Here's why convenience stores are not rushing to install EV chargers

[Crissa]

How the hell do you do that? Charge alot? I'll damn well get my moneys worth and stay here as long as I want. Charge a little, or even free? Yippee I like this place. I'm gonna stay here for a while.

Uhh, okay, but that second half hour might be $50 on top of the charging. And the fourth might be 'retrieve from impound lot'.

-Crissa

(Those are actual conditions I have seen on charger price sheets)

Sponsored

 

[slomobile]

It’s not a cost. It’s a characteristic. EVs take longer to charge but require less intervention (well good chargers). In some cases this is a cost, in others it’s a feature.

If it’s parked at my home, it’s a feature. If it’s at a restaurant, it’s neither. At a quik-e-mart, there are potential downsides for the owner.

Gas stations were built around the way gas vehicles fuel up. It makes sense that the places EVs charge up will be different. What that ends up being is still in flux.

It is always a cost. Land, chargers, and electricity are not free. Who bears that cost shifts depending on the situation. Sometimes the cost to charge is already sunk, sometimes not, but it always exists. That is what makes it a "hidden cost".

It is not an inherent characteristic of EVs. Battery swap charging has the same land/time costs, but that happens remotely from the EV.

 

[slomobile]

Uhh, okay, but that second half hour might be $50 on top of the charging. And the fourth might be 'retrieve from impound lot'.

-Crissa

(Those are actual conditions I have seen on charger price sheets)

I see! My only EVs are a non plugin hybrid and electric wheelchair so I've not encountered a charger price sheet before. Learned something new today.
Those terms kind of piss me off. Everything I do in public takes longer than expected if facilities aren't handicap accessible. A bathroom break while charging could result in my vehicle being towed?

Where do you typically encounter a price sheet? What network specifically has those terms?

Have you ever seen a public charger capable of charging 24v lead acid batteries? That would be useful to me today.

 

[Ogre]

It is always a cost. Land, chargers, and electricity are not free. Who bears that cost shifts depending on the situation. Sometimes the cost to charge is already sunk, sometimes not, but it always exists. That is what makes it a "hidden cost".

It is not “always a cost”. If you have lots of space, charging stalls generate revenue. Likewise if you want people lingering at the site and having charging spaces attracts clientele (and generate revenue).

There is a reason every single outlet mall along highway 5 has a Tesla Supercharger section, they **Want** bored people who can afford a Tesla showing up with time to kill.

It’s sort of like suggesting a spider web is always a cost. It’s there because the owner wants people to stick around.

 

[slomobile]

a spider web is always a cost. It’s there because the owner wants people to stick around.

Yes. That is how cost works. It is the price you pay in order to receive the benefit of the thing it buys. I paid for a home because I want a place to stay. It isn't suddenly free because its something I want.

Charging is always a cost. That cost is offset to a greater or lesser degree by the benefit it provides. A debit and a credit. They both exist. One does not annihilate the other, especially if paid by or to different people..

An EV needs to be charged in order for the initial cost of it to be offset by the pleasure and utility the owner receives from it. Each time it is charged, there is an additional recurring money cost that is added to the total cost of ownership.

There are also recurring costs in owner time(paid in minutes by the car owner), parking area occupied time(an opportunity cost for the land owner, and a small fraction of the land purchase cost), electricity cost(potentially resold through intermediaries several times before reaching the car owner), infrastructure cost(amortized over some period. Likely subsidized.), and maintenance cost.

All of those costs must be paid by someone, not necessarily the owner, in order for charging to occur. Those are the debits. The credits are utility to the owner, facetime w/potential C store customer(paid in owner minutes to the C store operator), purchases made by vehicle owner(paid in cash to c store), utility of goods purchased by owner.

Notice that none of the credits directly and uniquely offset the debit of land cost for example. That is a hidden cost. It is a cost of doing business that gets absorbed by the landowner because they have faith that their investment will pay more than it costs.

 

[Ogre]

Yes. That is how cost works. It is the price you pay in order to receive the benefit of the thing it buys.

If you want to take this perspective, then just owning a business is a cost. Having a parking space is a cost. Etc. You’ve wandered off into nonsense land where words have no meaning.

