Value of public charging with/without fee?

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by michael shama, Nov 19, 2018.

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  1. Richard_arch74

    Richard_arch74 Active Member

    @Steven B, not to be argumentative, but I believe your worse case scenario of 15kw is understated. First, I believe that several members of the forum have determined that their watt meter showed 14.4kwh from 0-100% SOC (useable). Considering that it is not the useable kw you should use in your calculations, but the cost of electrical energy (Kwh) at the house electrical meter, the loss of efficiency is higher than you estimate. From the house meter to your cars battery are losses that you never see. I've attached a summary table, graph, and its link, for your review and information.
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217303730
    Screenshot_20181120-082402_Chrome.jpeg Screenshot_20181120-084745_Chrome.jpeg

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  3. kcsunshine

    kcsunshine Active Member

    I have found two free charging stations convenient to me but sometimes I wonder if it is worth the time and hassle. One is a market with a nice indoor seating area with free wifi and they don't bother you. The charging stations are in pairs and if someone else is using the other one, you get half power. It could take 6 hours if another car stays there that long. The other free charging station is a bank but I have to sit in the car during the charge to avoid the risk of being towed. It is a little faster and you always get 6kwh/hr. Considering a full charge is worth about $2-3, is it worth it? I rarely buy anything from the market because it is expensive. Anyone else here do this to get free electricity?
     
  4. Robert_Alabama

    Robert_Alabama Well-Known Member

    I do sometimes loiter a little to get a few extra pennies of electricity (old Ben Franklin quote). In truth, is it worth it, depends on what else you have/want to do with the time. If it's any kind of a pain or you have other pressing things, I'd pass on it. I have once or twice chilled out and listened to a book when time was there to waste or spent a little more time eating lunch/dinner than I normally would. It's all about comfort and preference.
     
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  5. Candice

    Candice Active Member

    I do this also to get free electricity. It costs me about $2 to charge at home and whenever I can, I charge for free. There is a Kohl's about 2 miles from where I work which is next to a grocery store, so I will go there once or twice a week to walk around while I charge on my lunch hour. There are also 3 chargers within 3 miles of my home. Sometimes on the weekend, I will drop the car off and my husband and I will run errands and then I will pick the car up after a few hours. This only makes sense if we are going in that direction. Also, a local grocery store with 2 locations within 3 miles of me has a free charger at a location 4 miles from me, so I now shop at the farther location, knowing that I can pick up 16-20 miles of charge when I am there. It is not worth paying $5 extra for groceries to save $2 on a charge but as much as I can, I will visit places that offer free charging.
     
  6. Claritydfw

    Claritydfw Member

    I do almost the same thing. I will sometimes park at a free station while doing email or reading a book. I was going to read email or a book anyways so why not.

    I will also do it if I am close to empty and know I am leaving early in the am from my house and afraid that my level 1 charger will not finish charging my car. But again will only do that if I have something productive to do during that time.

    I never park at free station if I have something important to do as it never makes sense to spend a dollar to save a nickel.
     
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  8. Steven B

    Steven B Active Member

    1) "Watt meter" as you say is the amount at the wall not the usable amount entering the battery. That was the 15kW I used. When you add the losses from the breaker up (in Table 7), you get 9%. This loss should be applied to the 13.5 making it to the battery: 13.5/.91=14.8kW (I rounded to 15). So if you want to start with the "watt meter number", you don't include the losses above the breaker: so 14.8/.987=14.99 (fairly close to 15).
    2) For this study, I don't see losses in the wiring between the breaker and the EVSE.
    3) Transformer losses are not costs you incur. Those costs are accounted for in the per kWh cost you pay your electricity provider.
     
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  9. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member Subscriber

    It must require a lot of patience, a long list of Facebook friends, and/or a big stash of books to be a Tesla owner!

    If someone tries to tell you how much faster their Tesla is than your Clarity PHEV, challenge them to a 500-mile race.
     
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  10. qtpie

    qtpie Active Member

    In downtown San Francisco, most ChargePoint public chargers have a flat $2 connection fee + per kWh charge (between $0.10 to $0.25). On top of that, most of these chargers are located in paid parking structures with hourly fee. In most cases, these public chargers do not make any economical sense to use them. I am so glad that our Clarity PHEV have an ICE so that we don't have to rely on electric all the time.
     
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  11. Mark W

    Mark W Active Member

    CT
    Interesting discussion. Shows how different everyone is. I will not spend extra time anywhere to charge my Clarity or Leaf for free. I will not eat at a particular place because they have free charging. Some people enjoy the geeky side of charging. They enjoy planning trips around chargers. I don't. I use public chargers very infrequently, and have never paid for a public charge. Public chargers are for EVs, not PHEVs. I don't use my Leaf for trips that are longer than it's range.

    I think in the future, public charging stations will have to pay for themselves. This means the owners will have to make money on people willing to pay for the convenience. For this to work, I think charging will have to become A LOT faster, so they can be used in places like highway rest areas. Once they get down to 15 minutes for a 200 mile charge, it will make more sense for people to pay a premium, and be able to use EVs for more long travel.
     
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  13. craze1cars

    craze1cars Well-Known Member

    No I do not. My time is undeniably worth more than $1/hour...

