Business Model for Hotel Charging Changing?

[OWG]

I think that the way hotel's/motels view having charging stations may have changed or be changing from an guest attracting amenity to a profit center.

Just stayed overnight at a Marriott TownePlace with a ChargePoint L2 charger - between the $.50/hour connection fee and the $.75/kWh rate which was about 60% higher than nearby DFC stations.

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[SWO]

Sadly it seems that hotel charging is either ~free or ridiculously expensive like your experience. For the hotel, the benefit of making it expensive is that you don't have people fighting over it.

Personally, I'd like to see a model where you swipe your hotel room key and get a competitive rate. Charging a fee keeps away the moochers and having to swipe your key makes sure only hotel guests are using it (I've pulled up to a hotel and seen a Model 3 sitting there L2 charging with 4 people and luggage for over an hour once...)

 

[phil]

I'd like to see a model where you swipe your hotel room key and get a competitive rate.

That seems unlikely. Hotels don't charge competitive prices on anything. Except hotel rooms.

 

[CarsIMBwife]

That seems unlikely. Hotels don't charge competitive prices on anything. Except hotel rooms.

Not all chargers in hotel parking lots are owned and operated by the hotel. I was at a hotel in Wisconsin last year and thankfully read about the charger in PlugShare. Someone commented about a very large idle fee. I went out and moved the car to avoid that problem.

 

[ocdxfv]

On my recent 2500 mile West Coast road trip, in addition to the normal “free” L2 charging that smaller hotels have, I ran into 3 different “large hotel” models, all using ChargePoint.
1) Hotel gave us a code to put in the CP app and the charging was free. BEST!
2) Hotel had L2 and DCFC for a similar price, plus idle fees, so we fast charged to 90%, then L2 charged while we ate dinner. WORST!
3) Hotel charged $2/hr for slow L2, with a maximum $12 charge and no idle frees We put in 54kWh over night which worked out to be $.22/kWh, which is a fair price. GOOD!

I honestly think #1 is the best model overall. #3 is a reasonable model, and #2 was ridiculous.

This is where PlugShare shines. No surprises if you check the hotel reviews first.

 

[OWG]

On my recent 2500 mile West Coast road trip, in addition to the normal “free” L2 charging that smaller hotels have, I ran into 3 different “large hotel” models, all using ChargePoint.
1) Hotel gave us a code to put in the CP app and the charging was free. BEST!
2) Hotel had L2 and DCFC for a similar price, plus idle fees, so we fast charged to 90%, then L2 charged while we ate dinner. WORST!
3) Hotel charged $2/hr for slow L2, with a maximum $12 charge and no idle frees We put in 54kWh over night which worked out to be $.22/kWh, which is a fair price. GOOD!

I honestly think #1 is the best model overall. #3 is a reasonable model, and #2 was ridiculous.

This is where PlugShare shines. No surprises if you check the hotel reviews first.

PlugShare - Yes and no. In this case PlugShare was wrong or out of date and the last "check in" was about two months old. My check-in is now there as a warning. Marriott TownePlace Suites | Ballenger Creek, MD | EV Station (plugshare.com)

Irrespective of the utility of PlugShare, I think we will begin to see on-site charging treated the way internet access was treated until about 10 years ago, a profit center to be juiced.

 

[SWO]

That seems unlikely. Hotels don't charge competitive prices on anything. Except hotel rooms.

Well, most hotels have "free" charging right now, so I'd say it's plausible.

 

[RickMachE]

Do people not understand that PlugShare is crowd sourced? You can EDIT the location's info.

I am finding hotels converting to paid charging.

 

[mccdeuce]

Sadly it seems that hotel charging is either ~free or ridiculously expensive like your experience. For the hotel, the benefit of making it expensive is that you don't have people fighting over it.

Personally, I'd like to see a model where you swipe your hotel room key and get a competitive rate. Charging a fee keeps away the moochers and having to swipe your key makes sure only hotel guests are using it (I've pulled up to a hotel and seen a Model 3 sitting there L2 charging with 4 people and luggage for over an hour once...)

This is what we need. i Wanted to charge at some point during our stay at a hotel in San Fran. The hotel parking lot had 25 Tesla SuperChargers, 4 Tesla destination chargers, and 2 clipper creek J1772. When I first got there 2 Teslas plugged into the J1772 because it was free. They left by 1am when I went to move the car. Now we had a plug in hybrid in one and the other a Tesla. At 9am. pHEV still hooked up. And a new Tesla driver who was sitting in his car doing work. Just wanted the free electricity.
to me even a 50c/kW would have made it worth it so I could charge overnight. The convenience of that vs what I did which was to go to an EVGO charger a mile away and sit for 30min.

 

[B177y]

I'm in favor of hotels charging for charging.

Since I have had my MME, the hotels that I have stayed at only had one L2 on their property. Even over 3 day weekends, one single car (an Audi, a Tesla, and a Kia) would park there the entire weekend and not move. Adding a little cost to the charge session could possibly reduce the use of the charger as a parking spot and encourage decent charging etiquette...Possibly?

 

[ocdxfv]

In my experience at small motel/hotel settings, free has worked well. In larger hotel settings, paid is definitely the solution. The more travelers you have, the more abuse you have.

 

[OWG]

PlugShare - Yes and no. In this case PlugShare was wrong or out of date and the last "check in" was about two months old. My check-in is now there as a warning.

Do people not understand that PlugShare is crowd sourced? You can EDIT the location's info.

@RickMachE Well Rick, "people" here. This person was aware that it is crowd sourced, but had not needed to correct information about a charger. The PlugShare edit button on the Android app does not present, so you have to know that it is there and how to get to it. Not hard, but not intuitive either. Now that I know where it is I will be inclined to use it. And I have.

 

[david_quick]

I think that the way hotel's/motels view having charging stations may have changed or be changing from an guest attracting amenity to a profit center.

Just stayed overnight at a Marriott TownePlace with a ChargePoint L2 charger - between the $.50/hour connection fee and the $.75/kWh rate which was about 60% higher than nearby DFC stations.

We stayed at one hotel that had a Blink charger, one that had free Tesla destination chargers, and the house we rented did not have any charging accommodations but one of the attendees was at a hotel that had 14-50 wall plugs. We just traded them cars for the night and they brought us a fill car every morning. The point is it’s all over the map.

A more serious problem is fast chargers in convent locations. The area we visited is a series of tourist attractions that you could get to with a fully charged car and get back. However when you gat back you were at minim safe levels and nowhere to charge. They need DCFCs in all of these destination areas so you can top up.

 

[Pearce]

I just stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Riverview, FL, and the had 2 CCS and 2 NACS L2 chargers that were free for guests. I love waking up to full tank! Very nice place, too. It would be nice to see more like that. I'd pay an extra $20 for the room for that! (@Hilton - HINT HINT)

 

[milepost1]

Personally think hotels are outsourcing charging as they are so abused and become more of a headache than an "amenity" . Folks often just drop them on ground, don't hang cords, people argue over who "deserves" the charger, PHEV shouldnt use, expecting people to move their car at 3 am. , a Tesla was using it, its ICEd, etc. In last 4 years it has gone from almost always available to almost always full.

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