[BrickedKeyboard]

I'm just glad they'll still be around. I can handle paying a few dollars more on trips. I'd rather that than have an entire charging network disappear.

Yeah it's just annoying that EVs are only significantly cheaper for at home charging, and in some areas you need solar also. At these higher prices a regular gas Corolla or similar becomes cheaper.

It's not bank breaking and hopefully a temporary problem.

 

[BrickedKeyboard]

It'll improve as additional large scale renewable generation comes online, and there are projects completing seemingly every week, also additional competition from other networks (like that one that uses normal mains and a battery backup) will help. My guess is this is due in large part to upkeep and once they right the upkeep and availability they should hit a point where the demand is great enough they can reduce pricing.

Also the uniform pricing thing they mention, I'll be interested to see if they continue that in the coming years.

Right. As more people get EVs, there is more consistent demand for most dcfcs. And more production of the equipment will mean it costs less to purchase. Plus while the initial install of a site is expensive (all that wiring and concrete and so on), subsequent maintenance by repairing or replacing chargers is cheaper.

With competition also - and I assume some way for drivers to know the price of the dcfc on their route, hopefully all done electronically via a route planner and not huge signs - I would assume prices would eventually settle on the long term price of electricity plus equipment. Which theoretically could be 12 cents or something per kWh.

 

[BrickedKeyboard]

The other great thing is their focus on solar and battery on site for new and existing deployments like this one they were touting they'll be building here in San Diego:

View attachment 48144

Like other things infrastructure wise, europe's way ahead of us on this with battery/charging stuff being featured on fullycharged etc often - and it's awesome to see EA rolling it out here!

Also awesome they're 150 kW chargers as the tesla stalls about 100' away are all the slow 72 kW or whatever.

Yeah. Solar also gives the other thing these stations need - overhead cover from rain and especially snow. The handles can get frozen into the slot otherwise.

 

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And the ability to fill the batteries during super off peak as well to begin stabilizing costs and give them leverage to lower it in the future. Some of the British stations featured on fully charged have had really huge storage, it's amazing.

It does increase station cost a lot. If you wanted a 250 kWh buffer per dispenser (giving you 2-5 fillups in the buffer) and used Tesla megapacks, that's $125,000 per dispenser.

Of course with larger production volumes prices could drop to less than half that.

 

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EVGo is highway robbery. More broadly, they all need to find a way to get the prices competitive with and preferably better than typical equivalent cost for gas. A lot of this might rest on lobbying state legislatures to do something about electric utilities run amok in general (Eversource in Connecticut recently raised rates by 50%!) and specifically with regards to demand charges. They'll also need to start installing buffer batteries to try to reduce draw during high rate periods.

Apparently the chargers are 75-140k installed. Assuming they need to get back 15 percent of that cost each year they need $21,000 in annual revenue or $57 a day.

If just 2 cars use each charger on average and are ionq 5s doing the 10-80 chargup, the charger only dispensed 108 kWh per day. So they need to slap a 53 cent surcharge on each kWh.

With some negligible amount, about 8 cents, going to the power company.

This explains the high rates. Hopefully with more EVs using the chargers more and charging faster so they can charge more EVs per charger these numbers will get a lot better. 10 or 20 times as many EVs charging consistently at 350kW would help the math a ton, it might mean 20 sessions a day and each is half as long. So 20 10 minute sessions at 350kW for example. 1166 kWh a day, and that means just 5 cents has to go to paying for the charger itself. Plus 8 cents for the electricity, plus overhead and profit.

I think 20 cents a kWh is feasible in areas with cheap power.

In expensive areas it ends up being 10-15 cents over the rate for power.

 

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I agree with what you’ve said, but I’m very skeptical of the result. I don’t see charging costs going down…ever.

Historically it's happened many times. Most goods get cheaper at higher production volumes, except when artificial restrictions prevent this.

For education, medicine, and housing (all goods that get more expensive over time), there are government restrictions in 2 of the cases that limit supply. Government subsidizes high paying demand in both education and housing and medicine also.)

So we will not see increases like you predict unless
(1) government imposes a heavy tax per kWh making EVs much more expensive than gas
(2) government legally limits how many charging stations are allowed to be built
(3) government provides "charging insurance" where you pay a monthly fee and the chargers get to negotiate a "rate" that soars past reality that the insurance will pay for

For example, gasoline prices have fluctuated around, going higher and lower, and it appears that over 50 years the price has stayed between $3.10-$3.30 adjusted for inflation.

Remarkably narrow range, and if you are comparing costs to an EV that's the number you have to use.

A 50 mpg car therefore costs 6.3 cents per mile long term. So if DCFC charge more than 20 cents, EVs do not save money on trips, and people will buy plug-in hybrids instead.

(for california, they add about $1.50 per gallon on average in taxes and refining costs, so 9.3 cents per mile. Therefore if the DCFC is more than 30 cents you are losing money.

Gasoline Prices Adjusted for Inflation | US Inflation Calculator

Gasoline prices are often very volatile with sharp swings in what American pay at the pump. The average price of gasoline dropped nearly 17% in 2020.

www.usinflationcalculator.com

 

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So what's the goal with the doom and gloom posts today? Do you not want ev adoption? I" ju


I just want them to go the opposite direction and stop subsidizing gas. Imagine what happens when an industry that relies on 16 billion in subsidies a DAY to generate 3 billion in income has to contend with free market forces.

Well, I guess not really, then no one could fill up at $100 a gallon .

But it is interesting to see discussions of gas taxes and EV incentives and how seldom folks bring up how heavily gas is subsidized globally. I'd wager that's a big part of their misinformation campaign on EVs now that all that funding is shifting to renewables at a rapid pace.

California will be a great test, working to double their chargers from 80,000 to 170,000 by 2025. For reference the state has less than 8,000 gas stations, so figure out whatever average pumps you want per station [from 48 pump costcos to 6 pump mom and pops] and extrapolate - google says 6-12 so even at the high end on average CA will have more EV charging ports than pumps this year. At 170,000 that'll be double which is a great place to start given variances in charging speed.

Sure. A carbon tax at $135 a ton would make gas $1.30 a gallon more expensive. Maybe a bit more than that because there was carbon emitted to refine the gasoline. Call it $1.50.

This means that per kWh, (1.5 + 3.15 = 4.65 / 50 = 0.093 * 3.2 = 0.2976), the DCFC need to charge under 29 cents or it's...more expensive than a gas powered hybrid. (at highway speeds hybrids often get lower mpg, but so do EVs. I am assuming both the hybrid and EV are doing ~65 mph.)

But don't sweat it. The current EA stations are ghost towns. Chargers are rarely getting used. So it's no surprise they need to jack up rates. Those "350" chargers are $140,000 each!

 

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A comparison with Tesla, taken from Tesla reduces Supercharger prices as charging business matures. 11/24/2022, so 2 months ago.

Two things to note: this location is just about the most expensive possible in the USA (high electric rates, high cost to rent the space) and note how the rate varies heavily by time of day. EA seems
to be charging the same rate Tesla does...all the time.

 

[BrickedKeyboard]

If I sell my I5, can I still use free EA (2 year) on other vehicles?

You can try but they do know your VIN whenever you connect a vehicle and CAN ban your account or charge you for the free sessions. Apparently they do sometimes.