Blink vs. Chargepoint. Why is Blink so expensive?

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Deleted member 9549

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I don't understand how various charging stations are paid for, why businesses set them up and who pays for the electricity.

In my area, all the Chargepoint stations I've ever seen are free. Who's paying for the station and who's paying for the electricity? How does Chargepoint get revenue?

In contrast, Blink stations in my area charge $2/hr at a L2. That seems unreasonable. That would be $8 to get 75 mile range. I can easily get a car with decent gas mileage and go that far on much less than $8 in gas.

Blink is going to charge $8 (non-members) for a QC session.

Why is Blink so expensive. While free seems financially non-sustainable, Blink seems to be overcharging to the point of destroying the value proposition of EVs.

What am I missing on both of these companies business models.
 
What you are missing is that public charging, whether L2 or QC, is not intended to replace gas stations. It is not supposed to be your primary source of energy for the car. Instead it should be a supplemental or emergency source. On an occasional basis even a high rate will not raise the average you pay very much. And only a high rate can make the business profitable. Charging stations have very high capital outlays, and (sadly) high maintenance costs. You are paying for a lot more than raw electricity when you use them. The companies have to gamble, in the long run, that customers will pay their high rates rather than losing hours of time.

Obviously Chargepoint is still running on seed money, hoping to build up customer dependency for the day they start billing their customers at equally high rates.

Ray
 
dm33 said:
In my area, all the Chargepoint stations I've ever seen are free. Who's paying for the station and who's paying for the electricity? How does Chargepoint get revenue?
Click to expand...
Chargepoint stations are not free everywhere. I believe Chargepoint doesn't own any charging stations (maybe other than their own at their HQ). Some of their revenue comes from selling charging stations. I'd imagine they bill for their management infrastructure/portal and overhead (e.g. support) as they discuss service plans at http://www.chargepoint.com/products-software-services.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I don't know if they take a cut when owners charge.

http://www.chargepoint.com/chargepoint-servicesvideo.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has an overview video. Might be good to switch to 720p quality and switch to full screen to look at the UI that comes up.

From http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ECTY+Income+Statement&annual" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, ECTY (aka the Blink guys) is bleeding cash.

There's been plenty of discussion on costs/reasonable costs for charging. I haven't paid very close attention to them but here are some recent threads/posts:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=285012#p285012" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8854&start=110" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
The ChargePoints closest to me are all charging $2/hour, pro-rated. The only free ones somewhat near me are the ones run by SoCalEdison, and are not convenient to me except during my adventures in the 626 area code.

I have the Blink Plus membership (fees currently waived until the end of the year, and it was supposed to end last year) and I pay $1/hour but it's not pro-rated like ChargePoint. Regular Blink memberships are $1.50/hour, and Guest members are charged $2/hour.
 
planet4ever said:
What you are missing is that public charging, whether L2 or QC, is not intended to replace gas stations. It is not supposed to be your primary source of energy for the car. Instead it should be a supplemental or emergency source. On an occasional basis even a high rate will not raise the average you pay very much. And only a high rate can make the business profitable. Charging stations have very high capital outlays, and (sadly) high maintenance costs. You are paying for a lot more than raw electricity when you use them. The companies have to gamble, in the long run, that customers will pay their high rates rather than losing hours of time.

Obviously Chargepoint is still running on seed money, hoping to build up customer dependency for the day they start billing their customers at equally high rates.

Ray
Click to expand...
Why should the charger business model be more punitive to a consumer than gas stations? Building a gas station is much more expensive that a typical charge station. I don't see dramatically higher prices at newer gas stations.
Charging rates so high that only drivers in dire need will use them damages the value proposition of an EV. Such rates preclude the possibility of using a charge station to extend range. Tesla with the superchargers are primarily intended to allow longer distance driving and to alleviate range anxiety. A leaf owner with 75 mile range has much more range anxiety than a tesla owner with 265 mile range.

