time based fee ban

ehatch

ehatch

Active Member
It is good to see California's new bill banning time based charging fees for evse,and dcfc. The allowance for a compliance deadline is unnecessary given EVs have apps,or can view the charge speed in their vehicles. They key benefit of the bill,it finally reflects EVs use electricity as fuel. Accessing this fuel being billed as a "service" has been wrong.Extending EVs the same protection from agencies such as Division of Measurement Systems (DMS) is important because we should get the equivalent of a full gallon/liter of gas at a charger.

Ancillary charges being permitted is of concern.It's necessary to have idling fees,but allowing an "access charge" could defeat the purpose of a time based billing law. When did a gas station add an access fee onto the gallon/liter price for ICE? Moreover,when did an ICE need to enter a parking structure,or open air lot,paying upwards of $20 for parking in order to buy gas?

Hopefully EV drivers will lobby their government officials, organizations like Plug In America, Sierra Club to bring common sense to the billing of electricity for fueling EVs. In turn,have laws for: blocking chargers, maintenance of chargers where they cannot be out of order if only one unit exists at a site...

A debate over kWh billing already started on our site: Electrify America
 
I believe it should be a mix, though. Charging more than you NEED to (eg. when charging speed begins to go down, especially after 90%) should somehow have an additional fee for holding the charger blocked with your vehicle while you're not using the station to it's full potential (or not using it at all at certain point).

Otherwise you'll have a bunch of people charging to 100% because it's the same money-wise, and have people waiting for them because they can't get to their destination.

When supply and demand is in perfect balance, it's all good. When demand is higher, those time fees are a good way of helping people only charge what they NEED to charge and leave the chargers free for the rest of the drivers
 
Why not simply require companies that provide charging services to provide kwh-only charging for ALL the power they supply to the consumer. Once the vehicle reaches 80% charge the kwh rate could increase to a "premium" level. Then once the car reaches 100% and remains at the charger they could start charging for TIME. That would certainly provide incentive to charge your car and then get the hell out of dodge as quickly as possible. Currently it seems the companies are bilking customers because they can and I suspect they know kwh charging is coming so they better make as much money now as possible.
 
To Jgood...
GR8 Idea, sounds very fair!
I paid way too much using EA going from NY to FL.
 
Joev said:
To Jgood...
GR8 Idea, sounds very fair!
I paid way too much using EA going from NY to FL.
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There are actually several free or cheap options on the route but most of them are 50kw only.. Well, it's also not 100% guaranteed that the free ones work.
I'm planning a trip to Raleigh/NC and I may be able to get there by only using one of the > 50kw EA chargers. There is a free 50kw charger in downtown Jacksonville.. There is a 50kw Chargepoint charger in savannah/GA for .25 per minute. The only >50kw EA charger I would need is in Florence/SC. There are no other options. There are 2 50kw EA chargers in Raleigh which are at Tier 1 pricing. I will probably just charge enough to make it to the next cheaper charger in Florence..
 
20200119_190123(1).webp @Jgood ,to go from 87 - 90% in 4 minutes versus about an hour using a L2. I am going to stay on DCFC. I will also stay with my EV in case someone wants to charge so I can tell them I just need 5 minutes. My issue is with those who take off "somewhere,"as their EV is:finished charging,but the male port's locked to their vehicle;charging at L2 rate at 80% ,or lower SOC. It's about paying for what you use as a fuel.Ancillary charges not being banned leads EV drivers back to unreasonable fees like:connection,parking. ICE doesn't pay the ancillary fees EV drivers face for gas,plus benefit from multi trillion dollar global subsidies. Tesla has made arrangements with paid parking to allow their customers to have an hour free parking validated for example while using the supercharger/urban charger.
 
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I just charged up at a 50kWh EVgo station that proceeded to give me a measly 21kWh. So I called customer service and they’re going to give me a credit on my account.

But more interesting than that is I asked why companies like EVgo keep taking advantage of consumers, and the customer service rep said EVgo is working on changing to a pay per kWh service rather than time. I hope that happens sooner rather than later!
 
echeck said:
I just charged up at a 50kWh EVgo station that proceeded to give me a measly 21kWh. So I called customer service and they’re going to give me a credit on my account.

