You may recall I came out against charging in the wild as it was too expensive. My experience was with the Blink Network. Yes. That Blink Network. The one who filed for bankruptcy. The issue I had was that you could sign up for free but each charge would cost $1.50 per hour. That was $6.00 for a full charge or more than four times what it cost me at home.
I was contacted by an eVgo rep (recently acquired by NRG, the parent company of my former employer, Green Mountain Energy). The rep was interested in providing a “circuit analysis” or “site survey” for new EV owners who want to add a Level 2 charger to their home. Of course, a perfect place to find new EV owners is an automobile dealership that sells them. Like the one at which I work, Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine, Texas.
The rep offers an inspection of the EV owner’s breaker box to determine if there is sufficient available capacity to add a Level 2 charger circuit. They also can determine if you have a 110 volt outlet capable of charging your EV. They can then develop a proposal to add a circuit, if necessary and install a Level 2 charger. Their charger of choice is a Clipper Creek LCS-25P. If you decide to have them install the charger, the installation is performed by licensed electricians and according to code. The charger itself may be purchased outright or leased. Here’s a nice part: for just having them come out and perform the evaluation, which is free of charge, they will give you a key fob that will let you charge on their network for thirty days! Volts are limited to three hours per charging session, so take in a nice movie or ball game while you charge…
Their network is fairly small, with chargers currently in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay area, Washington, D.C. and Houston. Their near-term expansion plans include the Los Angeles area, the San Joaquin Valley, Towson and Rockville, Maryland and Centreville, Virginia. They also have DC Fast Chargers in the network, although those are of no use to us Volt drivers. Here’s the upside, for those of us who are fortunate enough to live in their market areas: for $60 a year, you can charge at eVgo stations as often as you want ($99 for two years’ access)! I signed up for two years, hoping the fact that eVgo is backed by a major company like NRG means they’ve gone over the numbers and have found a way to make the network financially feasible.
As long as I charge at their stations at least three times a month, I’m breaking even with the cost of charging at home. I don’t know if I’ll actually do that (assuming we finally get moved into our new home), but the $99 spent is an investment in building out the infrastructure we all need for EVs to flourish.
Another thing I like about their approach, is that they are working with multi-family residences to build out charging infrastructure and with apartment renters to have chargers they own installed, at their apartments. In my opinion, this is the key to widespread EV adoption. Today, EVs are primarily bought by older white men (like me) who own their homes and can therefore install a Level 2 charger there. If we want younger people to adopt this form of transport, we have to get them where they live (predominantly), which is apartment complexes. When apartment renters can charge at home and the people living there can benefit from the low cost of running EVs, we’ll see adoption rates jump.
