Tony, the differences have been discussed an will continue being discussed. The current CHAdeMO is rated lower, but it seems it could be raised. I’m not going to go back an forth with you though. I just don’t get it. One second you’re posting that selling to Leafs is futile and you should go with Tesla’s, then you’ve switched back. I talk about $25 per charge, which was from you in your thread, and now you can’t remember where that number came from. BTW, you’re not the only person/business that’s run the numbers on what a profitable big’mo station needs to charge. The numbers don’t work based on Leaf only sales except in a few select locations so that’s your only competition. Big businesses have staked out a lot of those locations already.
I see the name calling hasn’t stopped.
Someone suggested I was dropped on my head. Obviously I was dropped on my head because I:
- don’t think spending 50K/station is a good idea on one vehicle when there’s only about 10K on the road
- don’t think Joe Public wants to spend 30-50 minutes charging because they only gain 70-100 miles of range
- don’t want to waste $50K in taxpayer dollars loading up cities when a few would suffice – because it’s a city car
- don’t think Joe Public wants a vehicle with a top speed of 40MPH to take on a trip
- think long range batteries and fast charging development is where the money should go
- think that when Fox News gets wind of the charging station debacle it’ll be terrible for EV
- think that, since most Leaf owners won’t pay for charging stations to be profitable or break even we should wait till more cars are on the road
- think that neither charger is “fast enough” and we should invest in more L2 since you could give away 10 L2 for every big’mo and then we could blanket cities. Yes, it’s slower, but 6.6 chargers will be 20 MPHC, not bad for a city vehicle and way more agreeable to a business that wants to draw in business but not go broke on the big’mo. And, that's just with the 6.6, what about the 10 on the new Rav4 :shock:
- remember that only a few weeks ago Leaf owners said they wouldn’t spend much more than the equivalent of gasoline for the big’mo.
- remember that Tony said that even if the chargers and install were free he would still have difficulty operating with any of the price models (highest was $30/charge BTW)
- know that there are companies making a go of big’mo stations in urban areas but think we’ll have to wait and see how many users continue using once the stations aren’t free/subsidized
have run the big’mo numbers and talked to other individuals and businesses that have run the numbers.
Here’s a great group of quotes from a few weeks ago
TonyWilliams
The more recent realization is that LEAF drivers really aren't that interested in paying to use a viable, sustainable model, but instead it gets down to what is cheapest or most convenient to them. That, of course, will result in a what we currently have... almost no DC chargers.
So, now I have to consider if anything related to ChadeMo cars is worthwhile, and if it's more logical to service only Tesla and SAE BMW cars with DC charging. I suspect that, unlike LEAF drivers, they aren't likely to leave the $100,000 Tesla at home because it's cheaper to drive the Prius/Volt.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=30#p197437" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Tony Williams
First, for anything I would be involved in, it will be throttled back to whatever the threshold is for not paying a demand fee. That's the starting point. If a site should be so wildly successful that cars are lined up to use it, then it can be opened up... maybe.
So, our electricity should be relatively cheap, but even that can get out of hand. SDG&E can hit $1/kWh on the commercial rates. During those times, of course, a full charge could be $25 in electricity alone.
Even if you could get 10 guys at $50, that covers the insurance. Now what? How about maintenance? One broken nozzle could be several thousand dollars. And we haven't compensated the host in any way, or paid any permits or fees, or the big one; paying for the unit, its installation and its depreciation.
No employees got paid, no cash reserves, no spare parts, no nothing.
Who absorbs all the risk when your ten people don't want to participate anymore? Even shutting it down has all the above costs already made. I guess that original guy just gets stuck?
No, the only way to adequately do a donor model is to start with a donation of about $10,000 -$20,000 for expenses for the year (above the start up capital of $30,000-$100,000 to install the thing), and then the site should be able to weather the storm for one year.
Then you'd have to do it all over again the next year. Again, if you don't get the donor capital, then it gets shut down and the original guy who installed it just got stuck again.
And this is all so we can sell fast charging at below Prius prices? If you think finding hosts is difficult now with "free" Ecotality/Blink DC chargers, I'll suggest finding donors to give away money so that others can get subsidized DC fast charges will be far smaller.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=60#p197886" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
More proof that this isn’t going to be free, or cheap until we get more, and wealthy EV drivers. Even then we need more speed and better range batteries.
Of course if we throttle back the power and therefore the speed: Tony Williams
Sure, I want the fastest speed, too. But I don't want to go bankrupt providing it
By far, however, it appears folks are more adverse to a cost greater than "the Prius" than to waiting more time for the charge. 20kW is still many multiples faster than either 3.3 or 6.6 charging. Even twice as fast as Tesla S and Rav4's 10kW charger.
Please quantify "quite a bit" and "tank of gas". I had to amend "M" to reflect 30 minute charge limit at $7-$15 per charge, therefore a full charge would be up to $30.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=50#p197606" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Of course that means that the 25 minute “quick charge” would be longer to get the same yield. If the power is cut in half you wouldn’t be traveling 40 MPH on a road trip anymore.
Tony Williams
No, upfront costs are not the biggest issue. If a DC charger were given to me for FREE, fully installed and operational, it would still have difficulty operating with any of the price models.
If folks won't pay the ongoing costs, then the up front costs didn't matter if they were free.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=40#p197458" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So the $10K station Nissan promised to sell last year doesn’t matter either.
Tony Williams
"I think 100-150 charges per month would be a good number to work with for a really good location. My understanding is that Palo Alto is unique because it has its own utility that does not charge a demand fee. This is NOT the norm in California.”