    Like Mark W says, this thread just shows how different everyone is. To just sit around ANYWHERE to wait for my car to charge, free or not, seems frankly nuts to me. I gots too many dagburn things to do! But I fully respect everyone's differences and please nobody take any offense to my comment -- just an observation, not a put-down in any way.

    I like Brian's comment referencing mine, that he can think of 7,500 reasons to buy the car besides saving gas...however to be fair I could have bought a Honda Accord, comparably equipped PLUS a sunroof, for only about $1,000 out of pocket more even after the rebate. And I seriously considered doing this. But I found the Clarity incredibly intriguing and I just had to own one. And I'd bottom-line save about $1K on the purchase and a bit more than that on fuel each year. But resale will be a wild card -- I might have made a financial mistake despite gas savings. I can predict Accord's resale. Not this thing. And despite the tax credit these Claritys are ALREADY languishing on dealer lots here in Indiana. About 5 at every Honda lot in Indianapolis and NOBODY buys them, most have build dates of 2017 and some early 2018. It took me a LONG time to find one with a recent build date because I absolutely refused to purchase a car that the dealer has allowed to sit thru an entire winter for 8 months with a dead battery LOL. And EVERY SINGLE CLARITY I LOOKED AT, at 3 different dealers, ALL had dead batteries. The friggin manual says to NEVER go more than 3 months with out a charge! But the dealers are too stupid to realize they're likely damaging all these batteries. Of course not one dealer has a charger. One salesman scoured the lot to find an outdoor 110V outlet at my request, so it could charge overnight and I could finally test-drive one in EV mode the next day -- poor guy he pulled too close to a low pole near an outlet, and opened the door right into it...HARD. Brand new car now went straight to the body shop because it was so dang hard to plug in a car at that dealer...I test drove that car with a huge dent in the door LOL. And of course I didn't want it cuz build date was too old. Plus it had a huge dent. A different local dealer finally found me one in the color and trim line I wanted that was less than 3 months old, and they had to bring it in from 100 miles away so I could buy one.

    And I have yet to see another on on the road. And I have found ONE other human being who had even heard of the car's name, and he was dumbfounded that I was driving a hydrogen car in Indiana, telling me they are only practical in California. I explained I am not fueling with hydrogen...so he still never heard of the PHEV version. And everyone else just flatly says "You got a Honda what??....never heard of it."

    As time marches on, I'm finding it sorta comical owning this car.

    As a midwesterner, frankly I see this car going the way of the first 2001-ish Insight. A weird anomaly in the history of Honda. Only this time I'm actually part of that weird chapter in history.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
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  14. Brian Harrison

    Brian Harrison New Member

    Even with the Tesla effect consider that (JP Morgan research)“by 2025, EVs and HEVs will account for an estimated 30% of all vehicle sales. Comparatively, in 2016 just under 1 million vehicles or 1% of global auto sales came from plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs).1”. Car makers are bullish on EVs and as technology and costs evolve you’d imagine consumers will be too. We are just early adopters. And the nerd in me loves the tech and detail in my Clarity.
     
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  15. kcsunshine

    kcsunshine Active Member

    Proud to be a cheapskate. I understand the concept of opportunity costs and would skip free charging if I had something to do.
     
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  16. amy2421

    amy2421 Active Member

    I had a first the other day... Got out of my car in the grocery store parking lot and a couple walking by said, "Hey, a Clarity! How do you like it?" They are the first people I've met who have even heard of the Clarity, let alone recognized it! Although in fairness, I'd never heard of it either until I bought one. :)
     
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  17. mpeters42

    mpeters42 Member

    Was this in Cherry Hill, NJ by any chance? Because that's where I saw my third Clarity in the wild on Sunday (and went and said hi).
     
  18. AnthonyW

    AnthonyW Well-Known Member

    Coming at this from a different angle, to commute to and from work (54 miles total) it costs me $0.43 per day from October through May and $0.46 per day June through the September. The variable cost of my utility is $0.069 during the cool months above and $0.13 during the hot months. I have a free charger at work that I use to fill up. Once home I only need to plug in for 4 hours during the cool months and 2 hours during the hot months to have enough range to get back to the free charger at work the next day.


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    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
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  19. craze1cars

    craze1cars Well-Known Member

    With a free charger at work? By all means take it for all it’s worth...it’s a benefit and it takes no time or effort since the car is sitting there all day anyway. You’re the poster child for someone who absolutely should own a plug in car...I’d be all over that but I’m self employed and work from home...
     
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  20. MPower

    MPower Well-Known Member

    Electricity is so expensive at my home that not only do i love the free charging at the local food coop, but it did not cost any more to paid charge at a local mall (40 miles away) than it does at home. The mall has the delightful amenity of including the public library in one of its store fronts so you can actually spend quite a pleasant time eating, shopping, or improving your mind.
     
  21. ClarityPHEVer

    ClarityPHEVer Member

    There are three free chargers that I use, and each is located in retail areas with a variety of restaurants, coffee shops, and stores that I frequent. No, I wouldn’t sit there to kill time while my charges, but I do group my errands at the specific location and take advantage of a free charge while I’m shopping etc.
     
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  22. Bina12834

    Bina12834 Member

    Man i feel lucky that my office building has free L2 chargers in the garage and my company covers the cost of the parking garage for me.
     

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