Costco with AE charging station $0.61/kWhr

[Saksak]

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.

TOU rates are attractive to EV owners, where EV’s are charged at night. Having an EV doubles or triples my electric bill. That is offset by gas savings, where my electric cost per mile is about 1/3 to 1/2 of gas cost per mile ($0 now that I have solar).

I’m in northern CA with PG&E, and the alternative to TOU is a tiered cost structure based on consumption. EV charging would blow that out of the water and would rapidly put me in the highest tier, worse than TOU.

CA rates are crazy compared to other states, though.

 

[L-Dude]

TOU rates are attractive to EV owners, where EV’s are charged at night. Having an EV doubles or triples my electric bill. That is offset by gas savings, where my electric cost per mile is about 1/3 to 1/2 of gas cost per mile ($0 now that I have solar).

I’m in northern CA with PG&E, and the alternative to TOU is a tiered cost structure based on consumption. EV charging would blow that out of the water and would rapidly put me in the highest tier, worse than TOU.

CA rates are crazy compared to other states, though.

In my southern home, we def use more power during the day when it is hot and the AC is working hard. At night, we use far less power. Paying twice as much for daytime power to get a minor break on rates at night doesn't make sense at all, which is why no one opts for the local TOU rate.

 

[doubletwist]

In my southern home, we def use more power during the day when it is hot and the AC is working hard. At night, we use far less power. Paying twice as much for daytime power to get a minor break on rates at night doesn't make sense at all, which is why no one opts for the local TOU rate.

I did because we're charging two cars overnight.

I also started pre-cooling the house in the early morning before the higher rate kicks in, which had done a pretty good job. Basically, it's worked out that adding the two EVs charging every night has not increased our monthly electricity spend at all vs the non-TOU plan we were on before.

 

[dbsb3233]

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

Yep, these chargers are owned by Costco, not EA, so Costco sets the rates (and gets any revenue generated), so the EA membership doesn't apply.

Agree that some cheaper low power chargers would be a better fit for this type of application.

 

[kopik]

Actually EA stations at Costco in NorCal have always been expensive. And at some point, without any notice, they even dropped out of the Lucid's free EA charging network. Only a few months later they put up signs about no free charging...

 

[hmp10]

EA chargers of today are not the EA chargers of yesterday.

I had trouble charging on two separate occasions just over a year ago at the EA chargers at University Town Center Mall in Sarasota, Florida. The third time I stopped there some months later they had just installed all new equipment. I could only try one of the six chargers, as the other five were in use. But the sixth one was dead as a doornail.

Shortly afterward, I heard the Walmart on Collier Blvd. in Naples had installed new EA chargers. So I made a trek to see how that would go. The Gravity balked with the plug-and-charge on the first two attempts. When I finally got a charging session underway I got a whopping 92 kW charge rate on a 40% SOC. There was only one other car charging at the location.

No thanks. As much as I dislike Tesla for several reasons, their Superchargers are now my go-to charging choice. I don't even bother tracking what other charge providers are doing these days.

 

[dbsb3233]

I had trouble charging on two separate occasions just over a year ago at the EA chargers at University Town Center Mall in Sarasota, Florida. The third time I stopped there some months later they had just installed all new equipment. I could only try one of the six chargers, as the other five were in use. But the sixth one was dead as a doornail.

Shortly afterward, I heard the Walmart on Collier Blvd. in Naples had installed new EA chargers. So I made a trek to see how that would go. The Gravity balked with the plug-and-charge on the first two attempts. When I finally got a charging session underway I got a whopping 92 kW charge rate on a 40% SOC. There was only one other car charging at the location.

No thanks. As much as I dislike Tesla for several reasons, their Superchargers are now my go-to charging choice. I don't even bother tracking what other charge providers are doing these days.

That's some pretty bad luck. EA is still not as dependable as SCs or Ionna, but it's improved greatly. I'd say I'm running about 80-90% on first attempts now. I guess after 6 years of dealing with EA, moving over to the next one was just so common that I don't even think much about it anymore, but I've rarely needed to do that in the last couple of years. And we use EA a lot (although often the same dozen stations over and over).

But it really is a station-by-station thing. There are still some chronically bad stations. And we know to plan around those on our regular routes. For instance, we know to skip over Cedar City UT, which has been a mess for years.

Of course, that's also why we got a Gravity in the longest range trim... so we only have to charge 2-3 times in a 600+ mile day instead of 4-5.

 

[hmp10]

That's some pretty bad luck. EA is still not as dependable as SCs or Ionna, but it's improved greatly. I'd say I'm running about 80-90% on first attempts now. I guess after 6 years of dealing with EA, moving over to the next one was just so common that I don't even think much about it anymore, but I've rarely needed to do that in the last couple of years. And we use EA a lot (although often the same dozen stations over and over).

But it really is a station-by-station thing. There are still some chronically bad stations. And we know to plan around those on our regular routes. For instance, we know to skip over Cedar City UT, which has been a mess for years.

Of course, that's also why we got a Gravity in the longest range trim... so we only have to charge 2-3 times in a 600+ mile day instead of 4-5.

That squares with what I've heard from other EA users.

However, can you imagine how any gas station chain would fare with that kind of record with fill-up attempts? And, in their case, there would be a competitor available nearby to use instead.

