would need one if I charge the car every night after about 20 miles of use.

-Public charging stations:
I am mainly roaming around Plano/Allen north of George Bush Turnpike and east of the Tollway. Every other week there could be a longer trip towards Dallas or McKinney.

1. Are there any free charging stations? Carcharging "gouches" $0.49 cents per kwh which makes the whole EV car ownership not worthwhile financially when I can get home rates for around $0.10 per kwh.

2. Are Blink stations $1/hr for members any better? I am not sure how many kwh they will provide within one hour.

3. Do the local Nissan dealers offer any free or cheap charging?

4. The EVgo plan for 1 year free which comes with a new Leaf does not provide any advantage for me. I live and work in Plano and as it looks like there are no EVgo stations in the area. I would probably hardly ever use them. And making a 10+ miles detour to charge the car does not make sense.
- Are there any QC stations besides EVgo? And how much does EVgo charge anyhow? I could not rates on their website.

5. Would it make sense to get a special electricity rate for cheaper rates at night? Most of my electricity is used by the two power guzzling AC units which are running mainly during daytime hours. Not sure there are electricity plans with the same day rates but cheaper night rates to charge the car.

Sorry for all the questions but I am just trying to figure out if an EV really makes sense to me since I normally buy cheap used gasoline toy cars.

Thanks
Stefan

Ok, lets see if I can answer these the best I can - most are right up my ally:

- Forget the Focus EV, the car is a subcompact, the same size as a Volt. If you cannot fit into a Volt you most likely will not fit in a Focus EV. C-Max Energi is pretty great, I would consider it a small SUV type so if you need more headroom this would fit the bill. Also, the Ford Fusion Energi isn't half bad either since its a larger car. Bonus: based on the EPA for the c-max and fusion energi, they would both be able to get you to and from work on battery alone.

- The state incentive: unfortunately I have no idea how to get to it. It only came into law this past September and I got my car in 2011, so, unfortunately I don't know on this one

- EVSE: if you go through "official" channels (i.e. through Nissan, etc. which can be rolled into the car loan), the EVSE at home is ~$1,000-$1,200 to install on a "normal" installation (no new breaker boxes, etc.). If you go with a random electrictian (assuming they know and/or comfortable doing it), I was quoted $400-$500. One part of eVgo's plan includes a home charger and installation (and one option includes off peak electricity), you rent the EVSE and they maintain it. The cost ends up breaking even at 3-4 years if you would had purchaed and installed on your own (so instead of upfront cost, you pay over time). I will warn you, once you drive eletric there is no going back, you will LOVE driving the leaf vs gas cars. It is so so so so much more enjoyable, I can't stress it enough. You will want to take the Leaf everywhere for everything, not just for gas savings but because its just that much more enjoyable. A level 2 EVSE would allow you take more discretionary trips.

1) Public charging - yes there are some free stations but they are few and far between. Ones off the top of my head are Love Field, Dallas City Hall and McKinney Library. CarCharging only owns 2 in DFW (well now all of Blink, but thats separate at the momement). One in Stonebriar mall area and one near TCU in Fort Worth - both are $0.49 cents per kWh, most other chargepoint stations are free, some even charge $2 per hour (Huffines rec center in Richardson). Some ChargePoiont is free (like @ MedAssests). Public charging is more expensive because its a convience, you also have to consider that cost includes - capital cost of the station, ongoing maintence of the station, network of the station and online maintence of the location maps of the station, and maintenece of the network and server to read your access card/fob/credit card and charge you. So the $0.10 vs $0.49 is flawed - you have to include your EVSE cost and maitence plus there is no network or anything to maintain at home. At the price of a mcdonalds cheap hamburger is a small price to pay for extra range IMO.

2) Blink's lowest rate is $1 an hour if you are a member. The speed of charging is based on your car's on-board charger since Blink stations can support up to 7.2 kW per hour. For old Leafs, new S model Leafs (without the faster charging option), C-max and Fusion, the fastest speed is 3.3 kW per hour. If you get a Leaf or Ford Focus its 6.0 kW per hour. The only car's the Blink stations can't reach their full charging speed is the Model S and Tesla Roadster. So it basically all the juice you can get for $1 an hour, its a better deal the more your car can take.

3) All dealerships have free charging. BUT they are only open during business hours (so no sundays, etc.), usually they have cars parked infront of them so you will have to ask to have their cars moved around, and there are some reports of dealerships being difficult or refusing charging, haven't heard a lot about that here in DFW, but it has occured. These aren't the most accessible charging stations.

4)Ahh eVgo. It really depends on what you want to get out of them. My signature has a link to a white paper explaining their plans they offer. You can go as little as month to month contract on only public charging or you can sign a year+ contract and get the home EVSE and off peak electricity included. Use of the DC fast chargers really depends. Its not usually for running around your general area, its more when you go out of your area. For example, I live way south (Midlothian), when I go up to plano/allen/Mckinney I quick charge at the mockingbird or belt line station. So its more of a travel across the metroplex type of thing. Since I do it frequently its worth its weight it gold...soo soo very much. But if you never leave your general neighborhood then you might not get use out of it. I will say, as for a company, they have been one of the best to work with. A few weeks ago I had serious problems with my car (on board charger went bad) and was stuck because Nissan was saying nothing was wrong. This company actually helped out and was contacting Nissan on my behalf to fix the issue. This wasn't the only time they haven't done something great like that. Their customer service is super A+.

5) I don't know about the night rate plans. I am on a co-op so I don't have a choice for an eletric provider and don't have night or weekend deals, so I don't know how much they stack versus a standard plan. Driving as much as I do (~1800 per month), I might spend ~$40 on home electricity. So your night time usage on your car alone is $40. But if you are like me and want to drive the car all the time because its enjoyable, waiting until the clock ticks over to nighttime is hard to do.

As a final note, my signature has the location of all the charging stations in the DFW area, so you can get an idea - its separated by company and speed (level 1, level 2, dc fast). The second one is a link to all 5 (yes 5) charging companies in the region through a white paper. Most require some type of renrollment or card to get access to their stations, or if they don't, its more expensive. The paper summerizes the cost, how to access and plans for each one.

 

[ERG4ALL]

Check with a local electrician to see what capacity you have with your existing panel

+1 You can check for yourself to see if you have any 15A circuits that take up a whole slot. There are 15A breakers out there that double up on a slot and free up room for an additional breaker. I've done that on my panel so I could put in a 240V circuit.

 

[Harhir]

Thanks for the detailed responses. This helps a lot. I wonder about Blink and Carcharging however. Blink is now owned by Carcharging. But both have two different payment plans. Blink charges $1 per hour and carcharging either $0.49 per kwh or $2 per hour according to their website. This is a huge difference.
Assuming I have the fast charger the Blink station might be able to charge the car with 6Kwh within one hour. 6kwh at $1/h = $0.16 per kwh vs $0.49 per kwh. I wonder if there are any plans from carcharging to bring these rates closer together and maybe increase the prices at the Blink stations.

Another concern I have is that I don't really a lot. Only about 4300 miles a year to the office and some extra miles on the side. The family trips are often done with our van because we either are gone camping with a 2000lb popup trailer in tow or because we have more than our two kids in the car or because I have to run by the home improvement store because I cannot fit the stuff in my car. At 4300 miles the electricity costs would be around $150 a year at $0.12 a kwh. For a 30 mpg car it would be about $450 per year at around $3.20 a gallon.

I will do some more investigating before I decide which way to go.