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Costco with AE charging station $0.61/kWhr

papiDR

papiDR

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Costco adding charging stations to their stores.
“The charging stations are integrated into the Electrify America charging network, enabling customers to seamlessly locate the stations and pay for charging sessions via the Electrify America app,” Electrify America said.

The open Costco stations are located in:

Clermont, Florida, 4600 Collina Terrace, with six Hyper-Fast chargers
Denver, Colorado, 4717 Airport Way, with six Hyper-Fast chargers
Loomis, California, 4107 Sierra College Blvd., with 14 Hyper-Fast chargers
Pleasanton, California, 7220 Johnson Drive, with 10 Hyper-Fast chargers
Sacramento, California, 3881 E Commerce Way, with 10 Hyper-Fast chargers
 

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I don’t understand the post’s title: 0.61kW?
 
Some places are charging up to 0.61kwh for super charge.
 

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papiDR said:
Some places arw charging up to 0.61kwh for super cbarge.
Click to expand...
This is where both units are critical information, given that '0.61 kwh' by it self is just a (fairly small) unit of energy.

You want '$0.61/kwh' which clarifies it as a cost per unit of energy.
 
Is it really $0.61/kWh? That’s pretty expensive. I would think Costco would provide better value.
 
Disappointing for Costco to charge a premium rate.
 
Saksak said:
Is it really $0.61/kWh? That’s pretty expensive. I would think Costco would provide better value.
Click to expand...

I would think Costco would want to provide better service than an EA charger.

The price may vary according to where the store is located as, unlike most of its products, electricity pricing is local.
 
Seems like that’s the same price I’ve seen at chargers from GM, Francis Energy, etc. Collusion!! 😜
 
DCFC are a strange business where customers want there to be a lot of them, all over the place, but then try their best to never use them. I think high prices are going to be the norm, for the convenience of having one where and when you need it.
 
Hammerthyme said:
DCFC are a strange business where customers want there to be a lot of them, all over the place, but then try their best to never use them. I think high prices are going to be the norm, for the convenience of having one where and when you need it.
Click to expand...
The general prices I’ve seen ($/kWh):

Home charging (PG&E northern CA): $0.30’s ($0.50’s 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm)
IONNA: $0.30’s
BP Pulse: $0.40’s
Tesla with subscription: $0.40’s
Tesla without subscription: $0.60’s
EA: $0.60’s

PG&E electricity buy rate: $0.003 ish

I’m just surprised Costco didn’t negotiate a better deal, such as partnering with IONNA instead of EA.
 
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Hammerthyme said:
DCFC are a strange business where customers want there to be a lot of them, all over the place, but then try their best to never use them. I think high prices are going to be the norm, for the convenience of having one where and when you need it.
Click to expand...
Exactly. The average gas pump can do 20 sales per hour when busy (and Costco gas stations usually are). That's a revenue capacity of around $600/hr.

The average DCFC can do about 2 sales per hour. 1/10th the revenue capacity per unit. And as you say, unlike gas, most customers refuel their EV at home.
 
Saksak said:
The general prices I’ve seen:

Home charging (PG&E northern CA): 30’s
IONNA: $0.30’s
BP Pulse: $0.40’s
Tesla with subscription: $0.40’s
Tesla without subscription: $0.60’s
EA: $0.60’s

I’m just surprised Costco didn’t negotiate a better deal, such as partnering with IONNA instead of EA.
Click to expand...
The EA price with subscription is usually in the $0.40's too. And it's a cheaper subscription than Tesla's.

The one that's really high is usually Pilot Flying J. Typically around $0.70. 🥺
 
Hammerthyme said:
DCFC are a strange business where customers want there to be a lot of them, all over the place, but then try their best to never use them. I think high prices are going to be the norm, for the convenience of having one where and when you need it.
Click to expand...
That's very true. Many, many have opened in my area in the past year, pretty much all the denominations, and they are all empty most of the time, even the 2 EA ones that always had a line not too long ago. My take is that more people have gotten home chargers as the free charging incentives from manufacturers have mostly disappeared. And supply has outpaced demand, at least in the urban areas.
While this proliferation is great, it's true that we want the convenience of having them but then we avoid using them.
My home rate after 10 pm is $0.14, PSEG LI.
 
These are nice, quite a few around SoCal and the central coast. Convenient.
 
Wish they would have partnered with Ionna or someone with a better reputation. Hopefully they're well maintained.

I typically spend a lot more time in Costco than I need to DC charge my vehicle. I think a large bank of L2 chargers would be the better choice over a small number of L3 chargers with shoppers sitting idle in them. Ideally we'd have both options.
 
My home rate at any time is 7.5 cents per kWh - pretty cheap. On my Tesla at Superchargers I almost always pay 34 cents, sometimes as high as 37 cents. Only time I paid more for charging was at Francis Energy and GM chargers on a road trip at they were both 61 cents.
 
You guys got me interested in looking at my rates.

In the north, my rates is $0.14/kWh.

In the south, my rate is $0.115/kWh. The TOU rate is about $0.245/kWh during peak times, $0.079/kWh during off peak hours. When I called about it, I asked how many people were using the TOU rates, and the rep said just about no one. He agreed it was an unattractive rate structure.
 
There are a couple of issues with DCFC by EA at Costco's:

  • If you have an EA membership plan, the Costco EA chargers do not get the lower rate (at least the one closest to me). Vehicles with free charging also cannot charge for free and must pay the full rate (currently $0.66 / kWh at the Chino location.)
  • DCFC at Costco doesn't really encourage charging and shopping as your session will be done typically before you're done shopping and then you will have to run out to your vehicle to move it QUICKLY before per minute idle charges kick in while abandoning your cart somewhere in the store.
  • When I've used EA in the past, they tend to be very crowded with one if not more non-functional stations. Perhaps crowded wouldn't apply to these locations as free charging and Pass Plus isn't available there. The one closest to me right now has 7 out of 10 available while many of the surrounding regular EA locations show FULL.

IMHO, what would be better would be banks of reasonably priced, maybe even member restricted like the gas station, Level 2 or cheaper 50kW chargers so you can "top up" while shopping. Most Costco "runs" for me last at least 1.5 hrs assuming I fill up myself with a 🌭or 🍕and a 🥤
 
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