Why stores offer free EV charging? Not free gas?

What is the concept for shopping centers to have free EV charging? In theory it's just for customers, but no one is watching it or enforcing that it's customers only where it requires a validation. I think the only thing they can enforce is the hours the EV charger will work, like some shopping centers may shut them off at night so no one is gonna try get free electricity while the shopping center is closed at 2am.

Maybe someone lives very close to the shopping center and tries to charge for free every single night, but probably won't be practical to do it every single day. But there was an opportunity for me to get free charging nearly the entire trip while I was in AZ. I stayed at my friend's apartment in Glendale which is very close to the State Farm Arena. His apartment though had no EV charging and I really preferred charging overnight instead of waiting an hour each time at a supercharger. There were Voltas nearby, but that shopping center puts up barricades and has security enforcing for no car to be there after closing hours. But there was a free Chargepoint near the Carls Jr with no barricades and there was never a car there at night. So I was lucky and I got free 100% charging every single night we went back to his apartment. Pretty much got to commute everyday for free while in the Phoenix area with no stopping at superchargers because most our commutes were do-able with 100% round trip.

And how I got back to his apartment each night? I had my E-scooter in the trunk so I just use that to commute 1 mile from the apartment to the free chargepoint. So it was super self sufficient, no need to use his gas car or an uber to try get back to his apartment.

I also plan to do this while in Las Vegas, there are alot of free charging options there and I have gotten by getting a free charge the entire trip.

I did go to the Oakley outlet store once though so I guess having that free charging got me to spend some money. Plus I bought food at that Carls Jr. So even though I didn't intend to spend money at the mall, I still did spend money anyways.

I never saw another EV car there charging overnight, so it seems no one is really that interested in taking advantage of free charging at night. But if a gas station has free gas or insanely cheap prices by mistake (which has happened), hoards of people will start showing up until the gas station realizes their mistake. I never seen a shopping center give away free gas or have discounted gas stations to draw in customers. Maybe Costco does though, they give a slight discount on gas and they always got super long lines during prime driving hours.

However, level 2 charging is slow and doesn't really do much if its going to be 0-2 hours. I don't think anyone will force themselves to stay 6+ hours just to charge for free. But if there is free charging near a Dave and Busters, I can be there for 6+ hours because I'm an advantage player so I can actually get a decent charge. The only Dave and Busters I know that have free EV charging are San Diego, Northridge, Long Beach, and Las Vegas. So I get to profit from Dave and Busters and get a free charge. My other AP friend can't do that, he drives a Honda Civic and I'm always the one that ends up driving so he will win me tickets on my card at a profit. Or help me sell some my big prizes (by paying me and sell it later).

 

[rotom3]

Volta
View attachment 885539

Know that pain unfortunately. I've noticed many public chargers around my area (not many to begin with) charging around that amount

Thankfully not too big of a detriment for me, and still cheaper than gas was. But it does still sting

 

[RayK]

Volta

If you're giving a thumbs down on the $0.30/kWh that Volta is charging, know that where I am (South SF Bay Area), $0.31516/kWh will be my new home baseline rate from PG&E starting in a few days. I've had an E-6 rate plan since getting solar 12 years ago. That plan is going away at the end of this month and we were given a couple of suggestions for a new electricity rate. I selected E-1 which has $0.31516 as a baseline and $0.39468 if we're over (101-400%). Baseline is 9.7kWh / day during winter months.

I will still be charging at the local ChargePoint ($0.19) but if need be (i.e., traveling), I'd pay $0.30 for DCFC considering Superchargers can be a bit more than that (currently $0.35 during peak times, $0.23 during off-peak around my house). I took a quick look at voltacharging.com around my home and didn't see any L3 stations. There's one CCS in Santa Cruz, where I go about 3-4 times a year, but there's no payment info on their site. However, Santa Cruz has pretty good Supercharging coverage.

 

[moa999]

Early days I suspect it was to tick a sustainability/ greenwshing box.

And having a Free box with limited usage was a lot cheaper than also adding a billing providers service fees etc.

But once utilisation increases and sites are installing 10+ chargers and having repair bills etc, then they start thinking about charging.

Note also.. when comparing your home cost to elsewhere, you should allocate some equipment cost (even if it's a sunk cost to you) to do a comparison.

 

[RayK]

So as it looks like this thread is drifting away from the OP's query, here's something to try to bring it back on course.

