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CTV Ottawa - A Case for the Electric Car

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Excellent.

Though I think it's odd that an article about electric cars talks about the Volt and not the LEAF. Especially with a sentence that starts with "Lower ranged". Ah, well, that's nitpicking - to see an article with a positive outlook on "mainstream media" is quite something.
 
Unfortunately, more and more charging stations are switching from "free-to-use" to "on-condition-of-patronage".

For better or for worse, I think that will likely continue, and I think we'll begin to see "pay for use" stations become more popular as well. When EVs were rate, it was an easy thing for a company to do to get some "green cred" or to use it as a marketing mechanism. But as EVs become more popular, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to expect to pay for our "fuel". Many of the "patrons only" sites will let you charge, sometimes for free or sometimes for a small fee.
 
I think we'll begin to see "pay for use" stations become more popular as well. <snip> Many of the "patrons only" sites will let you charge, sometimes for free or sometimes for a small fee.

I use my purchasing power to provide incentive for businesses to provide charging. Whenever I visit a mall / hotel or other destination with charging, I plug in to ensure the # of uses of the charger is incremented by one, and I tell someone in the establishment I am visiting and using the charge station.

Restaurants and hotels provide free wifi, free big screen TV and other bonus features to compete. Charging is like any other bonus.
 
I use my purchasing power to provide incentive for businesses to provide charging. Whenever I visit a mall / hotel or other destination with charging, I plug in to ensure the # of uses of the charger is incremented by one, and I tell someone in the establishment I am visiting and using the charge station.

Restaurants and hotels provide free wifi, free big screen TV and other bonus features to compete. Charging is like any other bonus.

While I'm all for free charging at restaurant and hotels, I also wouldn't mind paying a small fee if needed. Charging can't be really compared to TV and Wifi as for these it doesn't cost anything more if 1, 10 or 50 patrons use the service.
 
Wifi as for these it doesn't cost anything more if 1, 10 or 50 patrons use the service.

Of course it costs, for each person on wifi, the business is paying an internet provider for bandwidth and download size.

A full charge is $10 for a Model S, but most of the time at a hotel, it's more like $4 or so (half a charge) that is needed in our experience. That cost is peanuts compared to the $2000 it cost to put the charger in...just like the $1000 TV and monthly satellite is also part of the cost to attract patrons.