What Road Trip Charging Should Be

[ab13]

What, are the British smarter than we are?

That is a much smaller geographic area. About the size of a medium/large US state.

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[theo1000]

Even these costs can be squeezed if we allow utilities to directly install and sell the power. Kinda like a BP or Exxon partners with local franchise. Right now there are too many middle men and it inflates cost.

 

[dbsb3233]

Yes, but they can also be cheap. There was a time the Cheapest EVSE for 40 amps was $2500 +. The first CCS-1 50 kw fast charger back in the day used to be well north of $100,000 now they can be had for under $1,500 wholesale. As manufacturing scales up It will get a lot cheaper. Folks should keep an eye on the ultimate potential costs.

There are signs visible already that indicate this ability to squeeze down costs. Take a look at how quickly EA was able to install chargers coast to coast, imagine you tried to do that with Gas. The technology is inherently very simple, cost effective and can piggy back on existing infrastructure.

It should be possible that DC charge stations can change their prices hour by hour based on TOU. 9 PM it will be 6 cents, maybe 5 pm closer to 15 cents or 20 cents. You can do that with Charge equipment. Very early days yet.

EA was only able to do that because they were handed $billions in cash from the VW settlement. That wouldn't happen normally.

From the consumer standpoint, EA is the model most want over something like ChargePoint. EA is (mostly) uniform, consistent, predictable, and dependable. It's almost always 150 kW+, in open 24/7 parking lots, 4+ chargers each location, known pricing, good road trip placement, nearly nationwide coverage, etc. All that free money enabled them to "do it right", so to speak.

Contrast that with ChargePoint and some others that are wildly inconsistent on power levels, pricing, availability, etc. That's just the nature of CP's distributed model where the host business offers the parking space, buys the equipment, sets the price, etc. They eat some of the costs that way, but it comes at the cost of the great features I listed with EA.

Prices will come down some on equipment some with economy of scale, but real estate, labor, and most of the other costs won't.

It'll be interesting to see if TOU pricing makes it's way to many DCFC chargers. That would be ideal in terms of fairness, but not sure that'll fly with consumers. We'll see.

 

[dbsb3233]

That is a much smaller geographic area. About the size of a medium/large US state.

It's also an island. BEVs work much better in a landlocked area where you can reach most of the country in a single charge.

 

[dbsb3233]

Even these costs can be squeezed if we allow utilities to directly install and sell the power. Kinda like a BP or Exxon partners with local franchise. Right now there are too many middle men and it inflates cost.

What that tends to do is hide the costs and shift them over to ratepayers. That already happens when power companies offer rebates and special deals for certain things.

Much better if the power companies (which are sanctioned monopolies) stay limited to being providers that sell wholesale to charging companies. That way the retailers have to compete with each other, which produces much better outcomes and keeps costs more in check.

 

[Billyk24]

For the sake of argument, I will concede that. OK.

But that brings up 2 major points.

1) Should someone that has a 50 mile daily commute, that costs him 1/7 the fuel cost of a gasser vehicle, not be allowed to own a BEV because "On the road charging cost will never be competitive with charging at home"? Why not allow him to make the choice?

That person, driving 250 miles a week for 50 weeks, (12,500 miles/year)would spend $467.50 for electricity for his BEV, or $1627.50 for fuel for his gasser. And even less if he has a good electric company, as I do.

2) When he goes on his 2 week vacation road trip, what are the odds that he will spend $1,000.00 on Super Chargers on the road? Maybe a trip to Cape Horn? Not likely in 2 weeks, LOL.

The quote below is documented here, so it is not opinion. Just math.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...is-better-than-the-tesla-model-y.1326/page-89

Phev such as the Rav4 Prime. And Escape with 40 mile electric mile range will change your "numbers" significantly. Vehicles such as this also mean you do not need to rent a vehicle for long road tripping. Spent the last two weekends driving 830 miles in one long day. Don't think spending 35+ minutes for a full charge 4x would enable such a drive in one day. Long road tripping in a bev can be more difficult and require more planning than phev or ice.

 

[theo1000]

What that tends to do is hide the costs and shift them over to ratepayers. That already happens when power companies offer rebates and special deals for certain things.

Much better if the power companies (which are sanctioned monopolies) stay limited to being providers that sell wholesale to charging companies. That way the retailers have to compete with each other, which produces much better outcomes and keeps costs more in check.

But how is that different from any other utility. Why create this special class just because..... Esp. considering utilities are chomping at the bit to do it. Sometime this sort of purity is silly. Free the utilities to sell their power as they see fit. This is the sort of over regulation that gums up the works and slows change too often. I can't see the point of it other than to prevent change.

 

[theo1000]

We should at least try before throwing the baby out with the bath water. We are still a capitalistic country and tying up the Utilities, who know how to do this, prevents the most effective market player from entering.

 

[theo1000]

No they would pay for the electricity remember and the station charge can then be amortized over time by the utility. The bike ridder can thank the utility for the lack of fumes on the road on his drive.

 

[dbsb3233]

But how is that different from any other utility. Why create this special class just because..... Esp. considering utilities are chomping at the bit to do it. Sometime this sort of purity is silly. Free the utilities to sell their power as they see fit. This is the sort of over regulation that gums up the works and slows change too often. I can't see the point of it other than to prevent change.

The limits placed on what utilities are allowed to do are in exchange for allowing them to be monopolies (which is needed for practical reasons since multiple grids and wiring to customers would be too prohibitive).

I'm all for freeing up businesses from regulation, but only if they're competing. You can't give them monopoly power AND the freedom to do anything, otherwise they'd have a huge unfair advantage. And monopoly power should only be granted as a rare exception where it's just not practical to have multiple providers competing in a defined area.

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