Electric Vehicle Charging at Public Places (EV)

Wellyboy19 on 05/05/2022 - 15:27

Hello Everyone,

I've recently bought an PHEV outlander, obviously it comes with charging cable to charge it at your home.

However I recently used charge net charging station and it cost me $14 to for 41 minutes of 14.4KWH of charge. Charge rate was $0.25/kwh +$0.25/minute

Still it didn't charge car battery to 80% in that time slot and I had to use petrol for some part of my journey of around 55kms. So it costed me more money charging an EV at public charging station than having the same journey via petrol car.

What am I missing here? Is there any way to reduce that charge? I totally understand that charging at home overnight using slow charging cable is far more economical, however is there any way to reduce cost of charging it using public chargers?

Sorry newbie here so don't have much more info..

Cheers

General Discussion

Comments

  • wowbigdeal on 05/05/2022 - 16:47
    +1

    Nice. What year is it? I have a friend that just purchased the 22 model. I took it for a drive and it's a pretty amazing piece of kit.

    • Wellyboy19 on 06/05/2022 - 09:32

      Its 22, picked it last friday. Quite nice car and enjoying it no doubt

      • wowbigdeal on 06/05/2022 - 11:02

        Very nice. I have one on my shopping list… For another day.

        • Wellyboy19 on 09/05/2022 - 15:23

          Clean car discount and if you have GST registered business makes it worth it

  • Avantime on 05/05/2022 - 20:16
    +3

    EV owner here, don't charge at paid ChargeNet stations; buy petrol instead if you need more range.

    A PHEV is solely for short trips and commutes on electric power, any longer range trips (both in city and cross country) should be done on petrol, you'll save both time, money and grief in case you need to queue.

    ChargeNet stations are for cross country trips and the random Leaf which needs a bit of juice (e.g. 5 minutes/$2.50) to get home. They become uneconomic for people needing a big, long charge for daily city driving when compared to at-home charging.

    • kronosxmate on 06/05/2022 - 08:35
      +1

      Thanks great advice Avantime. Cheers.

    • AleBeerenhoff on 06/05/2022 - 08:49
      +1

      Nice explanation - thank you (even though I don't have an EV)

    • Wellyboy19 on 06/05/2022 - 09:35

      Thanks for the advice, totally agree it's not worth charging PHEVs at public chargers. I didn't realize this until I had my first experience other day.. Lessons learnt for future :)

      So there are no membership discounts etc for chargenet or any other charging network? Btw I live in Palmerston North and we have a free EV charger in the shopping center and apart from that, it doesn't make any sense to charge anywhere else :)

      • Avantime on 06/05/2022 - 11:54
        +1

        ChargeNet membership is free (and required) and there's no paid discount tier.

        EV charging as of now isn't exactly a lucrative business, as there aren't that many EVs on the road yet. As such ChargeNet relies heavily on EECA grants, as well as goodwill from corporates like Foodstuffs (PaknSave/NW) for the land to put them in. Undergrounding the 50kw+ lines can get rather expensive, and AFAIK the only chargers that are consistently profitable are along SH1 (Bombay, Turangi before the Desert Rd etc.). Despite ChargeNet being a monopoly it's still better than overseas because in NZ there's only one main charging network to deal with, whereas it's like 5+ in Europe, each with their own membership requirements.

        For all current and future EV owners, I highly recommend you join the NZ EV Owners Facebook group. You'll find all of your answers there.

        • Wellyboy19 on 09/05/2022 - 15:22

          Sorry logged through company device so couldn't comment, but appreciate your support and guidance. Have since joined this group

  • NS on 06/05/2022 - 10:22

    We've had EVs for a few years. Check out the App "plugshare" which lists all the chargers in NZ. Some are free like the one near us at the Warehouse in Royal Oak (Auckland) but free ones are hit and miss as to whether they work and if they do they are often busy. Charging at home is the best, especially a PHEV. Nice car BTW, was eyeing these. Chargenet are good if you get stuck on an EV but since you have petrol as well then that is your emergency power so to speak

    • Avantime on 06/05/2022 - 11:57

      Plugshare is good, but beware of accessibility requirements of some chargers; For example the car dealers may not let you use it.

      Also note that some chargers are closed off after hours. For example Royal Oak charger you mentioned is inaccessible when the Warehouse closes down for the night, as they close the gate to the carpark as well.

      • Wellyboy19 on 09/05/2022 - 15:24

        Food for thought.. will download and see if its any useful. Appreciate your help though

  • flembots on 06/05/2022 - 17:06

    My household has an EV and we often do trips of 2-300km which for our cheapie Leaf means leaving at 100% and charging once from 20-85% which at a ChargeNet station is usually about $7 or $8. Interestingly the new super fast ones that Gull has been opening cost more - the kW charge is $0.50 with no time cost. We did that trip in our diesel car and used about $60 of fuel so it is still cost effective. But for daily driving yes charge slowly overnight and also look into an electricity plan that will work for you if you're charging most nights.

    • Wellyboy19 on 09/05/2022 - 15:26

      In my case where I paid $14, cost of time was $10.25. So I will be happy to pay more for charge but with no time cost. I'm still waiting to receive my home charging cable from Mistubishi

  • badabee on 06/05/2022 - 18:34
    +1

    You can use the free Vector charging stations around but they are very limited and seem to always be taken by Tesla/Leaf drivers filling up much bigger batteries than a PHEV. Download the Vector EV app to see which ones are completely free. There are typically two charging stations per site with some that have four stations.

    Plugshare is another app - although it's hit and miss as some chargers stop in the evening at businesses as mentioned above.

    It's strange that it took you 41 mins to not even get to 80%!!?? Looking to get a PHEV too, what's your thoughts?

    • Wellyboy19 on 09/05/2022 - 15:30
      +1

      Surely I will download that.. any resource in initial learning days is only a plus.. PHEV are great. I love the car and performance. Moreover I like my peace of my mind not to worry about charge unless I want to and can drive anywhere without being worried about the charge. And you can pretty much do 90-100kms if charging overnight at home. As per above I paid $10.25 out of that $14 just for time so only $3.75 for actual charge. I suspect extra time might be because its still a new car so battery may need few charge cycles to fully calibrate. I can't recommend PHEV anymore. Very happy with performance, features and surprisingly outlander VRX is nice model

      • Alan6984 on 09/05/2022 - 15:58

        What would you recommend instead of the PHEV, and what made you change your mind?

        • Wellyboy19 on 10/05/2022 - 09:21

          Honestly Alan, PHEV at this stage. Just because peace of mind to be able to drive anywhere. Not an expert of these things so can't really comment on other technology :) However for me PHEV is great at the moment

  • Marcus1 on 09/12/2023 - 08:37

    I try to avoid ChargeNet where possible - they charge $0.80 per Kw whereas BP and Z charge $0.70/Kw but the BP & Z chargers are pretty scarce on the ground down my way (south of Christchurch).

    • quasar on 10/12/2023 - 00:14

      Some nice new Z fast chargers are now in Ashburton, hopefully they'll keep deploying them further south!

      • Everettpsycho on 10/12/2023 - 10:15

        CCS only though, fine for some but leaf owners are all stuck using the chargenets fast charger or the zero AC ones at Kmart.

  • aih-lun on 12/12/2023 - 14:41

    You can consider joining Genesis Energy for Power, get on their EV plan where you will get half price for power between 9pm - 7am (normally around 17cent/Kwh)
    With that plan you can join their EVerywhere and you pay the same rates as what you would pay charging at home when charging at Chargenet Chargers.

    https://www.genesisenergy.co.nz/for-home/products/electric-v…

  • genesis on 14/12/2023 - 10:35

    Not really contributing to the discussion about charging, but also got the same car earlier this year. Great car and perfect for smaller trips around town, and petrol can kick in when you go for road trips.

    Only complaint is that it heats up my phone (and drains the phone battery) when connecting via Bluetooth to listen to music, possibly software issue there.

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