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Recent anecdote: I rented a Rivian R1S in Bay Area for a short trip to Santa Rosa. On the way back I charged at "Rivian adventure network" and the cost to charg

Recent anecdote: I rented a Rivian R1S in Bay Area for a short trip to Santa Rosa. On the way back I charged at "Rivian adventure network" and the cost to charge was $0.68/kWh. Now, Rivian is a big car and this basically meant you are getting about 3 miles per dollar. A full 'charge' would have cost me nearly $100! But, an even bigger gasoline car - Lincoln Navigator - has 16 MPG, and even with gas prices in CA (currently ~$5 per gallon) you are looking at 3.2 miles per dollar. I was shocked by that, especially knowing that CA has excess solar capacity. Why the heck is electricity for charging so expensive? (I pay around $0.15/kWh last time I checked for my home)

tw04 2y ago
That’s just obscene in general. I think the peak I’ve seen from Tesla in my area is less than .40/kWh. At home it’s less than .05 if you charge off hours.
g_d 2y ago
[dead]
DemPartyPooper 2y ago
[flagged]
fooblaster 2y ago
rivian is overcharging a huge amount here versus base electric prices? I use L2 chargepoints for essentially all my charging and I average about 30 cents per kwh.
nickphx 2y ago
Maybe the overhead of building and maintaining the infrastructure for vehicle charging?
Aurornis 2y ago
> Why the heck is electricity so expensive? You’re paying for charging, not electricity. They charge what the market will bear. Right now they can charge what they want because you don’t have many alternatives. That said, CA electricity prices are high for a number of reasons. They have a lot of regulations for building anything. The red tape you have to work through to get anything built in CA is completely out of control, so anything requiring new construction (charging stations included) will have to pay off a lot of up front investment.
- amluto 2y ago
  You’re focused on entirely the wrong problem with California. The cost of electricity purchased from a private utility here is entirely out of control. That 68 cents is mostly going to a company like PG&E.
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    Tesla charges 45 cents and they are not subsidizing charging.
    - csours 2y ago
      Your comment is entirely consistent with the parent comment. 68/2=34 If electricity costs 35c/unit then T could be making 10c and R could be making 33c. T could be choosing to take less profit.
    - natch 2y ago
      Tesla charging rates vary per station. The cheapest we've paid at a Supercharger (when not in a promotional free charging window) was $0.11 per kWh.
  - salynchnew 2y ago
    100%. The CPUC is a government entity and can technically dictate power prices. Unfortunately, state engergy conglomerates are very good at regulatory capture.
  - amluto 2y ago
    I did a bit of homework. PG&E publishes their rate schedules, of which they have many, and even a fairly cursory read strongly suggests that both the cost breakdowns and the times associated with time-of-use rates are, to put it mildly, divorced from any realistic estimation of actual costs. (Check out how inconsistent the schedules are from each other!) Here's the "Business Electric Vehicle" schedule, which appears to be the relevant one from EV charging stations: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2%20(Sch).pdf https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED... Roughly 38c/kWh peak and 16c/kWh "super off peak" plus $1.24/kWh monthly for maximum load. (So a supercharger would pay some $248/month for the privilege of being connected, and peak shaving can reduce this.) Here's the current residential schedule: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2%20(Sch).pdf https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED... Wow, 62c/kWh peak and 30c/kWh off-peak. At least the times kind of line up. Here's the legacy ones, with totally different off-peak times! https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV%20(Sch).pdf https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED... Anyway, the morning-to-mid-afternoon rates in CA for public chargers are high but not outrageous.
sapiogram 2y ago
> and the cost to charge was $0.68/kWh. What in the world. In December, southern Norway had similar electricity prices for two hours, and caused enough of an uproar that the government is still trying to live it down.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  Charging prices are not the same as electricity prices. They’re pricing it at what the market will bear for charging. They’re recouping costs of building and running the charging station. Property and operational costs in CA are very high.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  That isn't the price of electricity, it was the cost of using the charging point.
- lambda 2y ago
  DC fast chargers tend to cost much more than level 2 chargers. They have expensive equipment, more expensive electricity (intermittent high load is more expensive than more continuous lower levels, even for the same total power), and there tends to be a limited number of them so you want to encourage people to do level 2 charging when possible, and only DC fast charging on road trips when they really need it. So prices are much higher than for normal AC charging. Most of the charging you do should be AC charging at your home or work.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  I found it interesting because $0.68/kWh is roughly what EV charging has cost at charging stations here in Norway for the past few years. It fluctuates a bit though not much, and varies from network to network, but currently[1] the average is around $0.5/kWh if you exclude Tesla. Now, at home I pay about $0.1-0.2/kWh these days and less during summer. [1]: https://elbil.no/dette-koster-hurtiglading/ https://elbil.no/dette-koster-hurtiglading/
