Sites have a wide range of stall counts, with most new sites being 16, IIRC, so calling it four per site would be misleading. It is, at best, four per cabinet.
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Supercharger Shock!
- Thread starter Beasts
- Start date
The big difference there is that ChargePoint doesn't set prices. ChargePoint sells charger hardware to individual business, and those businesses set charging prices. As a result, the cost can vary widely from location to location.
For example, at my office (Bay Area), we have private ChargePoint chargers, and our charging cost is zero. They use the ChargePoint network for access control (employees only), and my employer pays the cost of the power. A few miles south of here, there's a charger that costs 25 cents per kWh, with free parking up to 3 hours, then $2 per hour thereafter. Next door to that, another charger costs 19 cents per kWh. A couple of miles east, charging costs 16 cents per kWh.
Note that this is within a mile of a Tesla supercharger that costs up to 58 cents per kWh during peak time, 19 cents off-peak. Mind you, the difference between 6.6 kW charging and 250 kW charging is huge. But still, the pricing for supercharging is getting insane. At peak pricing (59 cents per kWh), that would be 17 cents per mile for a Model X, which is considerably more expensive than a RAV4 hybrid with $6.50 per gallon gasoline (15.85 cents per mile).
I suspect most people massively overspend on their home EVSE setups. You should be able to do it for less than $800 even including the Putin tax.
I've been fine with a 20a/240v NEMA 6-20 and a cheapo amazon EVSE for the past 2 years, even through cold boston winters and plenty of situations where I come home with the battery nearly flat and need to use the car the next morning.
Is it ideal? No, not if my wife gets an EV, or if I drove the car more than 3 hours a day for 5 days in a row and wanted to avoid DC Fast charging.
So it's not perfect if I had a super-cheap time-of-use discount overnight, or drove way more than the average american, but it also wasn't actually expensive, and overall was probably many many thousands less than if I got a bigger circuit and the associated replacement panel and replacement feed from the city (living in a 140 year old house has drawbacks, surprisingly).
That rate's set by the site not chargepoint; chargepoint just provides the software, billing and charging infrastructure support.
You (maybe?) could put an EVSE in front of your house and make it public and charge at $20 per kwh.
Where I work there are chargepoint managed EVSEs that are free; next door there's a couple installed because of a city mandate that all new parking facilities have chargepoint branded EVSEs and they cost some non-trivial amount of money.
Any public charging, whether L2 or DCFC, should be expensive, or at least more than it costs to charge at home. Otherwise the public charging stations get clogged up with people trying to save a buck, at the expense of people who really NEED it.
Yes, that's not ideal for renters and others who can't charge it home, but it's necessary to reach scale, else you're overbuilding public charging, shifting nighttime at-home charging to daytime peak rates when the grid is less able to handle it, etc.
Yes, that's not ideal for renters and others who can't charge it home, but it's necessary to reach scale, else you're overbuilding public charging, shifting nighttime at-home charging to daytime peak rates when the grid is less able to handle it, etc.
Exelion
Member
I disagree. There’s a DCFC about seven miles away from my house that costs less than charging at home, and it’s hardly ever full. ($.20 vs $.24 at home)
They are expensive because that’s the way things are now, but I don’t think it’s something that absolutely has to be, later on. If a company can find a way to get electricity for $0.01 and sell it at a DCFC for $0.05 then they could, and will find a way to make it work. Stations getting clogged up full of people charging are due to not enough stations, a different issue.
More charging stations, L2 or DC, more choices to charge a car, is a good thing for all EV owners, not just for people who can’t charge at home.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
That's peak TOU rates. Most of the time it's less than that. My electricity (in California) is 17 cents/kWh all of the time (no TOU).
You're probably "benefiting" (in cost, if not in health) from fossil fuel energy.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
That makes you pretty lucky, being one of the small fraction of CA residents not beholden to one of the big IOUs…
zoomer0056
Active Member
Exelion
Member
I’m going to make a guess that’s under this plan, and getting an additional 25% off from CARE program:
0.75 of $0.23 = $0.17 per kw. I realize its also current as of last year but many people are grandfathered in and their rates have not been raised. Also, notice that the more electricity is used, the more expensive it gets-it can approach or even be more than DC fast charging.
0.75 of $0.23 = $0.17 per kw. I realize its also current as of last year but many people are grandfathered in and their rates have not been raised. Also, notice that the more electricity is used, the more expensive it gets-it can approach or even be more than DC fast charging.
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Maybe, but that’s super misleading at best as it’s basically impossible to stay within Tier 1 if you’re completely dependent on the grid, and if you’re enrolled in the CARE program with a big solar array and a regular participant on a Tesla forum there’s something else more than a little fishy going on.
There are smaller nonprofit utilities out there that have reasonable rates as @mspohr is describing. They just aren’t accessible to most of us.
For example, SMUD:
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
The problem is even if we have choices in charging, the utilities still have a monopoly…
We shouldn't forget that businesses can also get hit with fees for poor power factor, and although there are ways to correct for this, this is another thing that residential users just don't need to take into account and are not billed for. You could in theory have a power factor as bad as 0.5 (or worse) on a residential service and you're still billed only for your real power, not for your reactive/apparent power. In the PG&E tariff posted above, it says: "The rates in this rate schedule are based on a power factor of 85 percent. If the average power factor is greater than 85 percent, the total monthly bill will be reduced by the product of the power factor rate and the kilowatt-hour usage for each percentage point above 85 percent. If the average power factor is below 85 percent, the total monthly bill will be increased by the product of the power factor rate and the kilowatt-hour usage for each percentage point below 85 percent."I doubt those rates take demand charges into account, which is where businesses tend to get hit. The ultimate price for a business isnt cheaper.
Understanding the differences between your commercial and residential electric bills — Sunistics
It's been my experience that people take a far closer look at their electric bill from their home than they do at their office. This makes sense: you feel like you have more control over your personal energy usage. Plus, many people don't even see their electric bill at work. And if you do take a glwww.sunisticsgroup.com
I think EV chargers typically have power factor correction. 85% power factor is pretty terrible. I'd expect 95% or better.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
You should read this thread, there’s lots of discussion that might help you correlate.
Commercial power is subject to different cost pressures.
Site leases aren’t free.
Site equipment isn’t free.
Site equipment needs maintenance and replacement.
Technical infrastructure and connectivity for billing, monitoring, and vehicle authorization isn’t free.
Payment processing isn’t free.
Technical support isn’t free.
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