BP Pulse Orders $100 Million worth of Superchargers for US Network

[brkaus]

Great idea! Since this is intended as a discouragement for non-employees, be sure to charge enough that it costs significantly more than the residential rates they pay at home. Just don't forget to keep careful track of those free charging cards so you can disable and/or ask for them back when employees leave.

It shouldn’t even need to be significantly higher. Just match or be slightly above.

 

[threeputts]

Depending on the brand of charger another possible way to facilitate an employees only charging location may be to put the chargers on a private account. One of the buildings where I work has a couple of chargepoint L2s that will not work unless your chargepoint account has been authorized to use them.

 

[davewill]

Depending on the brand of charger another possible way to facilitate an employees only charging location may be to put the chargers on a private account. One of the buildings where I work has a couple of chargepoint L2s that will not work unless your chargepoint account has been authorized to use them.

Be careful with that. I've found myself in the position of visiting an office, needing a charge to get home, but not being able to use their charging facilities as a guest because nobody had bothered to work out a procedure for guests to charge. In my Tesla that would be no big deal, but this was back in the day when I was driving an 80mi range EV and DC charging was hard to come by.

 

[threeputts]

Be careful with that. I've found myself in the position of visiting an office, needing a charge to get home, but not being able to use their charging facilities as a guest because nobody had bothered to work out a procedure for guests to charge. In my Tesla that would be no big deal, but this was back in the day when I was driving an 80mi range EV and DC charging was hard to come by.

That's kind of the point - there is no "guest" charging.

 

[cdswm3]

Great idea! Since this is intended as a discouragement for non-employees, be sure to charge enough that it costs significantly more than the residential rates they pay at home. Just don't forget to keep careful track of those free charging cards so you can disable and/or ask for them back when employees leave.

We want them to be available for those who really need them but discourage those who just want free charging. I think we are going to $1.50 per hour. Our residential rates are between 10Cents and 18Cents per KWH (Depending on the plan selected). They are 6KW chargers.

 

[davewill]

That's kind of the point - there is no "guest" charging.

Sure, but you should have a way for clients or employees visiting from other locations to charge.

 

[Rocky_H]

Sure, but you should have a way for clients or employees visiting from other locations to charge.

Or not. That's your opinion of what they "should" offer, but maybe it isn't what they want to offer. If it's an employee amenity, then that's what it is--not a guest resource.

 

[Supcom]

Or not. That's your opinion of what they "should" offer, but maybe it isn't what they want to offer. If it's an employee amenity, then that's what it is--not a guest resource.

In such case, simply putting up a sign stating "Employee charging only. Others towed at owner expense." should do the trick. Seems simpler than administering a charge card system.

 

[CapsEngineer]

In such case, simply putting up a sign stating "Employee charging only. Others towed at owner expense." should do the trick. Seems simpler than administering a charge card system.

The charging where I work is for employees only. In order to gain access to the chargers we have to have a ChargePoint account and then register it with the company who will tell ChargePoint that we are an allowed user. ChargePoint takes care of everything. Not that hard to manage.

 

[Rocky_H]

The charging where I work is for employees only. In order to gain access to the chargers we have to have a ChargePoint account and then register it with the company who will tell ChargePoint that we are an allowed user. ChargePoint takes care of everything. Not that hard to manage.

That's how my company does it too.

 

[brkaus]

The charging where I work is for employees only. In order to gain access to the chargers we have to have a ChargePoint account and then register it with the company who will tell ChargePoint that we are an allowed user. ChargePoint takes care of everything. Not that hard to manage.

But ChargePoint takes a cut and/or a monthly fee. Have to decide what’s best for each situation.

I also have a special ChargePoint membership for charging at city evse under my electric bill.

 

[CapsEngineer]

But ChargePoint takes a cut and/or a monthly fee. Have to decide what’s best for each situation.

Knowing my company, it can't be a lot. I just looked it up and we have 202 stations spread across 42 sites so maybe we get some type of break.