  - fragmede 2y ago
    For those of us not in your area in Norway, where does your electricity come from in the summer that it's that cheap?
mixmastamyk 2y ago
It’s not, ladwp is ~20 cents per. Sounds like you used their charger and was taken for a ride, hah hah.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Aurornis gets to the point; there is a substantial cost (demand charges), from the utility, to ask for 200-400kw of current on demand when you plug in. Tesla uses Megapack batteries at some of their stations (Electrify America as well, using Tesla battereis) to "peak shave," whereby the batteries slowly charge, and then they blend output with utility power so the current demand peak is not so brutal when vehicles request fast DC charging. Renewable generated power is cheap, power delivery, control, and orchestration is not so much. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eliminating-demand-charges-wont-solve-EV-station-problems/689395/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eliminating-demand-charges-... https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/ppgbxx/megapack_at_supercharger_is_this_a_thing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/ppgbxx/megapac... https://electrek.co/2020/09/17/tesla-batteries-60-electrify-america-charging-stations/ https://electrek.co/2020/09/17/tesla-batteries-60-electrify-... https://media.electrifyamerica.com/releases/48 https://media.electrifyamerica.com/releases/48
lgats 2y ago
charging near peak times impacts the price, especially in that area
- Someone1234 2y ago
  That seems problematic. If I am on a road-trip and need to charge up, am I meant to just park up for several hours until it is off-peak? EVs already ask more from drivers, namely around planning, and stopping times. But this is a whole other level of inconvenience. Gas stations don't do have peak/off-peak rates, even if they could.
  - coldpie 2y ago
    > If I am on a road-trip and need to charge up, am I meant to just park up for several hours until it is off-peak? No, you pay the extra $15 or whatever. If you're counting pennies, maybe charge as little as needed, so you can do more of the charge later during an off-peak time.
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
My home electric bill just went up, with the utility company blaming it on their providers having increased prices due to increased demand. Apparently in some localities AI/datacenter electricity usage is already 10% of total usage, and expected to rapidly climb in coming years. It'd be nice if the cost of extra demand was met by those building the datacenters, but I'm not sure that's going to be the case.
- wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  My electric provider recently silently raised our rates. My same usage was ~ $20 less a month last year. Honestly, I'm trying to get out of the 'scarcity mentality' of worrying about these sort of little day to day costs. I set my thermostat at a comfy level, and I game on my power hungry pc without restricting myself. It is what it is.
iterateoften 2y ago
That is the part that I worry about the long term switch to everything electric. Already in SoCal where there is ample sun and plenty of room for cheap power, the electric rates have gone up 50% over 5 years. Now natural gas is being phased out, gas cars are being phased out so electric companies have a monopoly to charge as much as they want unless there is competition for alternate energy sources. We are fast approaching in SoCal the average electric bill for non solar homes will be $500-$2000/mo And even if everyone gets solar the power company will just add fees so they retain the same profit so they can maintain infrastructure
- asdff 2y ago
  They go up if you pay for private power. I pay like 16 cents for LADWP.
steveBK123 2y ago
Fast charging market is a mess. Tesla is one of the cheaper ones but only slowly allowing other brands access. The rest of the competition is poorly maintained, new, under-deployed, under-utilized, or some combination of the 4, much of which results in awful pricing. Most EV owners home charge for most if not all charging. I have been driving EVs for 8 years and haven't used a fast charger in 18 months I think. If you home charge your operating costs are about 1/3 to 1/5 of ICE. So as a commuter option you can cut your operating costs vs gas by a lot with home charging. I pay $0.19/kWh in NY, which depending on your vehicle is 3-4 miles in a decent sedan/hatch EV like Tesla 3/Y or Ioniq. So call it 18miles-per-dollar. Gas near me is running $3.49/gal, use some blending 25mpg for a sedan/hatch ICE and get 7miles-per-dollar. Obviously a different issue for renting vehicles, road trips, etc.
darth_avocado 2y ago
Rates vary depending on time, location, demand etc. I regularly charge my car all over the Bay Area on the Tesla network and it’s between $0.45 to $0.55 per kWH. I have an electric home residential electricity plan and the cheapest I get electricity at home varies between $0.34 and $0.39 during off peak hours. During peak hours it’s actually the same for meto charge at a supercharger as it is at home.
