GoE3, how does this make any sense?

[ebruceb]

Hey Guys this charge rate is designed for the 300 mile tesla to be out in July. 12.50 / 300 equals 4 cents a mile. Because of the varied range of cars the longest range one was choosen as an example. I hope that clears things up

 

[Luft]

You are the poster child for why many of the installed locations of DC fast chargers will fail.

Let me gues; you'll be happy to pay the wholesale rate of electricity from $50k - $100k of equipment, with $5000 per year insurance, demand charges of $25+ per kW, and in San Diego, what can be $1 per kWh for peak commercial energy.

Of course, that equipment needs somebody to fix and maintain it, etc.

Yep, you are it. Mr. Poster Child. Driving your Prius, so those rich DC charger guys will fail.

BTW, have you read this post? http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=8290&start=110#p185130

Therefore, in your mind, $2.50 is the "correct" price (and maybe still too high, I'm sure).

Good luck with that. All hail government handouts!!!!

Fine, then you tell me what we should tell people in order to convince them that EVs are good for more than the niche intercity transportation sector? Go ahead, make the argument because making personal attacks and insulting people by calling them a poster child for failure isn't going to work!

Just to get you started let me lay out a few facts and setup a scenario.

Fact: Realistically you will gain about 50 miles of range by using a DC QC station to bring your SOC up to 80%

Fact: A Prius can go about 50 miles on one gallon of gas.

Fact: A GMC Sierra 15 Hybrid 2WD can go about 21 miles on one gallon of gas.

Scenario: A man is considering purchasing a new automobile. He has narrowed his selection down to three cars. He will either purchase a Nissan LEAF, Toyota Prius or a GMC Sierra 15 Hybrid 2WD.

This man is what some call a snow bird. Each Winter he drives from Washington State to Phoenix Arizona. A trip of approximately 1400 miles. Then when the weather begins to get too hot he travels back to Washington State.

There are quick chargers along the entire trip so getting fuel is no problem. A 1400 mile trip will require 27 recharge sessions if he charges at his Washington home before he sets out.

He has a choice of either buying the LEAF that will need to be recharged 27 time at $12.50 each or he can buy the Prius that will require that he purchase 28 gallons of gas or he can buy the GMC Sierra that will require 67 gallons of gas.

Nissan LEAF: $337.50 @ 12.50 / session
GMC Sierra: $268.00 @ $4.00 / gallon
Toyota Prius: $112.00 @ $4.00 / gallon

Okay. Go ahead.... Convince the general public that purchasing an EV is in their best interests and won't restrict the buyer to in town use.

It would be a lot easier to convince the public that an EV was a good choice if the price of e-fuel was an incentive rather than a disincentive. Let's run the numbers again with the $2.50 per session price:

GMC Sierra: $268.00 @ $4.00 / gallon
Toyota Prius: $112.00 @ $4.00 / gallon
Nissan LEAF: $67.50 @ $2.50 / session

Gee, I'm thinking that AeroVironment's price structure might help Nissan sell their LEAF and I think that the selling of EVs might do wonders for the e-fuel business. And if it takes subsidies from the government to get the whole thing rolling that's fine. The oil cartels get subsidies every year directly and in ways that are hidden from the public.

I also think that your “just suck it up” attitude is what will result in a downward spiral for the EV market and cause failure.

 

[walterbays]

Fine, then you tell what we should tell people in order to convince them that EVs are good for more than the niche intercity transportation sector?

I think you and Tony are both right but are somehow talking past one another.

Right now EV's are a tiny portion of a niche: early adopter, risk takers, who live in a city close to work, in a region where charging infrastructure is being developed who don't take frequent road trips, who live in single family homes with a garage, who have a second gas car in the family. Widespread availability of QC, even at high prices, would allow EV's to grow to be a major portion of this niche. For people who might use QC once a month or so, it hardly matters whether it costs $2.50 or $12.50 as compared to an annual gasoline bill of $2,000. It's the availability of the QC that makes an EV dependable for them, and can greatly grow the EV market from its current tiny base.

For exurban drivers who regularly drive distances beyond the range of an EV, and for multi-family home residents who cannot charge at home, expensive QC would make no sense. Better for them to buy a PHEV or ICE. Low cost QC, no more expensive than gasoline, would make EV's a viable choice.

People who frequently drive long distances on the highway will be the last to switch to EV, after years of improvement in technology and infrastructure and years more increases in the price of oil. To become a capable inter-city road car, I fear not even an extensive network of free QC stations would do. On an occasional regional road trip the time spent stopping for QC would be "hidden" in the time spent stopping for driver breaks. But on an all day drive such stops would be a terrible annoyance.

