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I plugged my new Prime into a public AV charger for the first time today. I had to call the number at the top of the charger and provide the charger number to set up an account. The person on the phone said that it was $4.50 for a long charge and something like $9.50 for a fast charge. Since a charge is only good for less than 25 miles this seemed a bit expensive to me. They suggested they have other "plans" for charging one's plug in car?
On a fast charge, plus tax, it will be 40c a mile. That's IF he makes those 25 miles on that charge.
My 98 MGM costs me 15c a mile.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Electricity is still relatively cheap, about 10 cents/kWh here, but buying and installing a commercial grade charger, maintaining and providing the systems for payment add up and make it expensive. They are not in it for fun or for helping the environment, they are a business trying to make money, so it makes sense. Any economical benefits from a plug-in come from charging at home or a rare free charging station.
Hybrids are just a stopgap until the emerging technologies start to pan-out on a broader scale. Not a money-saver, not a resource saver, not much of a fuel saver.............a mediocre stop-gap.
Oh yeah, some hybrid implementations are great performance-enhancers.
My Volt uses my home charger to charge up, and gets it's 38-40 mile range from that. The home charger was $300, the installation $500 and my electrical company reimbursed me so that there was no cost to put it in. That makes charging a cheap and easy thing to do. I've rarely needed to charge when out and about, but use the free chargers to do it. Why pay as much as or more than a gas to do so? There are tens of thousands of free chargers across the country (they are not rare), and an app like Plugshare shows where they all are: https://www.plugshare.com/
As for not being a money/fuel saver, I'm averaging $10 a month in electricity to commute with (at 10c per KwH) and IF I use gas (I've used 6 gallons in the last year), it gets almost 50 mpg, though my lifetime average is actually closer to 200 mpg, and in day to day use, just about infinite MPG. The fuel savings alone (saved $200 a month in fuel costs) paid for the lease payments when I originally got it 6 years ago, and then when I bought it, I only paid $8500 for it wholesale. it's definitely saving money on the daily commute vs the last car I had.
My Volt uses my home charger to charge up, and gets it's 38-40 mile range from that. The home charger was $300, the installation $500 and my electrical company reimbursed me so that there was no cost to put it in. That makes charging a cheap and easy thing to do. I've rarely needed to charge when out and about, but use the free chargers to do it. Why pay as much as or more than a gas to do so? There are tens of thousands of free chargers across the country (they are not rare), and an app like Plugshare shows where they all are: https://www.plugshare.com/
As for not being a money/fuel saver, I'm averaging $10 a month in electricity to commute with (at 10c per KwH) and IF I use gas (I've used 6 gallons in the last year), it gets almost 50 mpg, though my lifetime average is actually closer to 200 mpg, and in day to day use, just about infinite MPG.
^^^ pretty much all this. Minus the installation from the electric company. The charger was free from the car dealer.
I charge my car at home after I return from work. The electricity usage is minuscule, so I do not even consider it an extra cost. At my work parking garage, there are plugs to charge our cars. The company I work for is very green in every aspect. I never need to charge the car when up and about in the city.
The battery is also charged through regenerative braking and by the internal combustion engine. https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/how...tric-cars-work
As echoed above, the point with plug-in hybrids is to plug them in at home. When you use public chargers, unless they are subsidized, you are also paying a cost recovery/profit to the owner of the charger. I'm confused by the tone of the OP- did OP think that businesses can stay in business by giving things away for free?
I'm lucky in that my workplace has subsidized (free to me) charging, and a couple of shopping centers around me have it too, so I almost never pay to charge, and I almost never charge at home. But if I didn't have access to that, I would just charge at home since it's the next cheapest, and certainly cheaper per mile than OP's 98 MGM.
For plug-in hybrids, since their batteries are so tiny, you don't even need to install a charger at home- you can just charge it from an ordinary wall socket while you sleep. I have a full battery EV so I needed higher power option at my house, but I spent all of $30 to install a NEMA 14-50 outlet myself and that gives me 50 amps at 220v using the cord that came with the car.
I plugged my new Prime into a public AV charger for the first time today. I had to call the number at the top of the charger and provide the charger number to set up an account. The person on the phone said that it was $4.50 for a long charge and something like $9.50 for a fast charge. Since a charge is only good for less than 25 miles this seemed a bit expensive to me. They suggested they have other "plans" for charging one's plug in car?
On a fast charge, plus tax, it will be 40c a mile. That's IF he makes those 25 miles on that charge.
My 98 MGM costs me 15c a mile.
Wha?
Most of them don't meter it so it's just a flat charge rate, same for a 300 mile range Tesla as a 11 mile PHEV Prius. No real reason to do the fast charge on the Prius. That's more for EVs than PHEVs as it'll take days to charge up at the slower rate.
As has been echoed, I plug my Clarity in the 110 plug at night, and it's good for 40-50 miles by the time I get up to go in in the morning. I've never used a public charge point, and likely never will, as that's why it's a hybrid. It will run fine on gas when there's no power.
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