Walgreens chargers no longer free?

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Oliverovan

Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2012
Messages
15
Location
Arvada, CO
I got the prompt to "please scan card" when I pulled up the the Federal Heights store.
When did this happen?
I called the manufacturer and found out this was a decision by the owner and not Walgreens.
The quote I got was it'll be 49 cents/kWh and you have to purchase a card with $20.00 on it to start,
By my calculation that's ~ 4-5x the price I pay Xcel for my home electricity and essentially more expensive than GAS!
I think its a poor choice and will make these great assets to the EV infrastructure in the Denver metro area a dusty unused waste.
It's an ill timed and wrong headed move by the "owner" of these Charge Pros.
I say we wage a full fledged and very public boycott of Walgreens to protest this atrocity.
Thoughts?

-Mike
 
Oliverovan said:
I got the prompt to "please scan card" when I pulled up the the Federal Heights store.
When did this happen?
I called the manufacturer and found out this was a decision by the owner and not Walgreens.
The quote I got was it'll be 49 cents/kWh and you have to purchase a card with $20.00 on it to start,
By my calculation that's ~ 4-5x the price I pay Xcel for my home electricity and essentially more expensive than GAS!
I think its a poor choice and will make these great assets to the EV infrastructure in the Denver metro area a dusty unused waste.
It's an ill timed and wrong headed move by the "owner" of these Charge Pros.
I say we wage a full fledged and very public boycott of Walgreens to protest this atrocity.
Thoughts?

-Mike

fyi, even at 49 cents per kwh, purchasing, installing, maintaining, and operating those stations is still not a profitable business...You can't compare home electricity price to public charging price; it's apples and oranges...

If the charging vendor can't make any money, who will replace the J1772 connector when it gets damaged, who will answer the phone at the help desk, who will service the unit, etc? They need to charge more than your home price of energy to offer decent public charging service.

Here's another analogy...How much is a serving of Coke in your house from the store vs. at the vending machine, ball game, movie theater, etc? Using your logic, shouldn't every seller of Coke have to sell that 12 ounce serving for 25 cents to be "fair" with the "at home" price?
 
Randy said:
Oliverovan said:
I got the prompt to "please scan card" when I pulled up the the Federal Heights store.
When did this happen?
I called the manufacturer and found out this was a decision by the owner and not Walgreens.
The quote I got was it'll be 49 cents/kWh and you have to purchase a card with $20.00 on it to start,
By my calculation that's ~ 4-5x the price I pay Xcel for my home electricity and essentially more expensive than GAS!
I think its a poor choice and will make these great assets to the EV infrastructure in the Denver metro area a dusty unused waste.
It's an ill timed and wrong headed move by the "owner" of these Charge Pros.
I say we wage a full fledged and very public boycott of Walgreens to protest this atrocity.
Thoughts?

-Mike

fyi, even at 49 cents per kwh, purchasing, installing, maintaining, and operating those stations is still not a profitable business...You can't compare home electricity price to public charging price; it's apples and oranges...

If the charging vendor can't make any money, who will replace the J1772 connector when it gets damaged, who will answer the phone at the help desk, who will service the unit, etc? They need to charge more than your home price of energy to offer decent public charging service.

Here's another analogy...How much is a serving of Coke in your house from the store vs. at the vending machine, ball game, movie theater, etc? Using your logic, shouldn't every seller of Coke have to sell that 12 ounce serving for 25 cents to be "fair" with the "at home" price?


Yeah well a coke machine doesn't earn its owner a huge special tax break for installing it....

Yet another reason using for-profit middlemen to install these things makes little financial sense. They can only be profitable if they charge near or more the equivalent price of gasoline. At that tipping point you may as well get a Prius. Especially if public charging is your only option (city dweller....).

The point for Walgreen's wasn't to make money on these things, but to attract business, like Whole Foods. Marketing merchandise inside, not electricity outside. Charging money for the L2s only pisses customers off. Why bother. If Walgreen's wants unused chargers sitting in their lots, that's their loss.
 
Randy said:
Here's another analogy...How much is a serving of Coke in your house from the store vs. at the vending machine, ball game, movie theater, etc? Using your logic, shouldn't every seller of Coke have to sell that 12 ounce serving for 25 cents to be "fair" with the "at home" price?
Interesting question.

How much does it cost to fill your gas tank at home?

Maybe it depends what the intent of these charge stations is. If its for emergency use when you are away from home and misjudged, then maybe its ok to charge much more than electricity cost to be able to get home.