 

[LEAFfan]

Fact: Realistically you will gain about 50 miles of range by using a DC QC station to bring your SOC up to 80%

Actually, your above statement is not a fact. It all depends on how and how fast you drive. For someone to only get 50 miles from an 80% QC would have to drive 75mph or over. Personally, I'm very comfortable driving 60mph (right lane) on a trip and will be able to go at least 70 miles, not 50. I guess people that drive 75 or over are in a hurry to die or be injured or kill/injure someone else. So IF they reach their destination, they will get there a whopping 15 minutes before someone driving 60mph...Whoopee! Fact: Your Prius will get less than 50m/g at 75mph. Anything over 60mph will reduce your mileage.

 

[TonyWilliams]

This man is what some call a snow bird. Each Winter he drives from Washington State to Phoenix Arizona. A trip of approximately 1400 miles. Then when the weather begins to get too hot he travels back to Washington State.

There are quick chargers along the entire trip so getting fuel is no problem. A 1400 mile trip will require 27 recharge sessions if he charges at his Washington home before he sets out.

He has a choice of either buying the LEAF that will need to be recharged 27 time at $12.50 each or he can buy the Prius that will require that he purchase 28 gallons of gas or he can buy the GMC Sierra that will require 67 gallons

First, this is idiotic. The LEAF is not the car for this trip. Pure and simple. Nor is a scooter, 10 speed bike, or any other number of "vehicles" that could make this trip "cheaper".

For you, I recommend you just "drive the Prius", don't support the cost of the infrastructure until it meets your arbitrary price point, and see how that works if everybody does that.

News flash: there is no connection with DC fast charger costs and the cost of gasoline in your Prius. As you have pointed out, it does in fact cost more, if DC quick charging were the only option. It's not. The composite cost to operate your car includes the extremely low cost (and low speed) of charging at home. Overall, even paying $12.50 for occasional DC charger use, your overall cost will likely be cheaper than a typical Prius trip. But, as stated, it may cost more.

So, for all you "just drive the Prius" folks (and there are plenty), I'd just keep doing that, and leave electric cars to others.

 

[DaveEV]

Personally, I'm very comfortable driving 60mph (right lane) on a trip and will be able to go at least 70 miles, not 50.

Assuming you go from 80% to a bit beyond LBW (between 10 and 1 bar) between QCs, that's about 13 kWh usable. To do that and drive 70 miles, you'll need to drive around 5.5 mi/kWh or better.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Maybe if you can drive 45 mph. But certainly not at 60 mph unless you've got a good tailwind or are going downhill.

More realistically, 60 mph might get you 4.5 mi/kWh on a good day (and less than 4.0 mi/kWh on a bad day) - that will get you 55 miles from 80% to LBW. At 65 mph 50 miles between QCs is a very good estimate. And the Prius will do very close to 50 mpg at 65 mph.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Okay. Go ahead.... Convince the general public that purchasing an EV is in their best interests and won't restrict the buyer to in town use.

Next news flash. That is precisely what they are best at.

 

[mkjayakumar]

To Luft:

Sure enough on a long distiance highway driving, Leaf comes out way expensive to charge than a Prius or even a gaz guzzler. But then that is a very myopic way of looking at it. What are you going to do once you reach your destination for the next several months ? You are going to keep driving local, and charging at your home right ? So you will recoup any losses you sustained during this long trip by many times over before you make the return trip.

Effectively in a years worth of driving the Leaf would come way ahead of any ICE car even with $12.50/hr of QC pricing, in your case.

I beleive the $12.50/hr pricing is not too bad, given then most of the EV drivers would be QCing once or twice a month, for that occaisional long trips.

This is how we should look at it: QCs are there for you as a convenience to keep going on your long trips in your Leaf and not depend on an ICE car. They are not there to save money. You are going to save many times over when you charge at home, which I presume for a typical American driver would be over 80% of their miles over a year.

 

[Luft]

This is how we should look at it: QCs are there for you as a convenience to keep going on your long trips in your Leaf and not depend on an ICE car. They are not there to save money. You are going to save many times over when you charge at home, which I presume for a typical American driver would be over 80% of their miles over a year.

I would use a $12.50 in an emergency but emergencies don't happen very often. So the thing we have to ask ourselves is "Can an e-fuel company make it if their customer base only uses their services once in a blue moon?"

We also need to ask ourselves what the effect will be on EV adoption when the GM ads come out comparing the price of longer trips in an EV against the cheaper longer trips in a gas guzzling SUV. I'm pretty sure that if people get the perception that not only does the LEAF have a limited range and cost more to purchase but for anything other than golf carting around town, travel in the LEAF is WAY too expensive, it's not going to help adoption. And if LEAF adoption is slowed the e-fuel business will suffer. And if the e-fuel business suffers then EV adoption will suffer and so on.