But more interesting than that is I asked why companies like EVgo keep taking advantage of consumers, and the customer service rep said EVgo is working on changing to a pay per kWh service rather than time. I hope that happens sooner rather than later!
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Do you mean it was a 50kW station that gave you 21kW? Or did they charge you for 50kWh when you only got 21 kWh?
 
Murry said:
Was the battery / ambien temp seriously cold? Sounds like cold-gating.

Or was your SoC high?
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That's what it sounds like to me, as well. If I go in with a cold battery (ambient temp is 28 degrees), I get a profile like this:

cold_battery.webp
If the battery is warm, on the same charger (ambient temp is 55 degrees), I get a much better charge rate.
warm_battery.webp

In both of these sessions, I stopped at 80%. With no battery warmer, we don't have good options for warming the battery. Parking in a heated garage would do it, if you have that option. Typically after several hours of driving the battery will be warmed as well - the 2nd charge above was done after such a drive, but the outdoor temps were quite a bit warmer as well.

To me, this is the real issue with time-based charging fees. I guess I do not know how many people take long trips in the winter where they need to rely upon DCFC.
 
Flooring the car a few times and doing max regen warms it up. I know it doesn’t sound right, but it helps you get good charging speed when you need it.
 
Murry said:
Flooring the car a few times and doing max regen warms it up. I know it doesn’t sound right, but it helps you get good charging speed when you need it.
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I saw Bjorn do that in one of his videos - he called it yoyo-ing. I wouldn't want do that in heavy traffic.
 
I don’t buy that it was due to cold batteries. I had just driven an hour and a half, most of which was in heavy to moderate traffic on a 55mph highway with stoplights. A LOT of regen happening.

I think the station was just not performing up to it’s advertised capacity. I’ve only DC charged four times, and not once have I received what was promised, although the others were at least relatively close.

Paying for time is nonsense. It amounts to little more than theft. EVgo credited my account, but the experience still irritates me.
 
echeck said:
I don’t buy that it was due to cold batteries. I had just driven an hour and a half, most of which was in heavy to moderate traffic on a 55mph highway with stoplights. A LOT of regen happening.

I think the station was just not performing up to it’s advertised capacity. I’ve only DC charged four times, and not once have I received what was promised, although the others were at least relatively close.

Paying for time is nonsense. It amounts to little more than theft. EVgo credited my account, but the experience still irritates me.
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Sorry but it likely was just cold batteries, the BMS doesn't allow full juice until the pack is around 75F. With ambient at 40F , without a battery warmer and regardless how heavy your driving was I doubt very much your pack was anywhere close to that.
 
No need to apologize! I’m not foolish enough to be offended by someone’s opinion. If that were the case I’d never go online at all. :D
 
echeck said:
No need to apologize! I’m not foolish enough to be offended by someone’s opinion. If that were the case I’d never go online at all. :D
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Ericy, Kiwime, myself and few others on this forum have gone through the effort to actually measuring pack temperatures in correlation to the charge profiles and various other variables. I would venture to say they are less of an opinion and more of an observation. Until you can provide more empirical details in your particular situation blaming the EV go chargers for poor performance would be mostly speculation.
 
echeck said:
I don’t buy that it was due to cold batteries. I had just driven an hour and a half, most of which was in heavy to moderate traffic on a 55mph highway with stoplights. A LOT of regen happening.

I think the station was just not performing up to it’s advertised capacity. I’ve only DC charged four times, and not once have I received what was promised, although the others were at least relatively close.

Paying for time is nonsense. It amounts to little more than theft. EVgo credited my account, but the experience still irritates me.
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I’ve done bunch of measuring of my battery temp. Trust me, the battery was cold in your case. Blame Hyundai, not the charging company.
 
I've gotten 60kW DCFC speed during a 28F highway drive (I think we were at about 20% SOC). Maybe 75mph is heating the battery that much more? (No battery warmer on our US model 2019 SEL)
 
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