So, 125 uses per month times the minimum $7 fee equals $875 in gross revenue. I'll guess that folks are "getting their money's worth" and sucking up 20kWh per charge (18kWh into the battery at 90%), which means $2 in electricity per charge at 10 cents per kWh, $250 for the month total.
That leaves $625 to pay for insurance, maintenance, depreciation, and payment to the host for their "free" parking spot. Oh, almost forgot that little cost to pay for the DC charger and installation, permits, and fees. Good thing they don't have a $1500 demand fee !!!
And, of course, employees, shareholders, advertisers, etc don't need to be paid.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=70#p197989" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Again, proof that this is going to cost way more than $7. Businesses don’t get out of the proverbial bed for zero profit. Margins need to be large.
For those of you that are of the belief that big’mo station owners that are also businesses are reaping the benefits:
TonyWilliams wrote:And we haven't compensated the host in any way,
smkettner wrote: Your equipment creates a customer that is captive for 30+ minutes. The host should pay you for each customer you bring in.
TonyWilliams wrote: WOW !!!! I had a gut wrenching laugh out of that one. Thanks!!!
So, according to you, Blink can't give these away to hosts with $120 million of your tax dollars, but you think the host should pay to have them. Keep on thinking.
Quite the reverse is more likely. With NRG now "required" to install 200 quick chargers in California over four years, I think you'll see them paying hosts for the privilege of using their parking spot. Then, when LEAF drivers only use them "for emergencies" (which means almost never), or just drives the Prius because the minimum charge is $7 (up to $15), they will fail, HUGE.
Hey, some good news for the utilities, like SCE. if they collect $1500 in demand charges, and now NOBODY uses the charger at all for the next 12 months, they can still charge $1500 month for the demand charge ($18,000 for the year). Awesome, huh?
I don't want anybody to take from this that if there just wasn't a demand fee, all would be well. It won't. As long as there are free chargers around, like Mitsubishi in Cypress, it will take away from sites that need the traffic just to break even. Free chargers are a detriment to the expansion of more chargers. Demand charges are a detriment. High installation costs are a detriment. High electricity costs (again, up to $1 at SDGE) are a detriment. High insurance is a detriment. Host reluctance (for all the aforementioned reasons, and more) is a detriment. High maintenance on these chargers is a detriment.
But none of that compares to the very customers who wouldnt use and pay for it anyway.
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=70#p197979" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
That kind of says it all.
I know it probably seems like I’m picking on Tony. I’m really not. All those quotes are from less than a month ago, from this thread http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I quote him specifically because he’s trying to become a big’mo business owner. If there were other businesses here, I’d use their info too. I cannot directly quote any info I’ve been given from other businesses but I can say that the numbers are all pretty similar to Tony’s. The big’mo for 10K cars isn’t feasible except in a few locations in the country.
Here’s the bottom line
- You do have to charge up at home. If you don’t expect that you will pay a lot of money for L3, or you could spend a lot less on L2 opportunity charging.
- If you don’t have the range to make it to where you’re going, then you expect someone to take care of you by installing and maintaining a L3 station that most Leaf owners won’t spend $25 to use unless it’s an emergency.
- You bought a car that is a “city car”. It’s a great city car and as you’re driving it through the city use opportunity charging on L2 which is plentiful in most cities. There’s ~300 L2 around LA, Seattle has 150. There’s like 6 in Jacksonville yet the techs say they haven’t seen many turtled Leaf’s so the owners must be doing something right.
- As this is much more of a city vehicle you really shouldn’t expect the government to spend 50K saturating the highways for 10K cars to use occasionally. A highway infrastructure isn’t the key, if it was sales would be booming out west.
- If Nissan ever rolls out their $10K big’mo the still the problem of the demand charge, and the fact that so few cars are being sold that have a big’mo port, so few users and the mountain of costs associated with it.
- Asking the government to install a few in bigger cities seems like a waste to me, but maybe it’ll convince a few more folks to buy a Leaf as their city car. That would help us burn less gas.
- This notion that you can drive a Leaf 200 miles to another city isn’t going to convince the general public to buy once they are told that it will take 5 hours instead of 2 and a half hours and that the cost will be more than taking a gigantic SUV.
- 40MPH on the highway isn’t fine and dandy. The general public doesn’t want to be FORCED to do that.
Some of you are getting my point, some aren’t. Some of you are really mad at me, but I’m extremely pro-EV, I’m just anti-government waste and some of us simply disagree. If you want a big’mo ask your favorite stores to buy one, or start your own business like Tony says he’s doing. See if a big’mo station makes sense when it’s actually something you have to buy as an individual. It’s EXTREMELY EASY to spend government money, but if you actually ran the numbers yourself and were on the hook you’d run.
Why not set up your own business? Get some other Leaf owners involved, if necessary, take out a loan and go for it. You’ll probably have trouble convincing a bank that investing all this money into a business that almost no one is going to use on a regular basis because it costs more than a giant SUV does in gas. Which is my point, investing in a grid pattern to cover a city, or electric highways is a waste until the tech gets better. I can agree that having a few in big cities might convince a few people to buy.
One more thought. I'm kind of surprised that no one has suggested that, instead of spending 50K on station building for highways that the money would be better spent if the government bought and rented out the tow-behind charging stations that run on gas, propane or diesel. That would actually make the Leaf a long-range vehicle.
Anyway, I've said my peace, I do love the Leaf, I appreciate the support.
