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posted by
martyb
on Friday November 30 2018, @08:06PM
from the where-does-one-get-a-free-electric-car-to-use-at-these-charging-points? dept.
from the where-does-one-get-a-free-electric-car-to-use-at-these-charging-points? dept.
Free charging for electric cars will be available for customers at some Tesco stores from next year.
Tesco, in partnership with Volkswagen, plans to install almost 2,500 charging bays at up to 600 stores by 2020.
A standard 7 kW charger will be available for free, but drivers will have to pay for a faster service.
Customers will be able to leave their cars to charge while doing their shopping, which should give time for a "substantial" free charge, VW said.
Adding chargers to the supermarket parking lots will offer convenience for EV driving shoppers, and normalize EV use for others by increasing their visibility.
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Tesco and VW Plan Free Electric Car Charging Points
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday November 30 2018, @09:13PM (12 children)
Unless I seriously misunderstand something, the EV driver's "fuel" costs almost nothing.
The main "cost" is to pay for the installation and maintenance on the charging bay. But not so much for the electricity.
Okay, I'll go for that. "the rest of us" should only be allowed to drive cars that cost the same to refuel as an electric car costs to refuel.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:10PM (9 children)
Taking the average US price for e-juice, $0.12 / kWh, and attaching to the 100% efficient 7kW, gives us 7*0.12 = 84c per hour for shopping there.
So a fairly minor cost/benefit probably not worth getting stressed about. (Which doesn't mean eV drivers won't get into fist fights over the last charger spot!)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 01 2018, @03:02AM (2 children)
And instead of dashing in and out, the EV car owners will be more likely to linger, and lingering in a store leads to a greater probability of purchases. Sounds to me like very cheap and effective marketing.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday December 01 2018, @12:35PM (1 child)
That's if they actually go in the store at all! I'm guessing this will require some kind of proof of purchase / credit card scan / face recognition to discourage freeloaders.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday December 01 2018, @07:59PM
They might buy something in the store, but spend/kill more time elsewhere for a free charge. I can see people leaving their car here for hours and finally buying a few cans of beer before they leave. It might work in the USA where stores are a long way from anywhere else and no-one moves unless they are in their car, but in the UK most stores are within walking distance of plenty of other time-consuming locations (pubs, coffee shops etc) and even home. Many supermarket car-parks are the only sizeable one in town, it's a major problem, and I use my town's Tesco car park for any visit to town (everyone does) often buying nothing in Tescos itself.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Unixnut on Saturday December 01 2018, @10:31AM (5 children)
> Taking the average US price for e-juice, $0.12 / kWh, and attaching to the 100% efficient 7kW, gives us 7*0.12 = 84c per hour for shopping there.
It isn't quite so simple. For one you can't compare it directly with fuel prices, because they are taxed to the hilt. Something like 65% of the cost of fuel is just in taxes, not including the knock on effect in high taxes (high fuel prices, means high transport costs, means higher costs of items in the economy, which means higher VAT and other taxes received when those goods are bought/sold throughout the chain).
As for electricity, we in the UK have a "day charge" of (on average) 20p for electricity, even if we use 0kwh. Then our average uk cost of electricity is £0.1437 ($0.18) per kwh.
However as we know, charging is not 100% efficient, there will be loss in the charging unit itself, and then the battery only stores around 83% of the energy provided (the rest goes as heat), and this assumes a fresh new battery, not one on a few years old car, but for the sake of simplicity lets assume 100% efficiency across the system
If they install a 7kw charger per bay, and (I am assuming here) the EV will pull the full 7kw while charging, that translates to: (0.20/24) + (0.1437 * 7) = £1.01 ($1.29) per hour per bay in electricity costs.
However, there is also other costs. The infrastructure to install the charging points (you have to dig up the parking lot to install the points + cables, then resurface and repaint lines, etc...), and the wiring and certification, licensing fees to the companies who own the IP to the charging connectors, etc... then the ongoing maintenance (and policing, to prevent someone just leaving their car all day charging, while they go somewhere else, or for non EV cars to just use the parking spots).
Then there is the opportunity cost of the parking spaces. Unless this is done only in the large Tesco shops out in the countryside (with massive parking lots), then you could well find that most Tesco parking is highly restricted (space in the UK is at a premium). Every parking space turned into a charging point is a parking space that cannot be used by a normal car, and EVs take hours to charge, they are likely to take longer in the spot than a normal car, whose owner comes, shops, then leaves, freeing up space for the next shopper to spend money.
While you may get a bit more money by the EV owner loitering around for hours, waiting for their car to charge, you could have had $X times more normal people visit, park, do a full shop for what they need to buy, and leave.
