Anyone use public charging stations for your Prius Prime?

The charging station near me is difficult to get in because the Employees of Consumers Energy have their Volts occupying the one and only Charge point terminal. And when I check to see if they're done most of the time they are, they just leave their car parked there till they get off work, very annoying. Thankfully I have my own personal plug next to my parking spot at my apartment.

 

Most annoying, not less than when a ICE car parks at the terminal - they should know better.

 

There's a lot of public stations around me (ChargePoint, Semaconnect, GE, and a lot of non-network stations). I've only used two different stations in my area so far, one was at a major mall which had a ChargePoint station, so I used my $100 credit to charge up while I had dinner. I wasn't fully empty (had maybe 4 or 5 miles left), so the total charge time was about 1h45m and it cost $1.98. The other one is at the grocery store I go to which has two free public stations in the shopping center, so I plug in there while shopping, even if it's just for 10 mins or so. I was in Vegas last weekend and used a free station (ChargePoint network) at the Palazzo.

Personally, I think the cost of public stations are a bit high. Most seem to charge $1.00 an hour, which calculates to about $0.32 per kWh. I'm paying $0.13 kWh at home. Even at my work, the charging stations (Semaconnect network) are $1/hour. Once I deplete my ChargePoint credit, I'll likely only charge at home or at free stations.

 

The higher fees are to discourage people using them for parking.
BEVs with faster chargers will also suck down more kWH in that time frame.

 

How exactly it discourages? In my place you are only paying for the time you actually charging.

 

Some chargers here charge for time parked beyond charging.

It would be nice if they could charge for the kWh consumed, but local regulations likely limit that ability to the power companies. So the charger company has to charge a fee that covers the power use of plug ins with faster chargers.

 

Is it common or rare? How exactly this is done? I want to offer this solution to a charging network here.

 

It's just like a paid parking spot that charges based on time.

 

does that require an employee?

 

Not for the paid parking I've used; I recently saw the 'classic' parking meters with a card reader.

 

I live in Florida in the Tampa Bay Area. There are not many chargers here and the ones we have are mostly occupied by Volts. Owning a plug in has taught me it would be a nightmare to have a fully electric car with the lack of chargers. On the positive side every charging station I have used or seen are free at this time.

 

Owners choose how to charge for charging.

Some charge by time, like a flat fee for up to 8 hours (my work ramp). Others charge by the KWH of electricity (at the Mall of America). Others offer it for free (my grocery store).

 

The for-profit charging station in a near-by town is $1.8 an hour for up to 6.6 kW. Fair deal for our LEAF, probably not worth the hassle for our Prime. I do hope that the nextGen Prius plug-in is bumped up to a 6.6 kW charger.

I view for-profit chargers as a convenience and range extender for BEVs and expect to pay a fair bit more than charging at home. In this specific case of a 90 mile r/t, 16 kWh will be at home that costs 32 cents and 6 kWh at the city charger for $1.8, for a total cost of $2.12 for 90 miles. No complaints here.

 

Where do you shop?

 

my local whole foods has one fee charger. but most around here don't. there's a website with all (most) public charger locations, but it's kinda funky, because it will sow 120v outlets in the basement of an apartment building and such.

 

so, get out your extension cord and walk down the basement

 

Hy-Vee