 

[HaulingAss]

Either you expect the employee to buy infrastructure for the employer (very strange), or you meant "Witholding a small raise can pay for a number of EV chargers and solar panels."

As an employee, which would you prefer? Keep in mind you will likely not have any say in the type or network of charger installed and it will probably be the cheapest available to the employer, and maintained no better than other infrastructure owned by the employer. How long does it take to get your computer fixed, or a new office chair?

The claim was that it wasn't cheap for employers to add employee EV charging and that it would take decades. So, I was looking at it from the perspective of employers who need to retain top talent for the success of their business. This requires competitive pay and competitive perks. Paying your employees ever increasing amounts is expensive and doesn't guarantee retention. I was making the case that a balanced approach makes the most sense and that the cost to add charging in the employee parking lot is a minor expense in the scheme of things.

It doesn't come down to excessive employee pay with no EV chargers in the parking lot or low pay and EV chargers because the cost of EV chargers is very low when costed over all employees and over a decade or more time horizon. What's expensive is not having the best employees.

Grid stability and efficiency are greatly enhanced with ubiquitous EV charging and it makes a lot more sense for government to incentivise workplace charging than it does to incentivise EV sales (because every EV made will get sold with or without government incentives). The former results in more EV's being charged mid-day while the latter results in more EV's being charged at night. Increasing solar deployments create a surplus of electricity mid-day while electricity consumed at night is typically much higher carbon content unless the wind is blowing and there is sufficient wind generation.

Eliminating human dependence upon fossil fuels entirely will take decades but the steps we can take now to speed the process are simple common sense. The biggest barrier to 100% of new cars sold being EV's is simply making enough EV's, not some made-up BS about how difficult it will be to charge them all. That is easily solveable and it won't take any longer than it takes to ramp up EV production. The two will happen simultaneously.

 

[HaulingAss]

We must face the fact that land area occupied while charging is one of the hidden costs of EVs.

Is this some kind of joke?

EV's charge in the same spot they park. Our EV's charge 95% of the time in our driveway or carport. When we go on a trip a typical Supercharge stop is no longer than filling a gas tank and parking to use the facilities and maybe get a drink, about 15 minutes.

Gas stations require an area for tanker trucks to pull in and fill the underground tanks. Undergraound tanks leak and pollute the water table. Oil refineries are huge installations with their own power substations to supply vast amounts of electricity and have long piers to tie up supertankers and the resulting marine impacts. ICE cars require shops to perform regular oil and filter changes and facilities to dispose of the waste products. In the winter, ICE cars consume huge amounts of clean air just to warm up in driveways while emitting some very toxic exhaust into the clean crisp morning air.

How come you want to expense the small amount of land EV's occupy when charging on road trips and the land they park on when charging at home or work (when they would be parked there anyway) but want to ignore the land consumed by gas stations, oil refineries, oil wells and their numerous derricks, oil change "quick-lube" shops, all the time and chemicals private companies spend to degrease oil drippings from their stores and parking lots, the deaths caused by pavement slickened by the cumulative oil on the road caused by leaking oil from ICE cars, etc. etc. etc.

This only scratches the surface of the "hidden" costs of ICE vehicles and yet you want to claim the land an EV sits on while silently charging is a "hidden impact"?

That's insane!

 

[Crissa]

Having cars sitting around is a hidden cost. All those parking spaces you have to drive around or walk past are a cost.

Not that there's a car charging there or not.

-Crissa

 

[slomobile]

Is this some kind of joke?

How come you want to expense the small amount of land EV's occupy when charging on road trips and the land they park on when charging at home or work

Not a joke. Apparently my writing today is subpar if you need to ask.

I am really on your side. I want better charging stations at work and ultimately so will employers and employees. Something better than a single incremental raise would pay for. That estimate was BS. I want charging stations that do the most good. I want to do more than just wish for them.

So I'm looking at the cost/benefit analysis of placing chargers into various areas. If I deny that land costs and land opportunity costs exist, the whole endeavor is pretty pointless.

