GRA said:
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Re charging priced solely by the kWh, I disagree with Dave (in his blog post). Doing so brings simplicity and transparency to charging pricing, as opposed to the variety of pricing methods (time, kWh, occupancy and connection fees etc.) currently employed, which make it difficult if not impossible to compare prices. If every station prices by the kWh it's easy to compare, and people worried about the cost will look for the cheapest cost charging just as they do with gas now - occupancy fees for people who don't move are fine. Any inefficiency as some people wait to fill up very slowly will just need to be accepted for now, in hopes that the simplicity will spark a charger building boom that will eliminate the problem (see below).
Segregating cars by rate of charging would be easy as well. EA essentially does that now, and just as people who only need regular don't buy premium, someone with a car that can only take 50kW is unlikely to choose a 350kW charger. What's critical is to establish a profitable business model for QC'ing, because only then will we see stations proliferate rapidly as for-profit businesses start building them. As it is, they're all still built (slowly) with government money, either directly by subsidy or indirectly, like EA in lieu of paying the money to the government in higher fines.
When we have sufficient plugs to handle "normal" demand, a per kwh billing standard could work. But we don't and we won't and that will likely last at least a decade. So what we have is a vital resource in very short supply and we abandoning a billing process (by the minute) that encourages people to only get what they need and get off. How is that making sense to anyone?
As for your "acceptance" statement; we don't have it now in case you hadn't noticed and its a much smaller problem now. This per kwh law will greatly increase the "lack of acceptance"
It has gone so far that people have taken it upon themselves to
**decide who has the right to plug in at all (AKA as Hybrid bashing)
**decide when the charging car has had enough ( AKA Charging above 80% SOC is wrong)
Now all these issues is due to one thing; an inadequate charging network. Too many cars, not enough plugs. So anything that will remove any incentive to charge as little as possible is going to be a problem.
Maybe we are looking at this wrong? Maybe its time to put out a bunch of 20 KW charging stations for all those micro battery EVs? TBH; frequently I am rushed to get personal things done while charging simply because I will receive what I need in less time than it takes for me to pee, drink and eat.