> So a fairly minor cost/benefit probably not worth getting stressed about.
Not sure about it being "minor" cost, but I am sure Tesco ran the numbers and decided its worth trying (even if it is a loss, it may translate into "goodwill" from the EV owners, and "eco credentials"), or for all we know they are getting subsidies from the government to do it. There are too many variables to be sure about it without actually looking at their books.
> (Which doesn't mean eV drivers won't get into fist fights over the last charger spot!)
Oh yeah, nothing quite as bad as two EV drivers going at it over the last free charging spot, I've taken to calling it "EV Rage". Other things I've noticed about the EV driving culture:
- Its very predatory. Primarily trying out outsmart each other for the last charging point (or in some cases getting into arguments and fights over them), or (once they bag a charging point in town), leaving their car there as long as they can get away with. I've known people leave their EV's at free charging points in shopping areas, and then walk/cycle to work, leaving the cars there for the entire working day (and therefore denying the spots to visitors). Because EV charging spots are usually placed in the best parking areas in order to encourage EV car usage, I've known EV owners park up their nearly fully charged EVs at the charging points, plug them in and leave them there, just for the parking spot, vs having to park "with the rest of us" in poor parking spots.
- Everything revolves around ecking as much range out of their car as possible. I guess the 6+ hour charging time means you are obsessed about not running out of juice till you are home and your car is "done" for the day, and can be left plugged in overnight. So things like not using their lights long after it is wise to start using them, to not wanting to use the heating/air con, to even not allowing passengers to open the windows, because it reduces the range.
- Wherever they go, they beg for juice. Even when they come visit my place, they ask me to dangle a long extension cord so they can top up their car while visiting.
- Very entitled mindset, when free charging points around my town started charging for juice (still at a very subsidised rate), there was outrage in the local EV forum, about how they bought an EV and should not have to pay for the juice as well.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 01 2018, @06:01PM (3 children)
Every parking space turned into a charging point is a parking space that cannot be used by a normal car
It's a parking spot. Just because you're parked there doesn't men you have to be charging your car.
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(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday December 01 2018, @08:05PM (1 child)
You are under-estimating the sefl-entitled atttdude of EV drivers, hyped up by the notion that they are saving the planet. Expect reactions similar to those as if you had parked in a disabled spot (YouTube for those). OTOH I have never once seen a car in the EV charging bays (they are outside the public library) in my local town. They are a waste of valuable space.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday December 10 2018, @06:28PM
You're probably right. Here in Springfield, Illinois a Tesla would pollute far more than my Pontiac, and more than any internal combustion engine here. The reason is, the electricity is from a coal fired plant, so here, EVs run on coal.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday December 02 2018, @01:06AM
The "EV" spots I've seen in shopping centers thus far, whether charging or not, have prominent "EV Vehicles Only" signs — nobody else can park there, even if the person has a disabled placard and all of the disabled parking spots are taken.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Saturday December 01 2018, @08:25PM
With you except this. True that EV charging slots are usuall bang outside the entrance doors, even nearer than disabled slots sometimes. But am I the only person who prefers to park far from the building entrance? Because :-
1) I want to minimise the number of people potentially scraping past my car with shopping trolleys.
2) I like maximum likelihood of empty bays either side of me so I can get out, and load stuff in easier (UK parking slots are tiny).
3) I want to minimise the number of people looking into my car and possibly seeing valuable stuff or booze I have bought earlier.
4) I often sit in the car and eat sandwiches I have just bought in store and want to minimise the number of people gawping at me while I do.
5) When eating sandwiches ditto I prefer most other views to that of the store front door.
6) I often park in supermarkets just for the parking (see other posts on this point) and actually sneak off elsewhere in town. I'd rather this not be blatantly obvious to eg the security guy at the door.
7) My legs work so well that walking 100 yards is not a problem for me, nor is that time significant compared with the time in the store.
In fact, the positions of public charging bays is a factor that deters me from having an EV.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Saturday December 01 2018, @08:37PM (1 child)
You could say (in the UK anyway) that an IC driver's *fuel* costs almost nothing - most of the cost is taxes. EVs will only remain untaxed as long as there are not many of them; the Inland Revenue will not be able to satnd the massive cash hole if many people migrate to EVs. There will be a need for taxation by miles driven for EVs, possibly paid at charging time by electronically reading the odometer, and that will level things up a bit.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 03 2018, @02:58PM
The comment I was replying to about the EV fuel cost might have been thinking that other shoppers are unfairly subsidizing some high cost EV fuel rather than some minor marketing gimmick.
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