What is a thing they aren't making any more of? What is the most reliable investment? Real estate. Charging stations in useful locations take up valuable real estate and take it away from other purposes. The land isn't yours or mine to do as we wish. So I'm looking for value propositions to show land owners how to make the most profit per square foot by implementing charging smartly. If the parking could be separated from the charging, making better use of both resources, I'd call that smart. I haven't figured out how to do that, but I'm working on it.

Maybe I'm being overambitious and under experienced as I've never used a public charger personally. I will have special needs when my Cybertruck arrives. I've never seen a handicapped spot with a charger. I need a bigger spot to be able to get out, not have it blocked when I get back in, and CT is a big vehicle already. My spot requires more land.

I've been present during a pitch to a landowner to place a charger and he was laser focused on his expected return per square foot. And he very much did not want to deal with "those EV types". Someone else doing maintenance and customer service were big concerns, as well as potential damage to his reputation if EV drivers "get uppity with customers." He wasn't even viewing EV drivers as his customers, just "people using his land". He rejected the offer, which was probably good for all.

 

[Crissa]

It costs money to have snacks and drinks and yet, most employees prefer the snacks and drinks. Or good insurance. Or flexi hours or work at home days.

Just paying more doesn't encourage them to stick around as much as benefits they can't easily replace.

-Crissa

 

[anionic1]

Just did a pretty decent EV charger study for my office. We have 300-400 employees and the teslas are popping up more and more. So the catches are speed of charging and total peak kW at any given time.

ChargePoint quoted me $60k for their 100 amp 480V DC fast charger material cost. Which actually is very simple to install on large commercial electrical switchgear. We are looking at regular 48 amp Tesla chargers but really you a few hours of charging to get any meaningful charge. That works for office folks but not for customers stopping by a 7/11. So fast charging is required. That 711 is probably pulling a max of 80kW. Now add two DC chargers pulling 350kW ea and you have exponentially increased the peak demand which could mean they need a bigger feed and transformer fromthe utility provider, which is big money. But aside from the utilities, that 9x increase in peak demand will hit the monthly utility bill big time . Probably about $15/kW/ month. Do you go from 80 kW peak to 780 that’s an extra $10,500 in service fees per month outside of the actual kW usage fees.
And if your thinking to offset with solar or power walls, it’s a joke. Solar could probably get out 15kW and batteries maybe 30 kW in power walls. Soon we will start to see fuel cells supplementing ev charging during peak hours. At that point we will have hit peak irony.

 

[Crissa]

A 100amp charger is kinda silly for an office. You want a charger that takes all day, not one the employees have to go and shuffle their cars to use.

-Crissa

 

[firsttruck]

Just did a pretty decent EV charger study for my office. We have 300-400 employees and the teslas are popping up more and more. So the catches are speed of charging and total peak kW at any given time.

ChargePoint quoted me $60k for their 100 amp 480V DC fast charger material cost. Which actually is very simple to install on large commercial electrical switchgear. We are looking at regular 48 amp Tesla chargers but really you a few hours of charging to get any meaningful charge. That works for office folks but not for customers stopping by a 7/11. So fast charging is required. That 711 is probably pulling a max of 80kW. Now add two DC chargers pulling 350kW ea and you have exponentially increased the peak demand which could mean they need a bigger feed and transformer fromthe utility provider, which is big money. But aside from the utilities, that 9x increase in peak demand will hit the monthly utility bill big time . Probably about $15/kW/ month. Do you go from 80 kW peak to 780 that’s an extra $10,500 in service fees per month outside of the actual kW usage fees.
And if your thinking to offset with solar or power walls, it’s a joke. Solar could probably get out 15kW and batteries maybe 30 kW in power walls. Soon we will start to see fuel cells supplementing ev charging during peak hours. At that point we will have hit peak irony.

How many parking spots at your office?

Is the parking a horizontal flat lot or is it a multi-level structure?

 

[SparkChaser]

At my employer the norm is a 4 hour charging limit. The charger actually starts charging you $1 an hour after that. Over 8 hours it jumps to $4 an hour.
We have 4 different lots will about 10 slots per lot. We used to have about 15k employees we are down to about 6k now at this location.

Sponsored