When new disruptive industries appear, there is the temptation to charge too much too early and choke off the emerging market. It takes deep pockets to fund new technologies until volume can make them profitable. If ISPs had charged very high rates for Internet access, it may never have become so ubiquitous and not have become as useful. Unlimited access to the Internet based on a relatively low monthly fee was important to widespread consumer adoption.

Charging substantially more than home electricity rates will discourage consumption and use of EVs as a viable alternative to ICE cars.
 
If EVs are to ever expand beyond just local use, that type of thinking will have to change. Tesla clearly understands this.

planet4ever said:
What you are missing is that public charging, whether L2 or QC, is not intended to replace gas stations. It is not supposed to be your primary source of energy for the car. Instead it should be a supplemental or emergency source.
Click to expand...
 
Currently most of the costs for public charging stations are being borne by the businesses that pay to install and supply them, along with the government which has kicked in a tremendous amount of start-up capital to the EVSE companies. Someone has to pay, not only for the electricity, but also for the infrastructure of installing new underground electric lines, circuits, and EVSEs. This is not cheap. Think about how much it cost to have an EVSE installed at your home... maybe $1,200+/-. A single commercial installation could be ten times that amount. Tearing up concrete in a commercial parking garage is a big expensive job.

Then the cost has to be amortized across how frequently it is utilized. EV sales are still only about 0.1% of ICE sales. This means there is no money to be made directly from having fees for charging. They can only partially offset the costs. My opinion is that businesses can still cost justify the expense when they consider the long term potential for attracting high value customers. Some businesses waive the fees entirely, eating the entire cost. ECOtality (Blink), for example, does not force companies to charge a fee, but most do. It depends upon how much value each individual company places on having EVSEs to attract EV drivers.

Bottom line. Charging stations are far from free - they are very expensive. If there is no direct fee for using them then either it is being paid through taxes or being picked up by the hosting businesses. Sorry... no such thing as a free lunch.
 
I've avoided Blink charging stations because at the non-member $2/hr. rate it makes no sense unless the alternative is a tow. I have a 2011 LEAF (#404) with the 3.3 kW charger. I expect that when my lease is up in June 2014 that I will get some EV with at least the 6.6 kW charger, then a Blink membership at $1.50/hr. may make sense (i.e. 23 cents/kWh). Having said that, I wonder why Blink doesn't just incorporate some form of the Kill-a-Watt metering and sell the power by the kWh? I'd be willing to spend 30 cents/kWh, but as it is now, I'm unwilling to spend 60 cents/kWh. I'll just charge at home and plan my errands more carefully.
 
The way I see it, you are paying for the convenience, not the electricity. Sort of like buying something at a gas station instead of at the supermarket. So yeah, its going to be more expensive.
 
ERG4ALL said:
I've avoided Blink charging stations because at the non-member $2/hr. rate it makes no sense unless the alternative is a tow. I have a 2011 LEAF (#404) with the 3.3 kW charger. I expect that when my lease is up in June 2014 that I will get some EV with at least the 6.6 kW charger, then a Blink membership at $1.50/hr. may make sense (i.e. 23 cents/kWh). Having said that, I wonder why Blink doesn't just incorporate some form of the Kill-a-Watt metering and sell the power by the kWh? I'd be willing to spend 30 cents/kWh, but as it is now, I'm unwilling to spend 60 cents/kWh. I'll just charge at home and plan my errands more carefully.
Click to expand...

In AZ only Utilities can charge by the kW h.
 
dm33 said:
I don't understand how various charging stations are paid for, why businesses set them up and who pays for the electricity.

