Another odd feature of electricity bills is the demand charge, a fee paid by EV charging site hosts that is based on the highest usage in any 15-minute to hourly interval during the billing period. These demand charges help utilities address the various costs of building and maintaining the power grid. But in the context of EV charging, this is frustrating because some chargers are rarely used, but when they are, they require a lot of power for a short period of time. This leads to demand charges.
These demand fees can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for certain sites, said Rachel Moses, head of sales, marketing and business development for Electrify America.
On the other hand, some utilities charge higher “peak” rates, or rates for times when more people use electricity. This means that it tends to be more expensive for charging facilities to provide electricity between 4pm and 9pm, when everyone has gone home, turned on the TV, air conditioner, or heater, and maybe plugged their car in. As a result, charging prices can be a bit unpredictable.
Electrify America says its pricing is “station-by-station,” meaning stations with higher operating costs charge customers more, but other EV charging companies take a broader approach, averaging out operating costs across their networks to set prices over larger areas.
In addition, companies dynamic The price of EV charging is a fixed price, so it is subject to change. Fortunately, there are limits to this strategy: The country’s rules on funding public charging infrastructure mean that chargers built with public funds cannot change their price while a car is charging, even if the price companies pay for electricity changes.
So right now it’s hard to predict how much you’ll pay to charge at a public fast charger, which is understandably frustrating for drivers.
New gas station?
but Should Will drivers be frustrated? It may be frustrating not knowing exactly how much you’ll pay to charge your car at a public fast-charging station, but that doesn’t fully reflect most people’s EV experience.
The real benefit of owning an electric car is that, while gasoline is only available at gas stations, cars can be charged in a variety of places: at home, at the grocery store, at work. Not all of these places have fast chargers, but they do have plenty of outlets and slow “Level 2” chargers that allow drivers to top off a little.
Some headlines and drivers will obsess over public charging stations. But about 90% of electric vehicle drivers today have a garage, driveway, or other place they can charge their car overnight. One day that won’t be the case, and public chargers will have to make up for the lack of people who live in apartments or park on the street.
But for now, it might be best not to get too carried away. public Currently, the chargers are primarily used by EV drivers to fill gaps when they’re on long drives.
“We have the gas station model in mind,” said Keren Schefter, senior director of electric transportation at the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group that represents investor-owned utilities in the U.S. “If your goal is just to replicate the gas station model for EVs, then you’re missing out on one of the real benefits of EVs.”
