CubsFanRon said:
I don't have to charge my car, I can simply drive on gasoline, so if the price of the corresponding electricity is more than the price of gasoline, I'll simply ignore the charging. I don't need it, EVER.
Where's Tony - I can see him now muttering "I'll just drive my Prius!" under his breath - or in this case - I'll just drive on gas! When in reality - you probably should expect to pay the equivalent of a 25 mpg car driven on gas. At $4/gallon that's 15c/mile which comes out to really close to $2/hour.
So if the charge keeps you from burning some gas on the way home - just do it!
A couple points:
1. You paid a huge price premium to have the option of driving electric or on gas with the Volt. Presumably you did this because you dislike burning gasoline for one reason or another. Presumably you'd be OK for paying $2/hour while shopping simply because this is not a lot of money - and public charging infrastructure is far from free.
2. Sure - we're talking about L2 here, but in real life an hour of L2 here and an hour of L2 there makes a big difference in EV range for those who
need it.. Case in point today - 2 hours of L2 let me drive 90 mostly freeway miles without worrying about range. 1 hour of L2 would have been enough to make the trip driven a lot more carefully.
3. If you're only charging for convenience and don't need it for the EV miles - why are you charging at all? There's a chance you may be preventing someone who _needs_ the charge to make it do their destination.
Is free charging at retail establishments a nice perk? Sure is! But at the same time I realize that installing and maintaining these charging stations is far from cheap and if you want to see this infrastructure stick around - expect to pay for it.
Perhaps a good compromise would be the hosting retailer offering discounted or free charging with a minimum purchase.
All that said - do I particularly
like paying $2/hour to charge at 240V/16A from a 32A capable station? No - biggest reason is that I feel that I'm paying twice as much as the 240V/32A capable vehicles - I think that cost to charge should be adjusted based on some combination of rate of charge, time spent charging and time spent plugged in (being plugged in and not charging prevents them from otherwise collecting money from actively charging customers).