Plug & Charge Fail and the 80% Cliff is Real

[wareagle1440]

Interesting question about local pricing. Out in the 50th state, Greenlots is the DCFC provider. The charges reflect the cost off electricity. 51¢ per kWh off-peak (9am to 5pm) 61¢ per kWh hour otherwise. That’s a “smallish” profit. Base rate for residences is in the high 30’s or low 40’s.

My guess is because you can charge less with higher volume of use. California has a larger concentration of chargers than anywhere else I’m guessing so a higher volume of users. Also if you could price yourself out if the rates are too high. And thirdly I wonder if they are capped by regulation?

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[dbsb3233]

Utility companies charge businesses (like Electrify America) with demand charges in additional to energy consumed. Demand charges are based on the highest amount of energy drawn during a given billing period, multiplied by a demand charge per kW. For DCFC, the highest amount of energy drawn is going to be very high.

There was an Electrify America webinar where they stated that 80-90% of their costs were due to demand charges. They cited a site in Utah where they were paying over $8 per kWh dispensed due to demand charges.

While the utility rates in California really high, electric vehicle adoption is also much higher, which means that demand charges represent a smaller percentage of the utility cost. The demand charges are pretty much fixed if anyone uses the DCFC in any given billing period. If you have a DCFC that is used once a week vs a DCFC that is used once a hour will have the same utility company demand charges since demand charges are based on the highest energy drawn.

Yeah, I've seen the same articles on demand charges and their impact on charging networks. I have a demand charge on my residential bill every month too, for my peak 15-minute period of the month.

But even in higher-usage CA, there's no way that DCFC usage is level throughout every period of the day. Particularly on EA chargers, which don't get near as much usage as Tesla chargers.

But even if they were, it stands to reason that if base rates are exceptionally high in CA as you suggest, demand charges would be too. Which would still equate to higher electricity costs for EA, warranting higher EA rates.

 

[Woeo]

I like the idea of paying based on mileage. However, if we’re trying to charge the people who over time damage the roads, we need to charge freight trucks. With their heavy loads, they contribute significantly to road wear. And they find ways to register in states that are cheaper or not the states where they are driving. We could just tax everyone to pay for the roads, but the people who don’t drive would say that’s not fair. However, everyone buys goods that are transported over interstate highways. But who knows what the best option is.

To be fair....the heavy load theory would suggest BEVs should pay more than ICE

 

[Mgayle83]

I was hoping the "FordPass Charging Network membership" included the Electrify America Pass+ $0.31 rate. I guess I'll have to turn Plug&Charge off and get my $0.31/kWh.

I do not believe it does. You have to sign up with EA directly.

 

[BlueMach]

I do not believe it does. You have to sign up with EA directly.

Yeah, I have the EA Pass+ Membership already, I want to be able to use that price when I Plug&Charge, that is what seems missing from the Mach-E.

 

[guyofthesky]

Sometimes the next charger is more than 80% range away. With CCS there are enough deserts of charging where you will need to go to 100% (or at least past 80%) at a DCFC to get to the next one. That's the only reason the 80% cliff bothers me.

In many cases, you can get a lot further by simply driving more slowly. It makes a huge difference in range. Not ideal or maybe even sucks a lot, but it is an option.

 

[guyofthesky]

Yeah, it's a close call. Pros and cons both ways.

This particular route (Denver-Vegas) is normally 12 hours door-to-door in the Escape (incl. 2 fuel stops, one being lunch). It's right at the margin anyway for our tastes to do in one day. When younger, we'd do it same day easily. More tolerance when younger, and time off from work was precious. But as we got older and retired, we started splitting the eastbound drive into 2 days to keep it all in daylight. And lately we've even broken up the westbound drive a few times too, depending on the season (more daylight in the summer to work with). So it was already right at the margin driving ICE.

But adding 2.5 hours for charging stops pushes it to 14.5 hours and totally out of a 1-day window. We'll try it in the Mach-E on our next drive just for the fun of it, and then we'll see what we wanna do on future drives. There's no question it adds hours of travel time to a long drive, but we may find we're OK with that slower stop-and-go pace now that we're older. Would have driven me up the wall 30 years ago though. Everyone's preferences and tolerances are different for that type of drive.

(Before anyone asks, yes, we've flown the route over 50 times too, but lately we've taken a liking to doing the drive again, especially during COVID.)

Nice experiment. I hope that you will report the results.

 

[guyofthesky]

So I called and spoke to rep from Electrify America. I asked specifically if the FordPass app gave us access to the 31 cents per Kwh rate or the 43 cents per kwh rate, and also some f/u questions. So here is what I learned:

1. We all know you get the 250 kwh of free charge time.

2. After that is used up, FordPass/MME users are billed at the 43 cents kwh rate unless you have the pass plus membership

3. Something new I learned and she was unsure about is that we might have to use the EA app after the 250 kwh are used up. She stated in the past when they've done something similar to this, the user needs to switch to the EA app after the free hours are used up. I asked if that would be the same considering FordPass has a wallet option to store payment and she said she did not know. I asked her to please refer this to their feedback team as there are literally thousands of MME owners curious about his question and there hasn't been a lot of information coming from either Ford or EA.

4. If you want the lower rate of 31 cent kwh, sign up for the EA pass plus membership.

In summary, the FordPass app merely grants access and plug and charge for EA. However it might only do that for the 250 kwh provided by Ford, at which point we might have to use the EA app as this is what has happened in the past. I asked for clarification on this last part and hopefully we will know something in the near future. Obviously all of this is subject to change but this is what the EA rep on their customer service number told me.

Thanks for calling! Nice work.

I have used the EA app for maybe a year, and it really works pretty well, once you figure out how to do it. It only takes a few seconds to get the charge started, as long as you are logged in on the app when you start using it.

I guess that I am saying that while I want plug and charge to work, even it if doesn't, as long as you are on an EA charger, the app is a pretty good alternative.

 

[Mgayle83]

Yeah, I have the EA Pass+ Membership already, I want to be able to use that price when I Plug&Charge, that is what seems missing from the Mach-E.

Yea I agree. It seems to me that the charging network is going to be the biggest thing Ford will need to fix to remain competitive to Tesla and get ahead of other dealers.

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