As I have mentioned before, here and here, I am participating in the EV Challenge. There was a short challenge pertaining to “opportunity charging,” or charging when you’re out and about, like topping off the gas tank in an ICE.
I did not rise to the opportunity charging challenge, but I had my reasons. For one, we’re getting ready to sell our house and I rarely get to leave, except to go to the hardware store! Other reasons outline the infrastructure challenge faced by EVers today and are the purpose of this post.
Currently, it takes my Volt four hours to fully charge at a level two charge station. Even the longest movie I’ve ever attended would be too short to allow for a full charge. At home, I spend about $1.29 to fully charge, but at a Blink charger, I spend $1.50 per hour, or $6.00 for a full charge.
There are those, in an effort to support green driving, who provide free charging and I salute them for their ecological thinking. However, since I can fall back on gasoline, should my battery become depleted, I abstain due to both cost and the possibility that I may take a spot needed by a driver of a completely battery-powered vehicle. Their need is greater than mine.
Back to the economic argument though: At $6.00 to travel approximately 40 miles, and with gasoline currently hovering around $4.00 per gallon, charging at $1.50 per hour is the economic equivalent of getting about 27 miles per gallon. Even if I got 45 miles per charge (which has happened) it would be the equivalent of 30 MPG. Actually using gas in my Volt, I regularly get 37 MPG. This is a better deal for my pocketbook, if not the planet.
Now, let’s view this from the perspective of a person or company wanting to install a network of chargers. If every consumer is driving a Volt, and takes four hours to charge, I, as a provier of charging locations, would receive $6.00 per customer. If every driver is standing by, ready to unplug the moment charging is completed, and if the next customer is ready to immediately plug in (not likely), my charging station will generate $36.00 in revenue per day.
Woo. Hoo.
Of course, I must deduct from that $36.00 the cost of the electricity, maintenance and downtime for the charger and the original cost of acquiring and installing the charger.
That seems like pretty slim pickin’s (no disrespect toward the actor). In a year, with 100% utilization, the charger could generate $13,140. If I am able to purchase electricity at say $0.05 per KwH (pretty low price) and deliver 3.3Kw per hour, my electricity cost for the year would be $1,445.40, reducing my profit (not including equipment, location or maintenance and a maintenance person) to $11,694.60. That’s with 100% utilization!
Let’s be a little bit more real. If every four hours, someone fully charges but the station sits idle for 1 hour between customers, The station would have an 80% utilization (still impressive). Now the revenue per year drops to $10,512.00 but cost of electricity also is reduced to $1,156.32. If the land owner, from whom I rent the station’s location, charges me $100 per month, profit drops to $8,155.68 annually. Finally, if weather does not cooperate, power outages occur, vandalism or mechanical failure take away from hours of operation… well, you see where it’s headed.
I could be a mogul and have a network of 1,000 chargers, but I don’t see how an economy of scale helps. If anything, that many chargers would mean I’d have to hire technicians to keep the chargers running, insurance against vandalism or credit card fraud. The costs keep increasing.
And all the while, I am dependent on a customer whose primary motive in using my service is ecological, even to the detriment of his/her finances.
The culprit is the charging time. It absolutely must be reduced. I believe most people wouldn’t mind paying a premium for the electricity, if they could charge much faster than they can at home. More people would adopt EVs because living in an apartment would not necessarily be a disadvantage for an EV owner. Perhaps the charger company would even talk apartment management into letting them erect the chargers rent free as a way to attract more upscale clientele to their apartments.
In the beginning, the EV movement will be pushed forward by those who want to supply chargers to the public to give a boost to electric vehicles. Eventually, it will become a money maker when charge time is reduced and profits are consequently multiplied. In my opinion, the tipping point will be when you can fully charge during your lunch break and the restaurant provides chargers for their customers.
Until then, unless my local movie theater installs chargers, I will probably continue to charge at home exclusively. In the meantime, I would like to see chargers installed where they make the most sense: apartment parking lots, movie theaters, hospitals and other places where patrons typically stick around for several hours at a time.
