I would definitely check around the Santa Monica location that is listed on your map. I know for a few of the charge point spots on my map, it took me a few times to actually find the station itself. and then once you find it, you can mark it down with a heart and label it the way you want, so you can remember where it is. I don't go out of my way to charge my car, but if it's convenient then i use the charge point. Even if you just charge it for an hour it adds some extra range.
Steve: Pacific City in Huntington Beach has four Chargepoint stations. We went there the other night with our friend's BMW I-3. It cost them $1 per hour to charge. For me, there is a Blink station about 2 miles from my office, but I don't see the point. It takes too long to charge and i'm not going to sit and wait for my car. And Blink costs $.49 per hour. So there's no savings. I wish there were more stations. We are all early adopters here. The market hasn't taken hold yet. Eventually, fast DC charging will be as ubiquitous as gas stations. -
Actually I believe the location IS there -- a friend found it using an app and showed me a picture someone posted of what it looks like. But it's not technically at the address/strip mall. Instead, it's actually just a parking spot along Santa Monica Blvd -- as if parking along Santa Monica Blvd isn't hard enough to find, the one spot where there's a free chargepoint charge will no doubt be occupied all the time. Still, at least it's technically there...
Plugin at ChargePoint point station at work this morning as usual. Weird thing happened, after 10 minutes of 3.15 KW per hour charge it started to ramp down till 0 KW and stay there for 25 minutes. I went back to my car dashboard blue charging indicator light is on. ChargePoint power stayed at 0 KW. I check my A/C was not on. I had to unplug the ChargePoint power cord and restarted the charging process. Car shows 2 hour 10 minutes to full charge.
I used $0.99 of my chargepoint $100, that was a parking fee for using the charger at one place. I used about 20 different chargepoint locations during the 3 month period but all of them were free except the one that had a connect charge but not a usage charge. I also bought a ChargePoint for home but have yet to get it installed as I haven't had time to deal with an electrician.
Got my June ChargePoint Summary: $25 , 94 KWH energy added (26.5 cents per KWH due to inefficient of extra time hooked up to the station and charger rams down) distance added 236 miles estimated. According to my own calculation <4.3 miles per KWH so 404 miles instead of 236 miles from ChargePoint calculation. So added 404 miles/55 mpg=7.35 gals $2.79 x 7.35= $20.50 I get better than 55 MPG , paying less than $2.79 per gal of gas. It's not economical justified to continue using ChargePoint. However it makes sense to charge at home. If home charge won't move me into SCE tier 2 price (14 cents vs 23 cents) per KWH.
Mine expired in June with $98 still available on it. Here on the left coast my math determined that So Oregon electricity(0.075) at home is about 1/4 the cost per mile vs gasoline, and Sacramento(0.11) electricity at home is about 1/2 the cost per mile vs gasoline. The only Chargepoint that I used the card on worked out to about $3/gal equivalent. When gas goes above $3, I will consider them again.