If you don't charge at home and were hoping to save a few dollars by charging elsewhere, that won't work, seems fair to charge something reasonably more than cost.

However, the biggest issue with most BEVs today is range. You can't compare 73 miles to 300 miles in a typical ICE. It is the single biggest drawback to owning a BEV and the biggest reason why people do not buy them.

The promise of charge stations is to allow us to travel beyond the range we can get from a charge at home.

If charging away from home becomes prohibitively expensive, and clearly more expensive than owning an ICE and buying gas at gas stations who also presumably profit from the sale, then it will kill the potential of BEVs to extend their range. It will kill hope of being able to work around the limited range of BEVs.

BEVs are far from certain success. The batteries are outrageously expensive. The range is much too short. GM and others continue to lobby to roll back CARB standards. This house of cars could still fall.

If charge station operators attempt to charge too much too early, it will choke off the EV market. At sufficiently high prices, it will not be remotely economical nor practical to travel distances that are easy for an ICE.

That leave Tesla with 200-300 mile range with free superchargers as the only game in town. Nothing else will be practical.

The EV market needs time to grow. It needs nurturing including tax incentives and battery research grants. Counter that with special state taxes against EVs and higher than equivalent gas cost charge stations and the market is likely to wither. These charge station operators will be left with little to show for it other than presumably some sort of tax credit.
 
Oliverovan said:
I called the manufacturer and found out this was a decision by the owner and not Walgreens.

I say we wage a full fledged and very public boycott of Walgreens to protest this atrocity.
Thoughts?
My thoughts: :roll:
 
hyperlexis said:
... 49 cents per kwh... At that tipping point you may as well get a Prius. Especially if public charging is your only option (city dweller....).

Having been on this forum a while now, the Just-Drive-The-Prius(TM) argument is well worn. I'll stick with EVs and if I need power while "in the wild", I'll get some expensive electrons if I need them and support the public infrastructure.

At some point, many years from now, hopefully there won't be cars that burn oil that you can drive.
 
I happily pay $10 to RV parks when they let me charge at their facilities. That's about 20 kwh's worth at $.50/kwh, right?

Why "happily"? Because I NEED them to get where I want to go when I leave town. When (if ever) Walgreens puts EVSE's in Fresno, California I'll be glad to pay $.50/kwh to use them whenever I need them.

A couple of other thoughts -- didn't we discuss in other threads that paying to park at the EVSE's may help keep them from being ICE'd so much? I still agree with that idea.

Finally, when EVSE's are everywhere, they will be more subject to market forces. But just like gas stations, if an area only has one, and you need it, they can charge a premium. Give them time, the EVSE thing should work itself out.

Just my 2 cents :D
 
Randy3 said:
... paying to park at the EVSE's may help keep them from being ICE'd so much? I still agree with that idea.

Not only not ICE'd, but not using the spot to charge your EV when you really don't need it, which makes it available for folks who DO NEED IT !!!

So, to the OP, just drive you oil car, or boycott Walgreens, or whatever you want, and the rest of us will be very happy to use that available charge station when we need it.

Even if I had to pay $2 per kWh, it is still cheaper than oil. How, you ask? Because I normally charge at home for almost "free" (solar), but let's say 12 cents per kWh (national average).

So, my 24,000 miles per year average driving is $960 per year (24,000 / 3 mile/kWh = 8000kWh burnt * 12.0 cents per kWh),

and my one visit to Walgreens for 20kWh (that would be rare that I'd want to hang out there that long, however) at $2/kWh (2 * 20) = $40. My effective cost of power for the year is $960 + $40 = $1000.

1000 / 8000 = 12.5 cents per kWh

I'll pay the extra one half penny.
 
Want free charging?

Buy a Tesla and use the Superchargers - free for life, or at least that is what Elon says. ;)
 
We have some gas stations with automated car washs. The basic wash is like $5, unless you buy like 10 gallons of gas, then you get a code for a free wash.

Walgreens and others could run something similar as a promotion.
 
DNAinaGoodWay said:
We have some gas stations with automated car washs. The basic wash is like $5, unless you buy like 10 gallons of gas, then you get a code for a free wash.

Walgreens and others could run something similar as a promotion.
This is certainly an interesting idea. But does the charging infrastructure support this? I haven't heard of this being offered by any of the major players.

Could be done today in a labor-intensive way (where charging company verifies purchase via a scan/picture of a receipt). In the future, this discount could be provided with a one time use RFID card, or for some stations, a code you enter on the screen.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Randy3 said:
... paying to park at the EVSE's may help keep them from being ICE'd so much? I still agree with that idea.