In my area, all the Chargepoint stations I've ever seen are free. Who's paying for the station and who's paying for the electricity? How does Chargepoint get revenue?
Click to expand...
Our company paid outright the full cost to install and we pay for the full electric bill that truly is unnoticed in the big scheme of usage and demand charges. I believe 2 or 3 years of network connection and service was included with installation. Set up to enhance customer service and convenience. No cost to consumer.
 
kovalb said:
Currently most of the costs for public charging stations are being borne by the businesses that pay to install and supply them, along with the government which has kicked in a tremendous amount of start-up capital to the EVSE companies. Someone has to pay, not only for the electricity, but also for the infrastructure of installing new underground electric lines, circuits, and EVSEs. This is not cheap. Think about how much it cost to have an EVSE installed at your home... maybe $1,200+/-. A single commercial installation could be ten times that amount. Tearing up concrete in a commercial parking garage is a big expensive job.

Then the cost has to be amortized across how frequently it is utilized. EV sales are still only about 0.1% of ICE sales. This means there is no money to be made directly from having fees for charging. They can only partially offset the costs. My opinion is that businesses can still cost justify the expense when they consider the long term potential for attracting high value customers. Some businesses waive the fees entirely, eating the entire cost. ECOtality (Blink), for example, does not force companies to charge a fee, but most do. It depends upon how much value each individual company places on having EVSEs to attract EV drivers.

Bottom line. Charging stations are far from free - they are very expensive. If there is no direct fee for using them then either it is being paid through taxes or being picked up by the hosting businesses. Sorry... no such thing as a free lunch.
Click to expand...

I would agree that this is the case for the DC charging stations. They also incur extra charges for the high power demand, but the L2 chargers are not that complicated to install.
Just imagine paying $1200 for having an electric dryer outlet installed in your house and you get an idea how much of a rip-off current home L2 installations seem to be. Its no different for L2 at commercial sites.

In Blinks case, I guess you would have to also factor in the cost for the industrial designers (for the faux-stylish look), the useless swag (not free after all), inefficient software/hardware engineers (which get paid the same as efficient ones, but take twice as long and incur extra cost through their sloppy work) and probably an inflated, overpaid management with lavish executive salaries.
 
Almost all ChargePoint stations in my area are at $2.40/hour. Thanks to some New York funding, they are installing some free stations, but not sure how long they will last.

$2.40 is too much, especially since you still can't rely on them being in service (I just knocked out power to a local Chili's after testing a brand new station), and as long as you can't rely on them, they might as well not exist (at least here in NY, where there aren't many stations yet).
 
Epi117 said:
Blink was for me, free to join ($30 fee waived) and $1.00 an hour.
I have used Blink a few times.
Click to expand...
Here in SoCal I've used them in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and at IKEAs. At first they never seemed to be working (on the Blink), but now the service is 5/5 in charging success to attempt. The dollar per hour is trivial compared to the convenience...

On the other hand, the chargepoint seems very reliable with the L2, but I've been equipment faulted off every time I try to get L1 when the L2 is in use (desperate times calls for desperate measures, and it's drag when that happens).

Maybe when having a low battery crisis, I should just climb an electric pole and grab 240 directly from step down transformer (kidding).
 
Epi117 said:
Blink was for me, free to join ($30 fee waived) and $1.00 an hour.
I have used them a few times.
Click to expand...
I think the $30 is waived the first year only. I opted for plan with $1.5/hr and no annual charge. And of course quit using the service when the charges started. Just nice to have if I am really stuck.
 
Epi117 said:
Blink was for me, free to join ($30 fee waived) and $1.00 an hour.
I have used them a few times.
Click to expand...
I just signed up, I didn't see anywhere it stating a fee. The plus membership said no annual fee. Seems like it should, but maybe I didn't see it, or they've changed it temporarily.
 
lion said:
Almost all ChargePoint stations in my area are at $2.40/hour. Thanks to some New York funding, they are installing some free stations, but not sure how long they will last.

$2.40 is too much, especially since you still can't rely on them being in service (I just knocked out power to a local Chili's after testing a brand new station), and as long as you can't rely on them, they might as well not exist (at least here in NY, where there aren't many stations yet).
Click to expand...

You drew 30A at 208V (~6kW) and you shut down a whole (large) restaurant?!? [A grill panel or one oven probably uses more than that.] Your electrical inspector isn't doing their job.
 

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