Airport Charging - Charleston - Is this something people use?

[jsight]

I just noticed that the Chargepoint chargers at the Charleston airport are listed as active:
ChargePoint

It looks like there is a $1.30/hr price, though for 6.6 KW (~$0.20/kwh). I'm curious how useful this is? I can't imagine that you'd want to wait for hours on the way in or out of the airport, and it sounds like it'd be expensive to leave it in one of these spots.

Is there something that I'm missing, or does this seem like a bad solution to the "charging at airports" problem?

 

[RTPEV]

Completely inappropriate charging station use model.

Airports need either DC fast charging to get a quick charge on your way out of the parking area, or a free L1 charging station (or even an outlet).

You're not missing anything. There is really no use model that fits this. What likely happened is that a well meaning politician with zero experience with EVs thought it would be a great idea to have charging stations at the airport (because why not?) and the only way he/she could get it funded was to through Chargepoint, and they will charge a fee for charging unless the host is willing to subsidize that cost, and again, there are no funds to cover that. Similar to how government officials like to install L2 charging stations in front of city hall (where nobody is really going to use them, but they are a visible sign of the town's green credentials!

 

[jsight]

Yeah, I'm afraid you are right. I had really hoped that I was missing something. I mean, if there are no idle fees and the billing is actually usage based somehow, it might be ok? But I'm not sure what "estimated hourly" price means, as I'm not too familiar with chargepoints approach to billing.

I have also noticed the municipal building thing, btw. They are occasionally useful, but it mostly just looks like greenwashing.

 

[EnrgyNDpndnce]

Ug. I didn’t realize this was a pay station. When I lived in Atlanta and flew out I used the stations there a few times, but those are free with paid parking. No way I would pay to park AND pay to charge while flying out. Not to mention they installed these stations on the top floor of the parking deck, so if it’s raining you’ll get soaked while plugging/unplugging.

 

[ChrisC]

Exactly what RTPEV said above. At airports, for-pay, networked Level 2 stations are usually terribly misguided, and arguably worse than doing nothing.

Free Level 1 is indeed the way to go, but I'll add that even there the bureaucrats can get hoodwinked. At the Atlanta Airport, after many years of pressure, we finally got them to install a large number of Level 1 stations. But not just wall outlets where you use your own cordset, but actually Level 1 J1772 stations. That's nice, but suspect that they paid through the nose for those stations (from AeroVironment and Telefonix). PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You