Malls / stores probably find the hassle of offering free gas over electricity not worth it. And here's why I say that:

• The amount of free EV charging is easy to limit per session. Stations can be set up to limit how much energy is dispensed. A 4 hour time limit is common for L2 chargers, after which you can either stop charging or add in idle fees (which would require that the driver have a pre-existing account). That's about 100 miles of range for the majority of EVs. Sure it's possible to game the system. Especially for mall employees. They can be there for more than 8 hours. They could simply move their car after the first 4 hour session so something needs to be done to take care of that case.
• Equivalent 100 miles for gas / diesel is anywhere from 2 to 7 gallons, depending upon the ICE vehicle. With most pumps, that can be delivered in 1 to 3 minutes, not hours. How to you prevent the public from getting their free gas and then simply driving away after a few minutes? Yes, you could set up some sort of validation system whereby you have a time-stamped ticket that shows the amount time you spent inside the mall which directly relates to how much gasoline is pumped for you when you leave. That introduces a whole 'nother ecosystem of ticket machines and the people that have to service them. I suppose a company could develop an app that tracks your time / location inside the mall / store but that could open up a privacy concern.
• As mentioned previously, installing EV Level 2 charging infrastructure in a parking lot should cost less than putting in one single gas / diesel pump. Behind that pump putting liquid dinosaurs into your ICE, there's a system of piping, vapor recovery (for those states that care about the environment), permitting, environmental reviews, scheduling delivery tankers, and last but not least, underground storage tanks (one for gas, another for diesel; this assumes delivery of regular octane and not the usual regular, mid-grade and high octane pumps found at almost all gas stations). Then there's the periodic (?) testing for leaks from the tanks and the certifications from whatever bureau that handles accuracy in volumetric delivery. And if and when the mall is closed down, who's responsible with the removal of the pumps / tanks and the cleanup involved?
• How many pumps will be needed? A single one invites a huge line of cars and trucks waiting to get the freebie. Putting in 12 pumps, a common amount for your typical corner gas station, still can have lines during busy shopping hours / holidays. All that real estate for the gas pumps takes up two to three dozen parking slots. With EV charging, the parking slot is the station.
• The mall owners could subcontract the entire gas station to an independent operator if they don't want to deal with the day-to-day issues. All that's left is for the mall to pay the station operator for the fuel given away. Plus a markup to the operator since they're going to want to earn some profit. My guess is that most, if not all, malls / stores that provide free EV charging don't own / operate the equipment. Some company like ChargePoint or EA or EVgo will have installed the EVSEs and are obligated to maintain the equipment.
• I think that people see electricity as a free resource that you can get almost anywhere, anytime (unless you're affected by people that shoot at power substations), whereas gasoline can only be purchased at certain physical locations (ignoring for the moment companies like Booster). Electricity is delivered to you; you must deliver yourself and car to a gas station. You can plug in your phone or laptop at Starbucks or airports and get free juice. When was the last time you were able to pump a couple of gallons of gas for nothing. Tesla, Electrify America, and probably others, have offered free power during holidays or in areas of emergencies. Has major gas corporations ever given away their product in times of need? Has there been any instances of price gouging for electricity like there has been for gasoline in times of crisis?
• Getting back to a point I made earlier, the number of EVs is still at the level where it's not all that worrisome that some people could get a free ride. From a recent article, nationwide registrations of EVs has just passed 5% of the market. That means 1 in 20 cars are able to plug in and get some mileage if free charging is offered. Those other 19 people are out of luck. Of course that 5% doesn't apply in places like CA, FL or TX. When some EV registration percentage threshold is reached, places that currently offer the free charging perk are going to start seeing their bottom line costs increase to a point where they think it is no longer financially sustainable. Then they'll start charging for charging. Even if they set the per kWh cost below the average residential rate in the area, it will still be a bargain. One that most EV drivers will understand and probably accept, grumbling all the while about the "good old days" when electricity was free.

 

[legendsk]

A small town in the midwest has a free overnight RV park with free electricity, water and sewer. The belief is that people who stay overnight will spend money in the town, the businesses will profit and the budget for the park will be covered by the town's share of sales tax on the increased business. {If someone comes to visit grandma for a couple of weeks it's okay.} For those souls who appreciate this convenience, but feel a little guilty because they aren't going to spend any money this trip, there is a donation box with a friendly reminder that nothing is really free and if you would like to keep this convenience available, drop a few bucks in the box. On the other hand, when the town cops see a local resident has decided to park there every night and charge up, they will remind him/her about the barrage of traffic tickets about to fall on them if they don't knock it off. Seems to work well there, but unlikely in the big city.

