Implementing the Multi-State ZEV Action Plan

[cfava]

ChargePoint vs Clipper Creek level 2 charging solution. What is the better deal? Is networking required? Can the cost be justified? What do you think?


ChargePoint:
Two 30 amp unit: (Solid Commercial Unit)
The Dual ChargePoint CT4000 unit goes for $6500+

+ Monthly network fee
+ Install fee


Clipper Creek:
Two 60 amp units:
2 HCS-60, 48A Clipper Creek - $899.00 a piece = $1798.00
+ Install fee

 

[Robert.Boston]

Network + license is required for the ChargePoint unit. It's clearly a lot more expensive, especially when you add in the license fees, but it and its status is visible on the ChargePoint software, and there's a means to charge users. If I were an employer installing EVSEs in my company lot, I'd clearly prefer the Clipper Creek. If I'm a commercial parking garage operator, I probably go for the ChargePoint.

 

[TexasEV]

ChargePoint vs Clipper Creek level 2 charging solution. What is the better deal? Is networking required? Can the cost be justified? What do you think?


ChargePoint:
Two 30 amp unit: (Solid Commercial Unit)
The Dual ChargePoint CT4000 unit goes for $6500+

+ Monthly network fee
+ Install fee


Clipper Creek:
Two 60 amp units:
2 HCS-60, 48A Clipper Creek - $899.00 a piece = $1798.00
+ Install fee

Do you plan to charge for use? If so the networked ChargePoint is set up for that, if not the ChargePoint is definitely overpriced. You can also charge for use with Clipper Creek, but not with the model you asked about. You would need the CS-60 and the optional keypad. Then you contract with a mobile payment service such as Mobile Now. Talk to Clipper Creek and they'll explain it. It's still much less expensive than going with ChargePoint. They have a pedestal that mounts two units. I don't think the visibility on ChargePoint network is worth anything-- most people find charging stations with PlugShare not the individual providers apps.

 

[Bluchip]

Ok. Great ideas here. But I'm sure that someone smarter than me can draft a letter that we can send to the Governors and Legislators of the States that have approved the ZEV action plan to encourage speedy implementation. Also, draft a letter to the States that have not yet signed on to the compact to guilt them into joining the action plan. I would be happy to send those letters to my elected State officials.

 

[rcc]

A lot has changed in two years-- namely the success of the Model S. Before 2 years ago you were right, there was lack of vehicle need, as no car was being built in volume which would use 40A. Currently the problem is the two large charging networks, ChargePoint and Blink, have 30A at best and that's what people thinking of installing EV charging stations look at because of their marketing. It's not more expensive to buy or install a charging station of at least 40A, for example the Clipper Creek CS-60 puts out 48A and costs less than ChargePoints, but they're not networked so either the electricity has to be provided for free or a pay by cellphone/app could be implemented using the optional keypad. Probably most businesses looking to install charging stations never look beyond what the ChargePoint or Blink network salespeople have to offer.

Vehicle need isn't enough. The two other factors you need to look at are infrastructure complexity/cost and charger availability. If you're not in the sweet spot for both, you're not going to win.

On the charger side, I'd even say that if Chargepoint doesn't offer a 40 amp charger, I'm not interested. Their chargers and software were so much better than Blink and the other competitors it wasn't funny. Chargepoint designs their chargers for ease-of-repair - a high school kid can get one of their charging stations back online in about 30 seconds - and their software is more mature. The current Chargepoint chargers take in 40A circuits so it can charge at 30A. I'd rather have 30 amp charging stations that are online than 40 amp stations that spend a lot of their time broken.

40 amp chargers will need 50 amp circuits. If you're going to push for 40 amp chargers, you need to make sure that installing 10s of 50 amp circuits in office parks and garages isn't significantly more costly or complex. I know that our office park had power limits. That definitely constrained the # of chargers we could put in and where we could put them. If we had put in 40 amp chargers, I bet we would have put in fewer chargers.

The takeaway here is that it isn't as simple as "now we have vehicles that could use 40A charging so we should push people to do it." There may be other factors in play that could make that hard and you should check into them before deciding that this is where you want to spend your time and energy.

 

[Robert.Boston]

And in some locations, 120v 12A circuits are all that's needed -- I'm thinking about long-term parking lots at airports. I'm always embarrassed plugging in at Logan because I'm charging only a small fraction of the time I'm parked there. On a typical overnight trip, say 40 hours parked, that's 50+kWh in the pack.