Not only not ICE'd, but not using the spot to charge your EV when you really don't need it, which makes it available for folks who DO NEED IT !!!

So, to the OP, just drive you oil car, or boycott Walgreens, or whatever you want, and the rest of us will be very happy to use that available charge station when we need it.

Even if I had to pay $2 per kWh, it is still cheaper than oil. How, you ask? Because I normally charge at home for almost "free" (solar), but let's say 12 cents per kWh (national average).

So, my 24,000 miles per year average driving is $960 per year (24,000 / 3 mile/kWh = 8000kWh burnt * 12.0 cents per kWh),

and my one visit to Walgreens for 20kWh (that would be rare that I'd want to hang out there that long, however) at $2/kWh (2 * 20) = $40. My effective cost of power for the year is $960 + $40 = $1000.

1000 / 8000 = 12.5 cents per kWh

I'll pay the extra one half penny.

It's cool you would rather burn money than oil (good for you!), but a lot of Walgreen's chargers run by Chargepoint do not, can not, bill the user by kWh. Rather it's a flat time rate. $2 minimum charge for 1 hour minimum use. ($8 for 4 hour charge = approx $4 per gallon gasoline equivalent). I don't know anyone who spends a whole hour at a Walgreen's unless he works there. So the normal 10 minute visit will still cost you the $2 minimum fee for a very small amount of power off an L2 station. In English that's called a rip-off. Sure if you were desperate, in an absolute emergency, you could sit there in your Leaf for an hour squeezing every last drop out of that $2 fee, but for normal use, its simply not economical when compared to the equivalent amount of energy obtained from $2 worth of gasoline (approx. 1/2 gallon).

That's part of the equation that EV buyers will be looking at. Why should I pay full sales tax on a $35k vehicle, (or be forced to lease) when even the chargers at Walgreen's will charge me more than an equivalent amount of gasoline. One of the biggest selling points of EVs is that while the upfront costs are high, charging the vehicle is extremely low cost, if not free. And again, most people in cities, rely on public chargers. Period. Screw that market base at your peril.

Walgreen's is making a huge mistake charging for using these units and will, rightfully, get very little store traffic as a result. No need to boycott them -- most people simply wouldn't bother using them and their chargers will sit there unused.
 
I too ran into the Walgreens charging-for-charging situation last weekend here in Colorado. My beef was the poor roll-out method. We arrive at the Walgreens in Castle Rock and find out when we plug it in. No announcement, no directions for how to pay for a charge, and of course no one in the store was told anything. I find the 800 number with a web search and call that - only to find that the charge-by-phone system had a broken link to the credit card validation. When I called their help line the live people didn't know that there even was a charge-by-phone system. The charge-by-phone was fixed yesterday when we charged @ Walgreens in Highland Ranch. But you still have to learn the number via some other method as it is not on the station itself.

Otherwise I'm definitely disappointed as the Walgreens charge station network is the best network in Colorado right now. We had intentionally diverted a lot of our business to Walgreens despite their generally higher prices, that of course will stop now. But we won't boycott them. I'm still glad that the stations are there when we really need them. And ironically I'm probably going to pay less given that I won't be paying Walgreen's higher prices for goods and I charge at their stations infrequently (maybe 1-2 times a month).

And of course I've ordered a couple SemaCharge RFID cards.
 
Who sits around at walgreens for three hours anyway? FTS, if that's the ev story you're never going to move down the adoption pyramid beyond the enthusiasts in the pointy little section at the top as long as there are barrels to be fracked.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Who sits around at walgreens for three hours anyway? FTS, if that's the ev story you're never going to move down the adoption pyramid beyond the enthusiasts in the pointy little section at the top as long as there are barrels to be fracked.

We don't. Walgreens doesn't mind letting you park there while doing other stuff. Most Walgreens are located in shopping centers where you are walking distance to restaurants and retail - often entertainment too. Those of us who do biking and running find that the Walgreens with charging stations are often near trailheads.
 
Exactly. Walgreens gets very little return on the investment... It is not a sustainable model.

cgaydos said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Who sits around at walgreens for three hours anyway? FTS, if that's the ev story you're never going to move down the adoption pyramid beyond the enthusiasts in the pointy little section at the top as long as there are barrels to be fracked.
We don't. Walgreens doesn't mind letting you park there while doing other stuff. Most Walgreens are located in shopping centers where you are walking distance to restaurants and retail - often entertainment too. Those of us who do biking and running find that the Walgreens with charging stations are often near trailheads.
 
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