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Paying to Charge your EV CAN Save Money!

5K views 13 replies 7 participants last post by  Ladogaboy 
#1 ·
I had to drop my son off yesterday at Union Station in DC. He was going on a school trip and I parked at Union Station once, never again. I decided to take the DC Metro there, but not the typical route.

There are 4 chargers near the Navy Yard Metro. Now those chargers are normally free, except during weekdays 8am-6pm. Then it is $1 / hour. I had 13 miles range left when I arrived. I made sure there was an open charger using my ChargePoint App. These spots are NEVER ICEd due to the towing enforcement. One of the spots was occupied by a Smart EV. First time I saw one. What's great is parking is free there, 24/7. So, I parked there for 3 hours or so. I remotely stopped to charge when I had 92%. Could have stopped it earlier.

So my grand total for parking for 3 hours in DC was $2.23. Try finding a cheaper place in DC on a weekday! Of course on evenings and weekends it is 100% free. Awesome for NATS games!
 
#2 ·
$1 per hour seems to be the cutoff compared to using gasoline as a full charge is basically equivalent to one gallon of gasoline. (4 hours at 220V for a full charge = $4. 1 gallon of premium gas is less than $4)

THIS IS ASSUMING you are able to unplug immediately when the vehicle is full and are not charged extra for leaving it plugged in after a full charge.

On the other hand....

If you don't need the additional charge to make it home, it is much cheaper to charge at home than from a public charger, unless it is a free charger.
 
#3 ·
baragona, the key thing here is if I did not charge I would have had to pay for parking somewhere. Probably would have cost me somewhere around $15. So $15 vs $2.23, plus I get a charge.

I could have stopped the charge after an hour and only paid $1 and would have had enough range to make it home. The minimum fee was $.75 to start a session.

The great thing about ChargePoint is you can remotely stop charging when you want and they will not charge you anymore after that point.
 
#5 · (Edited)
I forgot. We're talking about DC, where you have to pay for parking just about everywhere...

I have done the same thing at baseball games in Phoenix. I used the "free" public charger to avoid parking fees and parked closer to the stadium...
 
#4 ·
It is less than 25 miles from Union Station to Fairfax, meaning you would have used 1/4 gallon of gas to get home if you had 13 miles range left. 1/4 gallon would have cost you less than $1.

Even if you add the residential electric costs for recharging the Volt, if you spent $2.23 you did not actually "save" money compared to not using charging and using gasoline to get home...
 
#7 ·
Even if you add the residential electric costs for recharging the Volt, if you spent $2.23 you did not actually "save" money compared to not using charging and using gasoline to get home...
Sorry, I was not clear. I was saving money by charging instead of paying for parking. I could have taken the metro from Vienna but the ride would have been much longer on the Metro (twice the fare) and I would have had to pay for parking at the metro station. Now if I really wanted to charge for free, I could have parked at the Mosaic District for free and walked about 1 mile to the Dunn Loring Metro. Not the best choice since I had a suitcase!

I don't remember the price for a trip on the DC Metro. I know it varies, depending on where you go
It was off peak so it was $1,70 each way with a SmartTrip Card. I had 3 fares (r/t for me and 1 way for my son) so it was $5.10 total for the Metro. Still a bargain.

I did the same thing when I went in to see the 50th Anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Had a Dream Speech". That one was close, I grabbed the last spot that time. Since it was a weekend though charging was free.
 
#6 ·
Only Ari could find a place where charging was cheaper than parking, including a place where you could stop the charge remotely, so you don't pay for extra time you don't need. There are a lot of nice things you won't find anywhere else in Washington, DC. I don't remember the price for a trip on the DC Metro. I know it varies, depending on where you go, but I assume the charge plus the Metro ride was still cheaper than paying for parking. DC also has free monuments and museums, your taxes at work!
 
#8 ·
That's not a bad deal.

I wish ChargePoint would lower rates for Volt owners, since we're not drawing as much power as other EVs. Here in Austin, TX, almost all of the ChargePoint chargers are $2/hr with a 1 hour minimum. Bollucks. That's not cost effective for us Volt owners.

If they would price them at $1/hr for us, I'd be more inclined to use them. As it were, there are none at any place that I go right now anyway. I'd LOVE it if they'd get with some of the movie theaters around here and install a few!
 
#14 ·
Something else to consider about charging when the cost is commensurate with the price of gasoline: The reduced cost of wear and tear on the ICE components. One of the lesser discussed advantages of EVs over ICE vehicles in regards to cost of ownership is the decreased maintenance costs. We should know this as EV owners. If, over a prolonged period of time, I were to charge at $1/hr rather than using gasoline, I could be saving a significant amount of money.
 
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