schmookeeg 2y ago
I hope you understand that this anedcote is something like "I rented a car, I bought $9.50/gallon fuel, and then did the math on how many fewer miles that fuel got me vs when I buy fuel at home for sane prices" yeah? :) $0.68 is nuts. I am on my fourth EV, and currently I will expect 0.35-0.50 on my frequent road trips between CA and OR/WA. I also tend to favor the Electrify America stations since they're free for 30mn for me to use. In my car, that 30mn will take me from 20% charge to ~85% charge for $0. Once the free-charging sugar high is over for a lot of EV owners, I think they will start doing the math too and prefer, strongly, to charge at home. The other problem is there are no posted rates for the charge, and once you glide into a charger down to 30mi range, you're probably not going to pick up and go to a different one.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  To be fair, I have driven EVs exclusively for 8 years and I wouldn't really recommend them as a rental car in the current state to a non-EV driver. I don't even know if I'd rent one myself as an experienced EV users. I've done it once myself and found it quite stressful. There's just too many ways for it to go wrong with an unfamiliar EV in an unfamiliar area. Rental company gives you a slightly different model than you expected with lower range, battery at lower state of charge than anticipated, the guess-o-meter range estimate is overly optimistic and the car burns through range too fast, chargers in region are worse/busier/etc than you expect, etc.
  - schmookeeg 2y ago
    Yeah I've wanted to and the "bring it back fully charged" requirement is hopeless. I rent for convenience and have zero interest in solving this problem for the agencies. "bring back >80%" would be easier and tempt me on certain missions where I have the free time to navigate Plugshare and figure it out. In thinking about it this morning, this is probably where one could use the "prepaid fuel" upsell option. I might consider that next time I rent something away from home. There have been some really dirt-cheap "manager specials" that are apparently code language for "EV rental we can't rent out otherwise" -- like $6, $8/day cheap. :)
KallDrexx 2y ago
Electrical charging on the road is expensive, because those are fast chargers, and not normal chargers a home would have. A ~7kw charger you'd install in a home or a business has is relatively cheap wiring electrically, and the stalls are not that expensive. Rivian adventure network uses chargers that have to output 220kw into the car. This requires significantly higher cost for getting electricity to each stall, the stall needs to be able to handle that much power transfer, and they must be actively cooled (since that much power causes a significant amount of heat). They also require a decent amount of maintenance. These stalls can cost upwards of $100k per stall for installation. This is all done so you can charge in ~20 minutes (as opposed to several hours it would take at a normal 7kwh one). That's why fast chargers cost significantly more. They also need higher profit margins to make back the installation and maintenance cost depending on utilization rates they expect, otherwise installing these chargers doesn't make a lot of sense for businesses.
- ooterness 2y ago
  Please use correct units. Kilowatts (kW) measure energy per time. Fast chargers (i.e., level 2, level 3) are rated in kilowatts. Kilowatt-hours (kWh) measure total energy. If you charge at 7 kW for two hours, then that's 14 kWh in total.
  - KallDrexx 2y ago
    my bad, I'll update
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  > They also need higher profit margins to make back the installation and maintenance cost depending on utilization rates they expect, otherwise installing these chargers doesn't make a lot of sense for businesses. While I respect the right of the business to make its own decisions about what the payback time ought to be, I'd also guess that other than replacing the very cheap jack/socket and the payment tablet, these devices will last decades. The only reason they need high profit margins is a desire for a short payback time, much, much shorter than the likely life of the device.
IneffablePigeon 2y ago
We are paying down the capex of installing chargers, grid connections, etc etc. It will come down over time.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  Is the balance that is being paid down publicly available? Will the companies decide they like the current cash flow and find a reason for it to continue after the balance is paid off?
m463 2y ago
People say you are paying for the convenience of fast charging. But that isn't all the picture. (in california) PG&E has honed its regulatory capture skills and has some of the highest electricity costs anywhere. The average cost of electricity is 33c/kwh for california customers, and as you use more it can easily reach 50c/kwh. There are some areas where PG&E is not the electric company, and they top out at 14c/kwh for electricity. The ONLY good part I can contrive from this situation is that residential solar is "practical" and the demand is driving development of democratized power generation.
- seafoam 2y ago
  Is this a PG&E thing or a California thing ? Put differently, where in California can one top out at 14c/kwh for electricity ?
  - m463 2y ago
    > 14c/kwh santa clara, palo alto, etc EDIT: sorry 17.5 c/kwh? pg&e average is also higher: https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees

tw04 2y ago

That’s just obscene in general. I think the peak I’ve seen from Tesla in my area is less than .40/kWh. At home it’s less than .05 if you charge off hours.

g_d 2y ago

[dead]

DemPartyPooper 2y ago

[flagged]

fooblaster 2y ago

rivian is overcharging a huge amount here versus base electric prices? I use L2 chargepoints for essentially all my charging and I average about 30 cents per kwh.

nickphx 2y ago

Maybe the overhead of building and maintaining the infrastructure for vehicle charging?

Aurornis 2y ago

> Why the heck is electricity so expensive? You’re paying for charging, not electricity. They charge what the market will bear. Right now they can charge what they want because you don’t have many alternatives. That said, CA electricity prices are high for a number of reasons. They have a lot of regulations for building anything. The red tape you have to work through to get anything built in CA is completely out of control, so anything requiring new construction (charging stations included) will have to pay off a lot of up front investment.

amluto 2y ago
You’re focused on entirely the wrong problem with California. The cost of electricity purchased from a private utility here is entirely out of control. That 68 cents is mostly going to a company like PG&E.
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  Tesla charges 45 cents and they are not subsidizing charging.
  - csours 2y ago
    Your comment is entirely consistent with the parent comment. 68/2=34 If electricity costs 35c/unit then T could be making 10c and R could be making 33c. T could be choosing to take less profit.
  - natch 2y ago
    Tesla charging rates vary per station. The cheapest we've paid at a Supercharger (when not in a promotional free charging window) was $0.11 per kWh.
- salynchnew 2y ago
  100%. The CPUC is a government entity and can technically dictate power prices. Unfortunately, state engergy conglomerates are very good at regulatory capture.
- amluto 2y ago
  I did a bit of homework. PG&E publishes their rate schedules, of which they have many, and even a fairly cursory read strongly suggests that both the cost breakdowns and the times associated with time-of-use rates are, to put it mildly, divorced from any realistic estimation of actual costs. (Check out how inconsistent the schedules are from each other!) Here's the "Business Electric Vehicle" schedule, which appears to be the relevant one from EV charging stations: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2%20(Sch).pdf https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED... Roughly 38c/kWh peak and 16c/kWh "super off peak" plus $1.24/kWh monthly for maximum load. (So a supercharger would pay some $248/month for the privilege of being connected, and peak shaving can reduce this.) Here's the current residential schedule: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2%20(Sch).pdf https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED... Wow, 62c/kWh peak and 30c/kWh off-peak. At least the times kind of line up. Here's the legacy ones, with totally different off-peak times! https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV%20(Sch).pdf https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED... Anyway, the morning-to-mid-afternoon rates in CA for public chargers are high but not outrageous.

sapiogram 2y ago

> and the cost to charge was $0.68/kWh. What in the world. In December, southern Norway had similar electricity prices for two hours, and caused enough of an uproar that the government is still trying to live it down.

Aurornis 2y ago
Charging prices are not the same as electricity prices. They’re pricing it at what the market will bear for charging. They’re recouping costs of building and running the charging station. Property and operational costs in CA are very high.
UltraSane 2y ago
That isn't the price of electricity, it was the cost of using the charging point.
lambda 2y ago
DC fast chargers tend to cost much more than level 2 chargers. They have expensive equipment, more expensive electricity (intermittent high load is more expensive than more continuous lower levels, even for the same total power), and there tends to be a limited number of them so you want to encourage people to do level 2 charging when possible, and only DC fast charging on road trips when they really need it. So prices are much higher than for normal AC charging. Most of the charging you do should be AC charging at your home or work.
magicalhippo 2y ago
I found it interesting because $0.68/kWh is roughly what EV charging has cost at charging stations here in Norway for the past few years. It fluctuates a bit though not much, and varies from network to network, but currently[1] the average is around $0.5/kWh if you exclude Tesla. Now, at home I pay about $0.1-0.2/kWh these days and less during summer. [1]: https://elbil.no/dette-koster-hurtiglading/ https://elbil.no/dette-koster-hurtiglading/
- fragmede 2y ago
  For those of us not in your area in Norway, where does your electricity come from in the summer that it's that cheap?

