Charge by the hour vs. by the kWh

In that case, they should make PiP free to charge then.

 

Lol, I thought that only our politicians in QC (Canada) were stupid enough to disallow the charge for electricity by rate or kWh.

Here, we usually have to pay a 2.50$ flat rate for a charge which is ridiculously high for Plug-in Prius owners but a very good deal for a 85KWH Tesla Model S owner with an empty battery. It cost me around 20 cents to charge the PiP at home.

This is a stupid old & outdated law IMO.

This is even funnier considering that they put these charging station in places where you can easily spend less than an hour. (i.e. hardware stores, groceries, etc.) I would use it a lot if the price was lower but at that price, I don't even have a membership card.

 

Agreed, charging a flat fee is silly.
Charge by kWh is much simpler for the consumer and much fairer as well.

 

I will use your chart for the EAA NY chapter as an example

 

Thanks for putting this together. I am assuming since you are in California, our laws allow charging per kWh, no?

 

If I may ask, where do these laws apply and any knowledge or speculation as to why?

 

In my mind charging stations need to be a mix of hourly rate and usage. If I owned a charging station it wouldn't make sense to have a 2010 Leaf hogging the spot for twice as long as a 2013 Leaf and paying the same amount. There also has to be a financial incentive to make people move their cars after charging is complete.

It might not be fair to all but off the cuff I'd say that once you plug in the rate should be charged for usage, but at some predetermined minimum rate. Then when charging is complete there would be some sort of grace period and then it would kick into an hourly amount that is higher than the local hourly parking.


For example:

Inital Plug in: Rate is for 5kwh charge or whatever your vehicle is drawing (whichever is higher)
After charge is complete: 20 minute grace period of no $$.
After grace period is over: Hourly rate of $x/hour where x is enough to make people move their cars

-Jeff

 

Don't know where, but they "why" is because utility companies want to hold on to their monopolies and prevent competition so they bribed (some might say lobby) politicians to pass laws like these.

 

Though it may be easy for me to believe politicians and Utilities the culprits, some places more so than others, facts are what I seek.

 

The "why" is that the lobbyists got the law written so that selling by the Kwh made you into a electric utility, subject to all regulations that apply to such providers. When charging by time, you are just buying connection time, which just incidentally hopefully involves some electric power. These laws long pre-date EV charging stations. I believe that California recently rescinded this interpretation for EV charging stations, so EV charging stations here can charge by the Kwh without being considered utilities.

 

Assuming California rescinded this law, are we talking federal law....as it applies to where?

 

As it happens, I'm meeting with someone at ChargePoint (Coulomb Technologies) later today to discuss these kinds of issues. I will mention this thread.

Here's an interesting article where their CEO discusses this issue:

Proceed with caution: charging for EV charging | ChargedEVs

Here's a detailed 50 state report that was published in March 2013 that includes the status and legal basis for charging per-kWh:

http://www.theevproject.com/cms-assets/documents/103425-835189.ri-2.pdf

ChargePoint added a lot of flexibility for pricing policies in their ChargePoint 4.0 software update that came out about 9 months ago but few station owners are taking advantage of it yet. There are also some sensible policies that they don't support yet which I plan to discuss with them.

 

This info is in a table inside the "50 state" report that I linked to in a post a few minutes ago.

 

Only 49 states in the EV union because WV seceded. The meter needs to be utility grade calibrated for accuracy. Not sure how the areas RV parks handle their electrical hookups probably flat rate.

 

I can see the metering issue if what is provided are simple 120V outlets that the EV owner plugs their own EVSE into. Charging stations like from ChargePoint and Blink have built-in metering.

 

I am not convinced about fairer. The business has two costs, actual electricity, and space availability (opportunity cost). A car which takes much longer to charge to the same level (kWh) is taking up a space that a faster charging car would be providing more income.

Once there is competition in charging stations, places charging by the hour will be visited by people with fast charging cars, and places charging by the kWh, by slow charging cars. This seems unlikely to be optimal.

If I were running such a station, I would charge a fee for electricity, and another fee for length of time IN THE SPACE (charging or not). Weighting those fees would require some empirical data.