I haven't talked to AeroVironment personally so I'm just taking someone else's word that the prepaid sessions will cost $2.50. But if that is true then I don't understand the resistance to a pricing point that makes the LEAF viable for distance travel and breaks it out of the "around town golf cart" stereotype. I'm sure that even at this pricing point AeroVironment is going to make money. If there is one thing these guys know how to do it's make money. These charging stations are probably mostly paid for by the grant money that AeroVironment received which allows them to charge such a fair price for a session. Did GoE3 not get any grant money and therefore must charge a huge fee to use there chargers? Or did they receive grant money and are choosing to charge premium fees anyway? I'd sure like to know.

If Tony wants to spend $12.50 per session more power to him. I hope he single handily makes GoE3 rich beyond their wildest dreams. But for myself and most potential adopters that just isn't going to happen. It just isn't.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I haven't talked to AeroVironment personally so I'm just taking someone else's word that the prepaid sessions will cost $2.50. But if that is true then I don't understand the resistance to a pricing point that makes the LEAF viable for distance travel..... If there is one thing these guys know how to do it's make money. These charging stations are probably mostly paid for by the grant money that AeroVironment received which allows them to charge such a fair price...
If Tony wants to spend $12.50 per session more power to him. I hope he single handily makes GoE3 rich beyond their wildest dreams.

I want to thank you for so eloquently reinforcing my points;

1. I'd love to have free-to-me everything, including quick charging. I don't want to spend anything more than needed to sustain the business and give them enough incentive to stay in business; that is profit.

2. AeroVironment makes money "the old fashioned way"... Government hand outs (military contracts, EV chargers, etc). Please tell me what just INSURANCE costs for one of these units, and then tell me how many typical charge events a single DC charger might have. Let's see if we can even cover insurance, let alone electricity, demand fees, maintenance, profit, depreciation, etc.

That's with a FREE unit and FREE install.

3. That "fair" price is grossly subsidized by you and me, the tax payer. Providers who want to enter the market that aren't as well connected will never compete with $2.50. I doubt AV can sustain it even with everything else paid for by we tax payers.

 

[mkjayakumar]

To Luft:

Comparing long distance driving between Leaf and ICE cars is outright silly. Leaf is not meant for frequent long distance trips. An occasional long trip is possible and is made feasible through these QCs. That's all.

 

[DaveEV]

Comparing long distance driving between Leaf and ICE cars is outright silly. Leaf is not meant for frequent long distance trips. An occasional long trip is possible and is made feasible through these QCs. That's all.

Exactly. You're not going to be using these more than a couple times a month at most. If you are - you're doing it wrong.

I expect to pay ~2-3x the cost of electricity for a DC QC. Yes, it will be more expensive than driving the Prius. But I didn't buy the LEAF solely to reduce operational costs. I bought it because of zero tailpipe emissions and reduced overall emissions.

If business owners can't at least break even on the stations, they won't be around long enough to use. And because of the limited energy density of batteries, we definitely need these to allow us to put more EV miles in.

 

[mkjayakumar]

On the contrary I bought the Leaf for pure economic reasons to save money on Gas and the driving experience. And I will get that even if I QC two or three times a month. QCs give you the following:

- The ability to to do an occasional long trip
- Reduce range anxiety
- help in emergencies

And to answers Luft's question: companies will get enough business at $12.50/hr to make it even - my hunch.

 

[Luft]

To Luft:

Comparing long distance driving between Leaf and ICE cars is outright silly. Leaf is not meant for frequent long distance trips. An occasional long trip is possible and is made feasible through these QCs. That's all.

Not at all. I'm compating what ICE vehicles offer the next generation of prospective EV adopters. And we're not talking about "frequent" long trips just one or two per year. And who says that the LEAF must be pigeon holed into a niche intercity transportation market?

 

[TonyWilliams]

who says that the LEAF must be pigeon holed into a niche intercity transportation market?

Every LEAF driver that decides that paying for a quick charge is too expensive, and instead drives their Prius.

 

[EVDrive]

My price point for using a QC is $6 per half hour. $12 per hour. $2:50 is too low, $12:50 is too high in my opinion for charging the Leaf for 30 minutes. The market will work this out though. As we get cars with bigger batteries than the Leaf, then $12:50 starts to seem like a great price for a charge.

I really hope we can tap a dealer network soon as well for QCing. If we could pay for dealer charging, they wouldn't feel burned by having to give away juice. I prefer to pay a fair price for a service.

 

[Luft]

I think you and Tony are both right but are somehow talking past one another.

Well I think Tony and I want the same things. For EVs and e-fuel providers to succeed so that our country can break free of our oil addiction. We just don't see eye to eye on how that can happen.

Unfortunately Tony resorts to rude name calling and likes to make untrue assumptions about what I think. I'm afraid it doesn't take too much of that to make me lose all respect for the man.

