Content Wrapper

[JeffAnd]

Will the 8000 plus public charging stations remain free of charge? I can already answer this question as a no. I did some checking of some of the public charging station to see if they were charging fee’s. And unfortunately some were already charging fee of up to $2.99 an hour. Most stations that were charging a fee were in the $1.00 to $2.00 per hour. The majority stations don’t charge a fee right now. Some don’t charge you by the hour, but instead by the Kilo Watt Hour. These rates seemed to range from 13 to 49 cents per Kwh. In some states it seems that vast majority of the charging stations are free. But in the Chicago area it seems about 40 to 50% of the charging stations are charging a fee. Why are some operators charging a fee and others are not? Some of the charging stations are installed by local governments, and are funded by tax dollars. But as government budgets get tighter they will start to look for sources revenue and will end up charging a fee. Other charging stations are installed by local businesses, and are used as a way to attract customers. These are most likely will remain free, as long as it keeps attracting customers. Now stations that are installed by secondary party are installed as profit making business. These stations will only be very temporally free because their investors are expecting to make money on the business. The reason they are not charging a fee is because they want to get people use to using the charging station first. The down side of charging a high fee is that it will discourage it use. So charging station fees need to be in align with be able attract customers and still make a reasonable profit. Now while I was checking to see if a station was charging a fee I did notice that the rate of usage is up. I would say compared to a year ago usage was less than 1%. Now I would say charging station day time usage rate is in the 2 to 6% range. The reason for the variation is that some states have more public charging station than electric vehicles. The increasing number of public charging stations being used is a good indication of growing number of electric vehicles on the road.


I would like to encourage EV owners to comment on their use of public charging stations.