 

[legendsk]

In response to title.
View attachment 884276

Gasoline and it's inherent storage risks are not something that most businesses use on a day-to-day basis and that can also supply its customers to attract or offer as utility. Also needs to be readily available safely. Not sure gasoline would be easy for all types of business to store and hand out in small amounts to say thanks for stopping by.

Electricity seems to fit the bill in all cases mentioned. Some give it for free, some charge. Hey some say not while we are closed. We are in an infancy of electric car charging. Maybe a wild west. Sure it will all settle down or not in time.

That's pretty scary that anyone would do that, even just to take the picture, but unfortunately it's probably common. And I don't even want to think about what if it isn't gasoline.

 

[qdeathstar]

To to mention that there are incentives for installing car chargers, and that for a while Tesla was paying locations to install destination chargers; I got paid to install them at first landing state park on Virginia.

 

[drtimhill]

What is the concept for shopping centers to have free EV charging? In theory it's just for customers, but no one is watching it or enforcing that it's customers only where it requires a validation. I think the only thing they can enforce is the hours the EV charger will work, like some shopping centers may shut them off at night so no one is gonna try get free electricity while the shopping center is closed at 2am.

My guess is (a) it's cheap for the store and (b) they reckon that while charging customers are more likely to use the mall facilities (buy food, shop etc). Even one purchase probably easily covers the charging cost to the store.

That's also why a lot of Tesla superchargers are near stores .. not only convenient for us while the car is charging, but an incentive to get a customer into the store. Also, I suspect that until recently most EV owners were in higher income brackets that the stores love.

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

What is the concept for shopping centers to have free EV charging? In theory it's just for customers, but no one is watching it or enforcing that it's customers only where it requires a validation. I think the only thing they can enforce is the hours the EV charger will work, like some shopping centers may shut them off at night so no one is gonna try get free electricity while the shopping center is closed at 2am.

Maybe someone lives very close to the shopping center and tries to charge for free every single night, but probably won't be practical to do it every single day. But there was an opportunity for me to get free charging nearly the entire trip while I was in AZ. I stayed at my friend's apartment in Glendale which is very close to the State Farm Arena. His apartment though had no EV charging and I really preferred charging overnight instead of waiting an hour each time at a supercharger. There were Voltas nearby, but that shopping center puts up barricades and has security enforcing for no car to be there after closing hours. But there was a free Chargepoint near the Carls Jr with no barricades and there was never a car there at night. So I was lucky and I got free 100% charging every single night we went back to his apartment. Pretty much got to commute everyday for free while in the Phoenix area with no stopping at superchargers because most our commutes were do-able with 100% round trip.

And how I got back to his apartment each night? I had my E-scooter in the trunk so I just use that to commute 1 mile from the apartment to the free chargepoint. So it was super self sufficient, no need to use his gas car or an uber to try get back to his apartment.

I also plan to do this while in Las Vegas, there are alot of free charging options there and I have gotten by getting a free charge the entire trip.

I did go to the Oakley outlet store once though so I guess having that free charging got me to spend some money. Plus I bought food at that Carls Jr. So even though I didn't intend to spend money at the mall, I still did spend money anyways.

I never saw another EV car there charging overnight, so it seems no one is really that interested in taking advantage of free charging at night. But if a gas station has free gas or insanely cheap prices by mistake (which has happened), hoards of people will start showing up until the gas station realizes their mistake. I never seen a shopping center give away free gas or have discounted gas stations to draw in customers. Maybe Costco does though, they give a slight discount on gas and they always got super long lines during prime driving hours.

However, level 2 charging is slow and doesn't really do much if its going to be 0-2 hours. I don't think anyone will force themselves to stay 6+ hours just to charge for free. But if there is free charging near a Dave and Busters, I can be there for 6+ hours because I'm an advantage player so I can actually get a decent charge. The only Dave and Busters I know that have free EV charging are San Diego, Northridge, Long Beach, and Las Vegas. So I get to profit from Dave and Busters and get a free charge. My other AP friend can't do that, he drives a Honda Civic and I'm always the one that ends up driving so he will win me tickets on my card at a profit. Or help me sell some my big prizes (by paying me and sell it later).

