Charging an Electric Vehicle In Public Can Cost Triple What Fueling Up a “Gas-Guzzler” Does

This whole charge to 80% is ridiculous. Why dont they redefine 80% as full and give that amount of battery enough range to do what needs doing?

If you plug Henniker,NH into the PlugShare app you will find dozens of DC fast chargers and hundreds of L2 chargers within 50 miles. You clearly demonstrated why it is a well known common practice to avoid charging to 100%. 80-100% takes as long as 20-80%. You could have made two short stops rather than on long stop and have saved yourself time and money. At 90% you were pulling ~10kW. You should have opted for one of the dozens of nearby L2 stations which were just as fast but way cheaper. You are correct that we need mofe DC fast chargers and that they should charge by the kWh of energy dispensed, not by time connected.

I have a leaf, Outlander phev, and model S. I've used evgo half a dozen times over 2+years. Fast chargers cost too much from evgo. I'm in NY and they have a few free dcfc at rest areas (great job NY). Otherwise I only use free level 2 or free Tesla chargers. At home I have 120 and 220 charging options.

This is a very silly article using Evgo as an example.. most people charge at home and many also use Solar. The fast charge stations are for mostly when you travel beyond the range of your EV. If you're using a 50kw fast charger then in half hour you should get 15kw. This should cost less than 2 dollars and with most EVs you will get a range of 60 miles As with such click bait articles they don't consider the harm such articles do. Factor in the pollution and climate change impact of your fast guzzler and you so see that at any rate of charging an EV is better for the planet. If we factor the subsidy in gasoline it will be over 10 dollars or more per gallon which is why a carbon tax on gasoline is necessary.

The article proves a point, but the wrong way. Yes.... DC charger are very expensive comparitively....the somewhat dirty secret of EVs. I charge with solar at home, I charge free at work. But the DC chargers near me are anywhere from 30 to 50 cents per kWh.... But there is 33kwh in a gallon of gas... So at those prices I am paying $10-$17 PER GALLON equivalent in energy. That pretty much negates the 75-95mpg equivalent I get ony EV compared to a 25-35mpg sedan. If I charged at the average 10 cent/kWh in my area.. I would be paying about $3.30 for a gallon... Equal to gasoline. I have an EV but know I am better off taking my petrol vehicle on longer trips because of the price difference at 30-40 cents/kwh doesn't save me much and I save time not charging up. I want EV's to work....and the chargers aren't making much, but electricity at 6-10 cents wholesale becomes 30-40 cents and negates the efficiency increases. We need the economics to work.

Cost per mile is not a good comparison. Each vehicle is different as the author demonstrated with the Dodge Challenger. As many other commenters have suggested cost per kW-hr (which everyone can relate to if they have ever looked at their electric bill) is the correct metric. My Ford Fusion does 29 miles per charge which has a storage capacity of 9 kW-hr. Many charging stations charge by the hour, not by how much energy (kW-hr) is added to your batteries.

Since I charge at 3.6 kW, the price at my work location is just over $0.38/kW-hr. If I had a Mitsubishi Outlander, or fully electric vehicle , I could charge at 8 kW, and my price would drop to $0.173 / kW-hr.

Which is less expensive than charging at home ($0.45/kW-hr and will be increasing next month). Locally gasoline is $4.50 per gallon reg unleaded. $0.38/kW-hr is equivalent to $5.50 gasoline and $0.45/kW-hr is equivalent to $6.50 per gallon gasoline. Your EVgo charger was equivalent to $15.50 gallon of gasoline.

PS, when rates are quoted nationalky, high rate locations typically do not include their transmission fees / kW-hr (sometimes >$0.18/kW-hr.) Or they only quote their lowest tier, e.g SoCal Edison.

My Tesla can not use those chargers. Maybe that is why Tesla made their own chargers to keep us from getting ripped and pay way less than polluter vehicles. However it is time to stop polluting. We have the tech for all vehicles to be EV. Also caty converter theft would be no more

Definitely the exception here.

30 minutes to add 34 miles on a DC fast charger.... Yikes. So glad I got a Tesla.

One underlining item that get forgotten is once there is critical number of EV on the road, that experience may happen more frequently. Cheap fast recharge on the road won't be forever.
There was a time when ATM transaction, including withdrawal, were all free too. Once people stopped going inside that became a money maker for bank.

Telsa and other charging location will not be free forever either, at one point that will be a revenue stream too

I charged my 2020 Nissan leaf at a charge Plus the other day in Stockton California and they charged a $10 parking fee plus .36 cents a minute.

That's very much on the super high end and is a little misleading. Driving across country, I pay about the same as I would as a car getting 40mpg (might be better with rising gas prices)

But as the article said, I charge 99% at home where I get about 100 miles for $1.40

- Cars charge slower from 80% to full to preserve the battery
- The charger in question bills per minute. Other companies sometimes do per kWh.
- You can get a 50 kWh rate on that car under 80%. You got about a 20 kWh rate here.
- EvGO has some chargers that reach 200 kWh or more which brings the per-kWh cost under 15 cents in some cases. This is great for Teslas. Any per-kWh cost under 30 is probably better than gas so yes, these 50 kWh chargers are probably at least 15% more expensive than they should be even in the most optimal conditions. They shouldn’t be any more than 25 cents a minute, preferrably 20 to be competitive.

I drove from ottawa to Halifax and back on the Tesla network it cost me $50 would have cost me $100 if I had not had free referral miles. My wife has a Kia Soul and we have had similar “expensive” charging experiences. When I use to drive gas cars you would hit expensive gas stations in remote areas that were 20 or 25 cents more than typical gas stations in your area. If you live in an apartment and 100% of your charging is public EV go type charging then one of the big benefits of EV ownerships is lost for you. What I ask people is how often do you fill up 2 times in a day. It’s only on a road trip and for most of us even in non covid times that’s 2 or 3 times a year. If 90 % of your driving is around your city then any EV will be great. If your local driving is a lot less than your road trip driving then you need a Tesla. Tesla is the only ev company that has affordable road trip driving.

Let's say that charge took 30 mins and gave 10 kWh: that's an average charge rate of 20 kW. For a DC charger that's almost a trickle. My EV routinely charges at >150 kW, and anything below 40 kW I always unplug.
Why would anyone use a DC fast charger to charge at such slow rates, probably getting billed by the minute, unless it was to try to make EVs look bad? Oh... to try to make EVs look bad to those who don't know any better (the muscle car comparison kinda emphasizes it too!).

Can you do the math based on $7.60/gallon Cdn. That's our gas price today here on Vancouver Island:) so, EV or Hybrid might be better for us.

Like you said. Most people charge at home and where I live, it's extremely cheap compared to a gas vehicle. My son recently was in Calgary, AB for a trip with the Tesla. He topped up from near dead at a Tesla charging station - $12 Canadian. So I think your situation is completely untrue for most EV owners.

While the title is actually true, this is a somewhat rare situation. Even when you do a DC fast charge session at a public station, most of the time you will be paying around $0.10 to $0.20 per mile of range. And on a gas gluzzer you would need to take in account also the cost of oil and regular maintenance. On a car whose oil change is $50 every 5000 miles, it is already $0.01 per mile. On a performance car that uses snake oil for $300 every 3000 miles, that alone is $0.10 per mile.