Hong Kong: How much would you be willing to pay for FAST charging?

At the moment, most if not all charging is free in Hong Kong, apart from the cost of the parking itself.

Should shopping malls, parking lot owners and so on consider to install fast chargers like ChaDeMo? At some stage they would want to recoup the price of both installation, as well as the cost of the electricity.

Let's have a poll about it.

What would you be willing to pay for a fast full charge of your Tesla Model S?

This question is assuming 85kWh battery, or 60 kWh with supercharging enabled - in other words, your alternative is to use a Tesla Supercharger (but you want to charge at a location you are going to anyway)

Please consider that the price of electricity for a full charge could be as much as 100 HKD. Add to that the special priority of a blocked parking spot for charging, and the cost of installation of ChaDeMo or similar. If you had a petrol car, you would likely pay in the order of 750 HKD for a tank of fuel to cover the same distance. Shopping malls aren't likely to sponsor EVs entirely for free and green-washing their image - eventually they would want their costs covered.

If we want to be able to charge at a reasonable rate in many locations, there should really be an incentive for the parking lot owners to invest in ChaDeMo etc.

And yes, ChaDeMo is coming, it's a matter of "Coming soon" in Tesla Motors jargon.

Why not only superchargers? ChaDeMo is a good alternative and will support other brands also, in reality charging time won't differ much between ChaDeMo and superchargers. Looking from a commercial standpoint, owners aren't likely to support one brand of EVs only, although Tesla Model S is already - or soon at least - the most common EV in Hong Kong.

If I were to install a ChaDeMo charger, I would consider how to calculate the cost.

- Should it be pr kWh charged, on top of the parking fee? This would alleviate complaints if the charging isn't going at full speed - and allow people to charge less, for whatever they need.

- Should it be a fixed fee just to plug in, no matter how much is charged? It would make it more simple, yet it wouldn't be fair to those who arrive with a high charge already and just want to top up, or different battery capacities, and it would make cars block the spot too long, even when done charging

- Should it be a fee pr hour (or half hour, or even pr 20 minutes), along the price of the parking fee (i.e. add 40 HKD pr hour on top of the parking fee for instance). This would mean a slower charge would cost more, but also that the more efficient the car is, the more benefit - which is really what ChaDeMo is about. Someone who wouldn't be charging very much, or very fast, would be wasting the ChaDeMo capacity.

Conclusion:

I would probably calculate the price as for how long the spot is blocked, so that owners/drivers would have an incentive to come and move the car, and other EVs can use it.

If the parking lot has a valet service, I would consider to offer the option of the staff moving the car when charging is complete, a free service to 1) save cost of the customer, 2) allow customers not to have to worry about moving the car and 3) free more capacity for other EVs

pinguhk said:

If I charge outside of my house I would be happy to pay $150 because it is worth that extra $50.
At home it cost about $100 to get full charge at about 8hours so $150 is cheap, after all we don't have to pay for the fast charge machine.

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I agree I will not do public charging when I get my car.

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That is a good point, pinguhk - no matter where you charge, someone has got to pay for the electrons. If supercharging, it's included in the initial purchase price (but not free as some call it. After you pay the up front fee, it is included, so what the heck, let's just call it "free", just like "buy one get one free" really means each one is half price)

In any case, the savings from a trip to the gas station is more than 500 HKD each time, and that difference is only likely to increase over the years.

So if you don't use a supercharger, I think 150 HKD is fair, too, the poll will show if other TMC members agree or not.