JJOhio Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 (edited) Electrify America recently changed the charging cost from a flat $.35/min to a variable from .89 to .21 depending on the car's KW demand. This seemed good, but in actual practice, it has doubled the cost of a typical trip. (Tesla model 3 AWD) Example trip from Dayton Ohio to Mesa AZ using a better route planner is $301 using mostly EA chargers, $64 using Tesla Superchargers and about $150 for gas in a 35 MPG fossil car. The reason is: they lock you into the per minute charge for the whole session based on your car apriori whereas Tesla charge cost is dynamic, that is, based on that you currently draw. (and Tesla's per minute cost is lower) The net result is that EA revised cost structure is more 2-3 times as expensive as their previous flat rate. Comments? Edited July 10, 2019 by JJOhio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason-ABRP Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 It's especially unfortunate for those with a car that charges just on the cusp of a charge tier, like the Kia Niro or Hyundai Kona. They can sometimes pull just over 75kW, putting them in the higher power tier, causing a much higher price for that charge session. I really hope Electrify America rethinks their charging cost scheme, doing it like Tesla and charging based on what's actually pulled each increment would be much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJOhio Posted July 11, 2019 Author Share Posted July 11, 2019 If they just allowed manual selection on charging rate, that would be much better. Sometime, I want to charge slower while I eat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou Boet Posted July 11, 2019 Share Posted July 11, 2019 I can't understand why they don't just charge for the energy used, ie $/kWh, which is similar to $/gal. Why is it so complicated and expensive. I understand that they don't want people to hog a spot once charging is complete but a simple "standby" fee after say 5 mins, once charging stops would solve that. Locally we pay $/kWh and it seems to work well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason-ABRP Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 On 7/11/2019 at 12:36 PM, Ou Boet said: I can't understand why they don't just charge for the energy used, ie $/kWh, which is similar to $/gal. Why is it so complicated and expensive. I understand that they don't want people to hog a spot once charging is complete but a simple "standby" fee after say 5 mins, once charging stops would solve that. Locally we pay $/kWh and it seems to work well. That's actually due to a legal quirk in many locales. You're only allowed to sell $/kWh if you're an electric company, which means you fall under a lot more regulatory scrutiny that shouldn't apply to charging stations. So they get around it by selling $/time usage of the outlet instead. Obviously you can get away with different thresholds to approximate $/kWh (like Tesla does), I wonder how close you could get to selling $/kWh by "smoothing" the threshold curve so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou Boet Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 Thank for the clarification. The work around makes sense. However, those regs should to be changed if you ask me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason-ABRP Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 Definitely agreed! No change without people asking for it, though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiGmA_X Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 On 7/22/2019 at 5:42 PM, Jason (ABRP) said: Definitely agreed! No change without people asking for it, though. Agreed. Everyone should provide feedback to EA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