mixmastamyk 2y ago

It’s not, ladwp is ~20 cents per. Sounds like you used their charger and was taken for a ride, hah hah.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Aurornis gets to the point; there is a substantial cost (demand charges), from the utility, to ask for 200-400kw of current on demand when you plug in. Tesla uses Megapack batteries at some of their stations (Electrify America as well, using Tesla battereis) to "peak shave," whereby the batteries slowly charge, and then they blend output with utility power so the current demand peak is not so brutal when vehicles request fast DC charging. Renewable generated power is cheap, power delivery, control, and orchestration is not so much. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eliminating-demand-charges-wont-solve-EV-station-problems/689395/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/eliminating-demand-charges-... https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/ppgbxx/megapack_at_supercharger_is_this_a_thing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/ppgbxx/megapac... https://electrek.co/2020/09/17/tesla-batteries-60-electrify-america-charging-stations/ https://electrek.co/2020/09/17/tesla-batteries-60-electrify-... https://media.electrifyamerica.com/releases/48 https://media.electrifyamerica.com/releases/48

lgats 2y ago

charging near peak times impacts the price, especially in that area

Someone1234 2y ago
That seems problematic. If I am on a road-trip and need to charge up, am I meant to just park up for several hours until it is off-peak? EVs already ask more from drivers, namely around planning, and stopping times. But this is a whole other level of inconvenience. Gas stations don't do have peak/off-peak rates, even if they could.
- coldpie 2y ago
  > If I am on a road-trip and need to charge up, am I meant to just park up for several hours until it is off-peak? No, you pay the extra $15 or whatever. If you're counting pennies, maybe charge as little as needed, so you can do more of the charge later during an off-peak time.

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago

My home electric bill just went up, with the utility company blaming it on their providers having increased prices due to increased demand. Apparently in some localities AI/datacenter electricity usage is already 10% of total usage, and expected to rapidly climb in coming years. It'd be nice if the cost of extra demand was met by those building the datacenters, but I'm not sure that's going to be the case.

wing-_-nuts 2y ago
My electric provider recently silently raised our rates. My same usage was ~ $20 less a month last year. Honestly, I'm trying to get out of the 'scarcity mentality' of worrying about these sort of little day to day costs. I set my thermostat at a comfy level, and I game on my power hungry pc without restricting myself. It is what it is.

iterateoften 2y ago

That is the part that I worry about the long term switch to everything electric. Already in SoCal where there is ample sun and plenty of room for cheap power, the electric rates have gone up 50% over 5 years. Now natural gas is being phased out, gas cars are being phased out so electric companies have a monopoly to charge as much as they want unless there is competition for alternate energy sources. We are fast approaching in SoCal the average electric bill for non solar homes will be $500-$2000/mo And even if everyone gets solar the power company will just add fees so they retain the same profit so they can maintain infrastructure

asdff 2y ago
They go up if you pay for private power. I pay like 16 cents for LADWP.

steveBK123 2y ago

Fast charging market is a mess. Tesla is one of the cheaper ones but only slowly allowing other brands access. The rest of the competition is poorly maintained, new, under-deployed, under-utilized, or some combination of the 4, much of which results in awful pricing. Most EV owners home charge for most if not all charging. I have been driving EVs for 8 years and haven't used a fast charger in 18 months I think. If you home charge your operating costs are about 1/3 to 1/5 of ICE. So as a commuter option you can cut your operating costs vs gas by a lot with home charging. I pay $0.19/kWh in NY, which depending on your vehicle is 3-4 miles in a decent sedan/hatch EV like Tesla 3/Y or Ioniq. So call it 18miles-per-dollar. Gas near me is running $3.49/gal, use some blending 25mpg for a sedan/hatch ICE and get 7miles-per-dollar. Obviously a different issue for renting vehicles, road trips, etc.

darth_avocado 2y ago

Rates vary depending on time, location, demand etc. I regularly charge my car all over the Bay Area on the Tesla network and it’s between $0.45 to $0.55 per kWH. I have an electric home residential electricity plan and the cheapest I get electricity at home varies between $0.34 and $0.39 during off peak hours. During peak hours it’s actually the same for meto charge at a supercharger as it is at home.