 

[rcc]

ChargePoint vs Clipper Creek level 2 charging solution. What is the better deal? Is networking required? Can the cost be justified? What do you think?


ChargePoint:
Two 30 amp unit: (Solid Commercial Unit)
The Dual ChargePoint CT4000 unit goes for $6500+

+ Monthly network fee
+ Install fee


Clipper Creek:
Two 60 amp units:
2 HCS-60, 48A Clipper Creek - $899.00 a piece = $1798.00
+ Install fee

My employer (former and current) both went with Chargepoint for employee charging. Google went with Chargepoint too.

I believe the major reasons were:

- software and network. Chargepoint allows the chargers to be available to everyone or just employees. They also support a lot of billing options: free, time connected, power consumed and more.
- better uptime. The guts of the Chargepoint chargers (the stuff that is likely to break) are engineered as a single unit that can be pulled and swapped in a few seconds. As a result, if they break, Chargepoint chargers don't stay broken for long.

If you care about this stuff, Chargepoint is well worth the extra cost. And FWIW, my current employer supplies free charging. My former employer charged at cost (.14 cents per KWH consumed which is their average electricity cost). Don't know about Google but I'm pretty sure it's free there too.

 

[TexasEV]

For workplace charging I agree 30A is sufficient, as cars will be parked for about 8 hours. Just like Robert said for airport charging that 120V is sufficient. The need for charging rate is inversely related to the time parked. For destination charging, where people have driven much longer distances than commuting to work, either for a day trip or overnight stay, 40A charging can make a big difference.

If workplace charging is free, I still don't get why the huge extra expense of software and network is worthwhile. The charger doesn't need to be networked and keep track of use. All you need to be able to do is plug in. I don't think Clipper Creek has a reliability problem, but even if it would break a little more often than ChargePoint, if you can install more twice the number of charging stations for the same price, having one go down once in a while isn't as big a problem. And being a non-networked charging station there is less to go wrong.

 

[dsm363]

I agree. If you are providing charging for free ClipperCreek seems like they way to go. They also provide a credit card feature so can even bill if you want.

 

[djplong]

I can tell you the reason NH didn't join in a non-political way.

Put simply, there are no funds to do 'promotion' of any kind. We have no sales tax, no income tax, our property taxes go to the cities and towns. We have a meals tax and the gas tax and that's almost it. Our legislature is rarely in session - and why not, since they are only paid $150 per YEAR. We have hundreds of millions of dollars due on our I-93 widening project and can't figure out how we're going to reimburse hospitals for taxes that were apparently illegally assessed (and spent).

This is where I live. This is the news we get.

 

[rcc]

For workplace charging I agree 30A is sufficient, as cars will be parked for about 8 hours. Just like Robert said for airport charging that 120V is sufficient. The need for charging rate is inversely related to the time parked. For destination charging, where people have driven much longer distances than commuting to work, either for a day trip or overnight stay, 40A charging can make a big difference.

If workplace charging is free, I still don't get why the huge extra expense of software and network is worthwhile. The charger doesn't need to be networked and keep track of use. All you need to be able to do is plug in. I don't think Clipper Creek has a reliability problem, but even if it would break a little more often than ChargePoint, if you can install more twice the number of charging stations for the same price, having one go down once in a while isn't as big a problem. And being a non-networked charging station there is less to go wrong.

Paying extra for the reliability is worthwhile because:

1) businesses with free charging for their employees view this as some combination of perk to make their employees happier and demonstration of commitment to the environment which also makes a number of their employees happier. This backfires if the chargers are broken a lot. Keep in mind the problem isn't that the other chargers will break a lot more than the Chargepoints. They probably won't. The problem is that if a Chargepoint charger is broken, it's back online 30 seconds after a technician gets there whereas with the other chargers, the techs have to run diagnostics, partially disassemble things, etc. When you're talking about a single tech trying to cover a lot of chargers, that time adds up. At the eval done at my prior company, there was a lot of anectodal evidence in the room about encountering broken Blink chargers in the wild.

2) some employees will rely on the charging being present. I know of a number of Leaf drivers whose round-trip commute is longer than a single charge on a Leaf can take them.

3) for a bigger organization, the extra cost isn't a big deal. I forget what it cost to run the extra circuits but my guess is the cost to do that was bigger than the cost of the chargers themselves. For retrofit installations, you're usually talking about trenching, concrete pours, etc. Even for new construction, you're talking about running big circuits instead of your usual handful of 110V/15A circuits so it's not cheap.