Right now EV's are a tiny portion of a niche: early adopter, risk takers, who live in a city close to work, in a region where charging infrastructure is being developed who don't take frequent road trips, who live in single family homes with a garage, who have a second gas car in the family. Widespread availability of QC, even at high prices, would allow EV's to grow to be a major portion of this niche.

I mostly agree. But I do have concerns that high prices for QC will cause usage to be so low that the e-fuel providers won't be able to remain in business. I understand Tony's point that the equipment is expensive although his $50,000 quote that may have been accurate just a few years ago it is an exaggeration now days. And for better or worse there have been hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants given out to help pay for this infrastructure.

It burns me that companies who have taken millions of grant dollars should be allowed to kill EV adoption by setting premium prices as if they are trying to recoup their investments on equipment that the tax payer has already paid for.

For people who might use QC once a month or so, it hardly matters whether it costs $2.50 or $12.50 as compared to an annual gasoline bill of $2,000. It's the availability of the QC that makes an EV dependable for them, and can greatly grow the EV market from its current tiny base.

Agreed. But again will the once a month people generate enough revenue for the e-fuel companies to survive? I fear that it will not.

Really I think it would be better for the e-fuel business to have people thinking "Oh, I'm down to half a charge and I really want to go to that shop across town. Better stop and grab a $2.50 charge so that I don't have to worry about not making it home." Rather than "Oh, I'm down to half a charge and I really wanted to go to that shop across town. Damn short ranged EV." And then not get the charge because $12.50 for a charge just isn't worth it so they go home hating their limited range. I'm talking about making charging sessions a good enough value that people think nothing of using a QC every few days instead of just once a month.

For exurban drivers who regularly drive distances beyond the range of an EV, and for multi-family home residents who cannot charge at home, expensive QC would make no sense. Better for them to buy a PHEV or ICE. Low cost QC, no more expensive than gasoline, would make EV's a viable choice.

Exactly. Expensive QC would make no sense but a $2.50 charging session might make a lot of sense.

People who frequently drive long distances on the highway will be the last to switch to EV, after years of improvement in technology and infrastructure and years more increases in the price of oil. To become a capable inter-city road car, I fear not even an extensive network of free QC stations would do. On an occasional regional road trip the time spent stopping for QC would be "hidden" in the time spent stopping for driver breaks. But on an all day drive such stops would be a terrible annoyance.

I totally agree. What would help these people would be batteries that had much longer range and the ability to be quick charged in just a few minutes. That may someday be possible but may take many years to develop.

 

[Luft]

My price point for using a QC is $6 per half hour. $12 per hour. $2:50 is too low, $12:50 is too high in my opinion for charging the Leaf for 30 minutes. The market will work this out though. As we get cars with bigger batteries than the Leaf, then $12:50 starts to seem like a great price for a charge.

I really hope we can tap a dealer network soon as well for QCing. If we could pay for dealer charging, they wouldn't feel burned by having to give away juice. I prefer to pay a fair price for a service.

Well, if AeroVironment can offer charging sessions for $2.50 I'm not going to turn them down.

Even if I have to prepay and they expire after a reasonable amount of time that would be okay with me. And if AeroVironment offers a roll over plan like some cell phone plans that would be even better!

Absolutely once the battery packs start getting larger it won't seem so bad to pay more. It would be nice if we could get the laws changed so that we could pay based on kWh instead of sessions. That way a person with a small battery won't get ripped off. I see a future where there will be a wide range of battery sizes.

 

[Herm]

These companies wont pay back their investments at $2.50, $6.50, $12.50 or even $24.50.. so they might as well not scare off future EV owners and keep the price low. The only possible way for them to survive is a subscription model that is not too scary.. say $100 a year.

 

[Luft]

These companies wont pay back their investments at $2.50, $6.50, $12.50 or even $24.50.. so they might as well not scare off future EV owners and keep the price low. The only possible way for them to survive is a subscription model that is not too scary.. say $100 a year.

A low cost subscription model that is high enough for the e-fuel companies to make a reasonable profit and low enough to advance the EV market would be great. I think $100 per year would be too low for e-fuel companies to survive. In Japan they are trying $38.00 per month. Once EVs take a large percentage of the customer base subscription prices could probably be lowered but I don't know how far.

It's just that for the next generation of EV adopters, the ones that are not enthusiasts, their needs to be real value in driving electric.

One would think that because of the high cost of gasoline and the fact that the oil companies are making obscene, record breaking profits that getting people behind a competing mode of transportation would be a no brainer.

Unfortunately the real cost of gasoline is being hidden from the public. If you add in the oil subsidies and the cost of the wars that are fought to keep the oil flowing, a gallon of gas would be much higher.