That's a marketing problem. Restaurants are a great example - you easy pay 5x more to eat out, yet people do it every day because it's convenient. Same with a QC - you'll may 5x more per kWh to charge at a QC station - but it's convenient.ObjetDart said:But, in the end, all it says to me is that there is no viable business model in QC, since my point was consumers don't know any of this, all they are going to do is compare it to the cost they pay for charging at home.
The LEAF is simply not well suited for long trips. If you frequently need more than 1 QC a day, you didn't pick the right tool for the job. EVs will get there (look at a Tesla), but for longer trips more battery capacity is needed.ObjetDart said:QCs are a hard enough sell as it is, when you have to carefully plan your trip just so you can stop every hour and recharge for 20-30 minutes, vs drive anywhere you want and stop once every five hours for 10 minutes in an ICE.
For city/suburban driving or destinations 1 QC away - the LEAF is great.
Nissan has dipped it's toe into that model with dealership charging, but I still don't think that free is the right price unless you are going to do it like Tesla and build out enough plugs per location so that there is minimal waiting if any when you need a charge.ObjetDart said:Or perhaps Nissan needs to follow the Tesla model and just include free access to the QC network with the car.
For example, Nissan has thousands more EVs on the road than Tesla. But look at the QC network of each in California - the biggest market for each. Despite Tesla getting a late start, there are 11 Supercharger locations in California with a total of 63 plugs. When they are done they are going to have somewhere around 25 locations in California and probably around 120 plugs. All available 24/7 and they have been proven to be reliable.
There's about 70 CHAdeMO stations in California right now. But half of these are Blink stations, and they are well known to frequently be on the Blink. Most of the others are at Nissan dealerships, which are only available during business hours and require you to get an employee to activate the charger and some dealerships only allow LEAFs purchased there to charge.
I'd happily pay $1 / kWh to QC if I was knew that a station would be available when I needed it. As it is now, I frequently have "charging station anxiety" when venturing out beyond single-charge range. "Will the station be functional?" "Will the station be available (not in use, not ICEd)?" "Are there convenient alternative locations to charge in case?"