 

[Pragmatic]

My EA experience lately has been nearly 100% plug and charge (can't remember last time it did not work). Now that free charging is gone I never wait. Downsides are pricing is not the lowest. Generally I'll stop at whatever network has the most convient location (EA, Vialynk, SmartCharge, RAN) I'm fairly agnostic. I usually only charge enough to make it to my destination. Since I'm comfortable arriving at my destination with less than 5% that means I only need to DCFC if going over 300 miles (AWD Pure). If driving less than 400 miles I don't care about price. I'm getting less than 30kw-hrs and cost differential is less than $10.

 

[dbsb3233]

That squares with what I've heard from other EA users.

However, can you imagine how any gas station chain would fare with that kind of record with fill-up attempts? And, in their case, there would be a competitor available nearby to use instead.

Oh yeah, it's definitely not as dependable as gas stations. Almost no DCFC is, although Ionna has gotten pretty close (their chargers and card readers have been dependable for us but we've only used Ionna 4 times so far).

DCFC is still in it's first decade, while gas stations have evolved and been perfected for a century. And because of low throughput and no on-site personnel (the opposite of gas), problems aren't reported and addressed nearly as quickly as they are with gas. They're also low revenue (or money-losers) compared to gas stations thus there's less incentive to spend a lot of money to fix them.

Plus with DCFC, it's not as simple, or uniform. Some people use P&C, some people use credit card, some people use the app in order to get the membership discount. More potential failure points than gas. Gas pretty much pumps as one universal speed too, while DCFC is far more variable, limited by both the chargers/station and the car itself. Again, more potential failure points. Sometimes it's really the car slowing it down but people assume it's the charger, adding to the bad rep.

Sometimes it is the charger/station though. And no doubt EA is still less dependable than SCs and Ionna. For me I still usually choose EA over SCs because there's still so many V2s on my common routes which won't work at all. I usually sign up for a month of membership discount for each trip, which means I'm picking one or the other (SC or EA). Because of all the V2 dead zones, I usually end up picking EA. If/when Tesla finally upgrades nearly all of the rural V2s, that would probably jump ahead of EA for me.

 

[mlaviano]

EA chargers of today are not the EA chargers of yesterday.

Thankfully!!

 

[Aka-none]

I had trouble charging on two separate occasions just over a year ago at the EA chargers at University Town Center Mall in Sarasota, Florida. The third time I stopped there some months later they had just installed all new equipment. I could only try one of the six chargers, as the other five were in use. But the sixth one was dead as a doornail.

Shortly afterward, I heard the Walmart on Collier Blvd. in Naples had installed new EA chargers. So I made a trek to see how that would go. The Gravity balked with the plug-and-charge on the first two attempts. When I finally got a charging session underway I got a whopping 92 kW charge rate on a 40% SOC. There was only one other car charging at the location.

No thanks. As much as I dislike Tesla for several reasons, their Superchargers are now my go-to charging choice. I don't even bother tracking what other charge providers are doing these days.

I haven’t done that many trips but all of the Walmart chargers worked and had competitive retail pricing; multiple directions.

 

[dbsb3233]

I used a SC in Ely NV last week (first SC I've used in a while). First time in the Gravity other than a local test 7 months ago. P&C didn't work. Had to pull out the phone app and start the session with the Tesla app.

There is a message showing on my Lucid app saying "Lucid Charging Service disabled. Verify your payment method". I think it may have popped up when I tried that P&C, and it's still there. I just click on it and it takes me to the Lucid Wallet webpage, where my current credit card info is already in there. Ended up deleting it and re-adding. Charging service said it's restored now. Not sure what that was all about.

 

[doubletwist]

There is a message showing on my Lucid app saying "Lucid Charging Service disabled. Verify your payment method". I think it may have popped up when I tried that P&C, and it's still there. I just click on it and it takes me to the Lucid Wallet webpage, where my current credit card info is already in there. Ended up deleting it and re-adding. Charging service said it's restored now. Not sure what that was all about.

It's just a bug in the app. It happened to me a couple times about a year ago, but it hasn't happened since.

 

[mike1121]

It's just a bug in the app. It happened to me a couple times about a year ago, but it hasn't happened since.

Had this happen several times on our road trip this weekend when I used the Tesla app to initiate the charge via membership vs P&C with the Lucid.

 

[dbsb3233]

Had this happen several times on our road trip this weekend when I used the Tesla app to initiate the charge via membership vs P&C with the Lucid.

Yeah, since I was only doing one SC charge that trip, I thought I'd just use the more convenient P&C and forgo the discount. But when that failed and I had to activate through the Tesla app anyway, I went ahead and paid the $12.99 for this month, and charged a little longer so I actually saved a couple of dollars. The battery is so big on the Gravity that even just one charge can recover the $12.99 membership fee for one month. This station was a 19c difference.

The other 7 DCFCs that trip were EA, Ionna, and one small top-up at Pilot Flying-J.

 

[mike1121]

Yeah, since I was only doing one SC charge that trip, I thought I'd just use the more convenient P&C and forgo the discount. But when that failed and I had to activate through the Tesla app anyway, I went ahead and paid the $12.99 for this month, and charged a little longer so I actually saved a couple of dollars. The battery is so big on the Gravity that even just one charge can recover the $12.99 membership fee for one month. This station was a 19c difference.

Absolutely. We did about 4 charging stops so it paid for itself many times over