There are 4 kinds of public ( not at my home ) charging:
1. Government installed. In the US, this means the EV project and other grants. I have been less than impressed with their efforts... because they put in crappy 30amp EVSEs in stupid locations. Most of them appear to actually end up being in poorly run private networks as in #2.
2. Private networks like Chargepoint and Blink. I am less than impressed with their efforts, because they put in crappy 30amp EVSEs in stupid locations and then charge too much for me to care to use them regularly. If I had a Leaf, and could charge at only 3.3kW, no way would I pay $1/hour unless it was absolutely critical.
3. Tesla or other EV manufacturers putting in their own networks ( Tesla's Superchargers ). Who knows how good their coverage will be and if they put them in the right places. I hope they do, but we will just have to wait and see.
4. Private owners installing adhoc free charging, individually or collectively.
I may be a cynic but I don't trust #1 to do anything right.
I really don't think the business model for #2 works.
I hope that #3 pans out, but I can't imagine them covering everywhere I want to go.
I would pay a membership fee into a Pacific Northwest Charging Cooperative that would grant me several things:
1) The right to charge at any of the coops chargers. My monthly membership fee should pay for a certain number of plug-hours per month, with limited rollover. Above that, I would pay N cents per additional plug-hour.
2) Voting rights into the locations for new chargers. I would allocate voting points based on how much I paid into the coop, and once a charger that I voted for was installed those voting points would be used.
Thus if your choices keep getting outvoted, eventually others points would be consumed and your accumulated points would get you a charger at the location you wanted.
3) Plug-hours at other Charging Cooperatives that the PNCC has membership agreements with for when I travel out of network.
I expect that most of the chargers installed will not be utilized enough that if you charged for the electricity they wouldn't be able to pay for themselves.
What you are paying for is to get the chargers where you want them, in the low traffic locations the others wont serve.
I believe that the PNCC would have the negotiating strength to get chargers hosted in the desired locations by small businesses. I think one of the two tactics would work:
a) Get the business to pay for part of the cost to install the unit, and the PNCC would pay a small monthly "rent" to cover the cost of the electricity ( being careful to not buy the electricity due to legal crap ). They would do this because they expect to profit from the PNCC member traffic.
b) The PNCC pays the full cost to install the unit, and pay a small amount of rent, but the business would pay back to the PNCC a small fee for every PNCC member that visits their business to defray the costs.
The benefits of the coop is that you get scale purchasing of EVSEs, bargaining power with potential locations due to your membership, a shared network, low overhead with a few part time employees and/or volunteers and EVSEs where you want them.
Think it would work? Think it's totally unnecessary?
1. Government installed. In the US, this means the EV project and other grants. I have been less than impressed with their efforts... because they put in crappy 30amp EVSEs in stupid locations. Most of them appear to actually end up being in poorly run private networks as in #2.
2. Private networks like Chargepoint and Blink. I am less than impressed with their efforts, because they put in crappy 30amp EVSEs in stupid locations and then charge too much for me to care to use them regularly. If I had a Leaf, and could charge at only 3.3kW, no way would I pay $1/hour unless it was absolutely critical.
3. Tesla or other EV manufacturers putting in their own networks ( Tesla's Superchargers ). Who knows how good their coverage will be and if they put them in the right places. I hope they do, but we will just have to wait and see.
4. Private owners installing adhoc free charging, individually or collectively.
I may be a cynic but I don't trust #1 to do anything right.
I really don't think the business model for #2 works.
I hope that #3 pans out, but I can't imagine them covering everywhere I want to go.
I would pay a membership fee into a Pacific Northwest Charging Cooperative that would grant me several things:
1) The right to charge at any of the coops chargers. My monthly membership fee should pay for a certain number of plug-hours per month, with limited rollover. Above that, I would pay N cents per additional plug-hour.
2) Voting rights into the locations for new chargers. I would allocate voting points based on how much I paid into the coop, and once a charger that I voted for was installed those voting points would be used.
Thus if your choices keep getting outvoted, eventually others points would be consumed and your accumulated points would get you a charger at the location you wanted.
3) Plug-hours at other Charging Cooperatives that the PNCC has membership agreements with for when I travel out of network.
I expect that most of the chargers installed will not be utilized enough that if you charged for the electricity they wouldn't be able to pay for themselves.
What you are paying for is to get the chargers where you want them, in the low traffic locations the others wont serve.
I believe that the PNCC would have the negotiating strength to get chargers hosted in the desired locations by small businesses. I think one of the two tactics would work:
a) Get the business to pay for part of the cost to install the unit, and the PNCC would pay a small monthly "rent" to cover the cost of the electricity ( being careful to not buy the electricity due to legal crap ). They would do this because they expect to profit from the PNCC member traffic.
b) The PNCC pays the full cost to install the unit, and pay a small amount of rent, but the business would pay back to the PNCC a small fee for every PNCC member that visits their business to defray the costs.
The benefits of the coop is that you get scale purchasing of EVSEs, bargaining power with potential locations due to your membership, a shared network, low overhead with a few part time employees and/or volunteers and EVSEs where you want them.
Think it would work? Think it's totally unnecessary?