schmookeeg 2y ago

I hope you understand that this anedcote is something like "I rented a car, I bought $9.50/gallon fuel, and then did the math on how many fewer miles that fuel got me vs when I buy fuel at home for sane prices" yeah? :) $0.68 is nuts. I am on my fourth EV, and currently I will expect 0.35-0.50 on my frequent road trips between CA and OR/WA. I also tend to favor the Electrify America stations since they're free for 30mn for me to use. In my car, that 30mn will take me from 20% charge to ~85% charge for $0. Once the free-charging sugar high is over for a lot of EV owners, I think they will start doing the math too and prefer, strongly, to charge at home. The other problem is there are no posted rates for the charge, and once you glide into a charger down to 30mi range, you're probably not going to pick up and go to a different one.

steveBK123 2y ago
To be fair, I have driven EVs exclusively for 8 years and I wouldn't really recommend them as a rental car in the current state to a non-EV driver. I don't even know if I'd rent one myself as an experienced EV users. I've done it once myself and found it quite stressful. There's just too many ways for it to go wrong with an unfamiliar EV in an unfamiliar area. Rental company gives you a slightly different model than you expected with lower range, battery at lower state of charge than anticipated, the guess-o-meter range estimate is overly optimistic and the car burns through range too fast, chargers in region are worse/busier/etc than you expect, etc.
- schmookeeg 2y ago
  Yeah I've wanted to and the "bring it back fully charged" requirement is hopeless. I rent for convenience and have zero interest in solving this problem for the agencies. "bring back >80%" would be easier and tempt me on certain missions where I have the free time to navigate Plugshare and figure it out. In thinking about it this morning, this is probably where one could use the "prepaid fuel" upsell option. I might consider that next time I rent something away from home. There have been some really dirt-cheap "manager specials" that are apparently code language for "EV rental we can't rent out otherwise" -- like $6, $8/day cheap. :)

KallDrexx 2y ago

Electrical charging on the road is expensive, because those are fast chargers, and not normal chargers a home would have. A ~7kw charger you'd install in a home or a business has is relatively cheap wiring electrically, and the stalls are not that expensive. Rivian adventure network uses chargers that have to output 220kw into the car. This requires significantly higher cost for getting electricity to each stall, the stall needs to be able to handle that much power transfer, and they must be actively cooled (since that much power causes a significant amount of heat). They also require a decent amount of maintenance. These stalls can cost upwards of $100k per stall for installation. This is all done so you can charge in ~20 minutes (as opposed to several hours it would take at a normal 7kwh one). That's why fast chargers cost significantly more. They also need higher profit margins to make back the installation and maintenance cost depending on utilization rates they expect, otherwise installing these chargers doesn't make a lot of sense for businesses.

ooterness 2y ago
Please use correct units. Kilowatts (kW) measure energy per time. Fast chargers (i.e., level 2, level 3) are rated in kilowatts. Kilowatt-hours (kWh) measure total energy. If you charge at 7 kW for two hours, then that's 14 kWh in total.
- KallDrexx 2y ago
  my bad, I'll update
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
> They also need higher profit margins to make back the installation and maintenance cost depending on utilization rates they expect, otherwise installing these chargers doesn't make a lot of sense for businesses. While I respect the right of the business to make its own decisions about what the payback time ought to be, I'd also guess that other than replacing the very cheap jack/socket and the payment tablet, these devices will last decades. The only reason they need high profit margins is a desire for a short payback time, much, much shorter than the likely life of the device.

IneffablePigeon 2y ago

We are paying down the capex of installing chargers, grid connections, etc etc. It will come down over time.

lotsoweiners 2y ago
Is the balance that is being paid down publicly available? Will the companies decide they like the current cash flow and find a reason for it to continue after the balance is paid off?

m463 2y ago

People say you are paying for the convenience of fast charging. But that isn't all the picture. (in california) PG&E has honed its regulatory capture skills and has some of the highest electricity costs anywhere. The average cost of electricity is 33c/kwh for california customers, and as you use more it can easily reach 50c/kwh. There are some areas where PG&E is not the electric company, and they top out at 14c/kwh for electricity. The ONLY good part I can contrive from this situation is that residential solar is "practical" and the demand is driving development of democratized power generation.

seafoam 2y ago
Is this a PG&E thing or a California thing ? Put differently, where in California can one top out at 14c/kwh for electricity ?
- m463 2y ago
  > 14c/kwh santa clara, palo alto, etc EDIT: sorry 17.5 c/kwh? pg&e average is also higher: https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees