I guess the Cleveland suburbs are not not much of an electric car place yet. I only see two places with chargers as I drive around. The Mercedes dealer near me just installed two of them a few months ago and I have seen some at one Walmart across town. I’m sure there are plenty more but they don’t stand out or I don’t go to those stores.
The question is how much is the electric rate at those chargers compared to the cost to charge at your home? Every time I see a cost comparison vs gasoline cars it assumes the home electric rate.
I assumed the ones at Walmart were free to use. Are you suggesting they charge you to charge your car?
Unsatisfactory answer: it depends.
Charging at home costs whatever you pay for electricity. For example, I pay $0.24/kWh peak, $0.14/kWh shoulder, and $0.08/kWh off-peak. Of course that’s ignoring any cost to install a charger.
Commercial chargers can cost whatever they want. In general, whoever owns the charger can set their own rate. Some set the fee by the kWh, some by time, others a flat usage rate, and some are free.
For example, the charger at the nearby elementary school costs $0.24/kWh, so they’re probably covering their electricity cost. My work used to be free, but now costs $1.50/hour.
Plugshare may list costs of specific chargers.
It’s similar to “how much does gas cost?” You might know it’s about $3.50/gallon right now, but an exact answer is specific to a particular station, gas type, and date.
I don’t know but it looks like you have insert a credit card or something.
Charging at home is almost always cheaper than paying to charge away from home. Sometimes charging away from home is free, in which case it’s obviously cheaper than at home.
Unless the commercial charging you’re using has outrageous rates, it’s still going to be cheaper than gas. For example adding 200 miles at home costs me about $4.75. Adding 256 miles at a Tesla supercharger cost me $9.24. A 30 mpg car filling up at that same gas station with the supercharger would have cost about $25 for 256 miles at $3/gallon.
I stand corrected. Apparently, Walmart does charge you to charge your vehicle. The cost appears to vary from store to store. You need to look at the signage next to the charging station where the rates should be listed. If they aren’t, go to Customer Service and ask them.