Shocking (to me anyway) EA vs Tesla charging rates

[FSU77GT90]

Just came back from a trip in my ‘23 Premium LR from Tallahassee to western NC. Did public charging four times… 3 Tesla and 1 EA.

Madison GA Tesla… 52.007 kWh $22.36 or .43/kWh
Sylva NC Tesla… 37.311 kWh $18.65 or .50/kWh
Commerce GA… 47.824 kWh $33.04 or .69/kWh…ELECTRIFY AMERICA
Gray GA Tesla… 27.592 kWh $11.86 or .43/kWh

Only reason I stopped at EA was a better place to eat lunch. There was a Tesla charging station at Commerce. Thankful for my Tesla adapter!!

By the way car Performed flawlessly with two people, a dog and assorted luggage. ?

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[Krabbit]

I just went from south fl to MI a couple weeks ago. The one EA/GM charger we used was 3x as much as the least expensive Tesla SC we used on the trip. Most of the Tesla charges were in the $0.30 cent range. (one was in the 20s) this EA charger in Ohio was well into the high $0.60s.

We hadnt mastered the tesla app ont he way up for the first few charging stops. Having to open the tesla app and tell it which charger to start is worth the effort. Saved a BUNCH of money.

With the Tesla app we avged about $0.10 per mile travelled.

Car was amazing for 2 adults and a teenager. Bluecruised 90% of the way.

 

[JayRose]

We hadnt mastered the tesla app ont he way up for the first few charging stops. Having to open the tesla app and tell it which charger to start is worth the effort. Saved a BUNCH of money.

Can you please help me understand what you mean by "having to open the tesla app and tell it which charger to start is worth the effort"?
I've only used a Tesla SC once, and I just plugged it in and everything started working. Looking back at my receipt, it was $0.57/kWh

 

[Krabbit]

Sure. If you subscribe to the tesla app (At about 13 bux a month I wanna say) you can get significant savings at the charger. But you kinda have to circumvent the charge and play stuff.
So the procedure is this instead of just rolling up and plugging in.

Have the tesla charging app.
Have an active account.
Roll up to charger.
Open Tesla app and tell it where in the world you are and what charger to fire up (They are all marked near the base from what Ive seen)
THEN you plug in.

Saves a bunch of money, but its not as seamless as just "plugging in" and letting Ford handle all the account/billing.

 

[LinkRS]

Sure. If you subscribe to the tesla app (At about 13 bux a month I wanna say) you can get significant savings at the charger. But you kinda have to circumvent the charge and play stuff.
So the procedure is this instead of just rolling up and plugging in.

Have the tesla charging app.
Have an active account.
Roll up to charger.
Open Tesla app and tell it where in the world you are and what charger to fire up (They are all marked near the base from what Ive seen)
THEN you plug in.

Saves a bunch of money, but its not as seamless as just "plugging in" and letting Ford handle all the account/billing.

Howdy Krabbit, I was under the impression that you could use the FordPass app to plug and charge with the Mach-E? Are you saying that if I want to use a Tesla SC, I have to install the Tesla app too? That is just simply a no-go for me :-(.

Rich S.

 

[Krabbit]

You can just plug and charge... But if you want the best rates you have to subscribe to the tesla app, pay the 13 bux, and use the tesla app to charge at the then lower rate. (See above where I say "can get significant savings at the charger. But you kinda have to circumvent the charge and play stuff. " ) The convenience of plug and charge was almost 2x the cost at the tesla SCs we used compared to using the tesla app and its cheaper rates.

My post is about how to save money using the tesla app vs plug and charge just working seamlessly in the background... Im a bit confused as to where I wansnt clear: "Saves a bunch of money, but its not as seamless as just "plugging in" and letting Ford handle all the account/billing."

You can just plug and charge, but the other way is cheaper.

 

[JayRose]

Clarifying that the savings comes from a subscription to the Tesla supercharger network at a cost of $13/month helped a lot.

That's $156/yr of fixed cost that you need to offset (and hopefully exceed) by charging at the lower rate. Personally, I don't think I'll get that much usage at Tesla SC's, so I'll just pay rack rate for now. I'm glad I know about this though; now I plan to track my Tesla SC usage over 6-12 months to see if I should get on board with the non-Tesla membership fee.
Thanks.

 

[superdave80]

I'm surprised that EA is that much higher than Tesla. In California, I usually see Tesla and EA almost the same, with EA just a bit cheaper.

 

[Krabbit]

Ive only used it when I traveled cross country. You can subscribe for 30 days and cancel. It more than paid for itself and we only used it on the way back from MI. I rarely SC otherwise. Like 3 times in a year and that was because I didnt plan well in orlando, wasn't as sure about range etc as I am now.

 

[superdave80]

That's $156/yr of fixed cost that you need to offset (and hopefully exceed) by charging at the lower rate.

You can just sign up for the month if you know you are going to need a lot of Tesla charging (for a long trip), and then cancel once you don't need it.

 

[JayRose]

You can just sign up for the month if you know you are going to need a lot of Tesla charging (for a long trip), and then cancel once you don't need it.

Good idea! Will look into that. Thanks

 

[RickMachE]

Clarifying that the savings comes from a subscription to the Tesla supercharger network at a cost of $13/month helped a lot.

That's $156/yr of fixed cost that you need to offset (and hopefully exceed) by charging at the lower rate. Personally, I don't think I'll get that much usage at Tesla SC's, so I'll just pay rack rate for now. I'm glad I know about this though; now I plan to track my Tesla SC usage over 6-12 months to see if I should get on board with the non-Tesla membership fee.
Thanks.

You're understanding is correct, but not really...

Leaving on a trip? The MORNING OF THE TRIP, subscribe. Immediately downgrade, takes effect in 30 days. Pay $12.99 for 30 days. 4 months later, for the next trip, do it again. $12.99 x 3 or 4 months a year...

Breakeven is easy. $12.99 / ~ 10 cents per kWh savings = 130kWh payback. That's 2 or maybe 3 charges in the month.

 

[highland58]

We are going on a road trip soon, so I have subscribed to Tesla for a month. I was using EA but ran out of my free charging, so we will see how the Tesla pricing is in Oregon.

 

[Krabbit]

You're understanding is correct, but not really...

Leaving on a trip? The MORNING OF THE TRIP, subscribe. Immediately downgrade, takes effect in 30 days. Pay $12.99 for 30 days. 4 months later, for the next trip, do it again. $12.99 x 3 or 4 months a year...

Breakeven is easy. $12.99 / ~ 10 cents per kWh savings = 130kWh payback. That's 2 or maybe 3 charges in the month.

Oh we saw much better savings than 10 cents. Most went from 50 odd cents to 30 odd cents per kwh. But I suspect that is very station dependant.

 

[RickMachE]

Oh we say much better savings than 10 cents. Most went from 50 odd cents to 30 odd cents per kwh. But I suspect that is very station dependant.

Because it's a percentage.

EA provides a 25% discount.
Tesla provides a 20 to 24% discount, it's never spelled out. Therefore, the amount of the discount is not exactly determinable, and of course the cost at each station can be vastly different. 130kWh is on the high side. The more a station costs, the quicker you earn back the $12.99.

A 50 cent station would be no cheaper than 38 cents or so.

Also - EA does NOT includes sales tax in their pricing, it gets added. Tesla DOES include it.

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