My local supermarket chain a few months ago started digging in 2 parking spaces and alot of heavy duty electric cable around. A week laer, 2 stalls of free Volta charging. And the charging is for the time plugged in within limits. Now would you rather they dig up the ground, install gas tanks and then fueling stations and how much gas do you get? Stick the pump in and go in the store? Face it, gas stations are a dirty, filthy, business that seem more like convenience stores/lottery sellers/cigarette sellers than gas stations and take up alot of land and STILL to this day after hurricane Sandy the NYS legislature could not get the gas stations to install generators to pump the gas. My solution? All that real estate on the top of the stations could have solar panel
power pumping gas. Same thing with mobile service. Gov't wanted backup batteries during power outage, lobbyists showed up, no battery backup.

 

[Hiline]

Not sure how much it costs to purchase and install a charger, but the ongoing cost is minimal. 7kW over 24 hours, times 20 cents per kWh is $34/day, a drop in the bucket for the store.
Imagine how much free gas would cost per day…

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

Not sure how much it costs to purchase and install a charger, but the ongoing cost is minimal. 7kW over 24 hours, times 20 cents per kWh is $34/day, a drop in the bucket for the store.
Imagine how much free gas would cost per day…

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

I believe the supermarket asks not to use more than 1 hour and be respectful of other cusstomers

 

[kilpatds]

Uh ... Volta is paying for the juice, in exchange for billboard space. The grocery store isn't paying for your juice, the advertiser is

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

Uh ... Volta is paying for the juice, in exchange for billboard space. The grocery store isn't paying for your juice, the advertiser is

Ok, the store is not paying. The sign still says be respectful of others

 

[STS-134]

You've answered your own question, L2 charging for customers isn't a very large cost during the day. They could presumably limit charging periods to two hours(I think I saw that at Wegmans), and enforce it in software.

When/if they figure out that people are charging overnight, there are certainly ways for them to disable charging overnight, whether physical or software. I'd wager Chargepoint already has this ability.

 

[father_of_6]

In response to title.
View attachment 884276

Gasoline and it's inherent storage risks are not something that most businesses use on a day-to-day basis and that can also supply its customers to attract or offer as utility. Also needs to be readily available safely. Not sure gasoline would be easy for all types of business to store and hand out in small amounts to say thanks for stopping by.

Electricity seems to fit the bill in all cases mentioned. Some give it for free, some charge. Hey some say not while we are closed. We are in an infancy of electric car charging. Maybe a wild west. Sure it will all settle down or not in time.

What's in the trunk?

My take on this question... these large businesses put up one or two free chargers because the cost is negligible and might even bring in new customers. There could also be tax incentives for putting them in.

As electric vehicles become more popular, I would expect they'll have many more of them and charge commercial rates. My vision for the future of EV charging isn't a bunch of gas station replacements, it's electric chargers at existing businesses. Charging will happen at home and at the places you're already going... the grocery store, the mall, the stadium, etc.

 

[outdoors]

What's in the trunk?

My guess would be gas. I found it fitting for the satire post of why not free gas?

All found on the internet including picture. It went viral when the colonial pipeline went down via hackers.


With a little help from Google reverse search, the earliest posting of the picture can actually be traced back to a 2019 article from a Mexican publication called Quintana Roo Hoy.

According to an article in the publication, two men were arrested in the state of Puebla after being found with thousands of liters of stolen gas contained in 67 plastic bags. The article was published on March 28, 2019.

 

[STS-134]

Not sure how much it costs to purchase and install a charger, but the ongoing cost is minimal. 7kW over 24 hours, times 20 cents per kWh is $34/day, a drop in the bucket for the store.
Imagine how much free gas would cost per day…

The equivalent gas pump to a L2 charger would dispense gas at this rate:

 

[ElectricIAC]

The equivalent gas pump to a L2 charger would dispense gas at this rate:

Believe it or not, there’s people who would spend the time sitting at a gas pump dribbling at that rate as long as it was free..

 

[Richbot]

Because they don't have gasoline tanks or gasoline pipes running to the building, and they aren't idiots

It's like not picking up the pennies and dimes dropped in the parking lot. Nobody is getting a huge handout from this, even if they're abusing it like crazy and never shop in the store that offers it. Why does this question keep coming up? Is it because people aren't being taught how to add in school?