The rate we get charged is the same as what I pay at home (0.13/kWh).

 

[threeputts]

The rate we get charged is the same as what I pay at home (0.13/kWh).

Our rate on the private network is a bargain - 35 cent connect fee + 6 cents/kWh. I'm assuming the company is subsidizing it but I don't know for sure.

 

[CapsEngineer]

Our rate on the private network is a bargain - 35 cent connect fee + 6 cents/kWh. I'm assuming the company is subsidizing it but I don't know for sure.

They're not allowed to subsidize ours. However, since it's basically the same as charging at home, I can't complain.

 

[gnuarm]

I don't know that "abuse" is exactly correct, however, Tesla definitely did not intend to provide 100% of folks' charging when they first offered FUSC and it was definitely used a lot more than they anticipated. Such is the nature of innovation: things don't always go as expected.

How could you possibly know what Tesla intended???

At that time, there were many who bought a Tesla, knowing they had no place to charge at home or work. With the limited charging rate of level 2 chargers (most at 30 or 40 amps (7.5 or 10 kW) it's not practical to use public charging other than Superchargers.

It is completely reasonable to expect many to use Supercharging for 100% of their charging.

I really can't believe that FUSC users can really be making up a very large portion of Supercharger users today. There are just so many Models 3 and Y out there without it compared to the small number that have it.

Not sure how that's relevant.

Those new purchasers who may have some sort of FUSC for a while after purchase may use it a lot but that's to be expected since they may not, yet have arranged for long-term sustainable charging at their home or work.
The only 'problem' is not enough charging (supercharger or home/workplace charging, where the car is anyway) or education that Supercharging is less convenient. This all will change. We're in the transition phase from ICE to EV so things will necessarily be a bit chaotic for a while.

Not sure what any of this means, really. Charging is not chaotic. I find it rather easy, by using the Superchargers. Fortunately, for me, it's free because I bought my Tesla at a time Tesla really needed to sell me a car, so they gave me free, unlimited, Supercharging. Notice the "unlimited" part of that?

 

[gnuarm]

Free supercharging should be limited to the superchargers online at the time of purchase. Free supercharger users are often abusing supchargers and using them for 100% of charging. Hopefully free supercharging gets eliminated soon.

Why? How do you "abuse" Superchargers, by using them?

In 2018, Tesla was hurting for cash. They did many things to make sure the cars they could build were actually sold. One of those things was the free, unlimited Supercharging. A significant number of those cars sold with free, unlimited Supercharging were sold to people who had no way to charge them, other than Superchargers. Saying they were abusing the program is just plain silly. That was the intent of the program, to encourage purchases by people who otherwise would not have bought.

This is no different from the drop in price for the free, unlimited full self-driving. Am I abusing the system because I use it so often? Actually, I hate the full self-driving, never use it anymore. The autopilot is much more user-friendly. $2k wasted.

 

[cdswm3]

Why? How do you "abuse" Superchargers, by using them?

In 2018, Tesla was hurting for cash. They did many things to make sure the cars they could build were actually sold. One of those things was the free, unlimited Supercharging. A significant number of those cars sold with free, unlimited Supercharging were sold to people who had no way to charge them, other than Superchargers. Saying they were abusing the program is just plain silly. That was the intent of the program, to encourage purchases by people who otherwise would not have bought.

This is no different from the drop in price for the free, unlimited full self-driving. Am I abusing the system because I use it so often? Actually, I hate the full self-driving, never use it anymore. The autopilot is much more user-friendly. $2k wasted.

Some leave then to charge to 100% and leave them for extended periods of time once charging is complete.

 

[Russell]

Some leave then to charge to 100% and leave them for extended periods of time once charging is complete.

And shortly after Idle Fees was implemented that problem went away.

 

[gnuarm]

Some leave then to charge to 100% and leave them for extended periods of time once charging is complete.

That's an issue for Tesla to manage. I don't recall using a Supercharger without idle time penalties in a long time. They seem to be pretty universal now.