There ought to be a law.
Source: myparkingsign.com
Yesterday I ranted about the disorderly situation for public car-charging stations.
You’d think that you could drive up, swipe your credit card, plug your car in, and buy some fuel at a known price. Just like at the gas pump. I mean, how hard could that be? And you’d think that drivers of non-electric vehicles wouldn’t park in the car charging spaces, either by law or out of a sense of live-and-let-live.
But based on my recent experience, nothing written above is true. My first experience with a public car charger was a machine with no instructions and no posted prices. It had balky hardware and/or software that gave us multiple false starts before we actually got the charger to work. Kind of.
And there was a proudly gas-guzzling truck parked in one of the two available charging spots despite a nearly empty parking lot.
But, on the bright side, apparently I’m not the only person to have run across a non-electric car blocking an EV charging spot. To the point where laws are being enacted to prohibit that.
My wife pointed out this recent change in Virginia law. As of today (July 1, 2022), in Virginia, it’s illegal for a non-electric car to park in a marked EV charging space:
"Parking at Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Parking vehicles not capable of receiving an electric charge in a space clearly marked for charging electric vehicles is now prohibited, and subject to a civil penalty of nor more than $25. (HB 450)
Source: Fairfax County Government website.
And, she further notes that as of October 1, 2022 Maryland will so something similar:
Electric Vehicle (EV) Parking Space Regulation Beginning October 1, 2022, individuals may not stop, stand, or park a vehicle in a designated EV charging space unless it is an EV that is actively charging. Violators may be subject to a fine of $100. EV charging spaces must have signage that indicates the charging space is only for EV charging, day or time restrictions, states maximum violation fine, and is consistent with design and placement specifications in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways. EV charging spaces count toward the total minimum parking space requirements for zoning and parking laws.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy
Thus, in Virginia and Maryland, it looks like EV charging spots have (or will soon have) the same sort of legal treatment as (e.g.) handicapped parking spots. There’s a uniform state-wide requirement barring you from parking in those spots if you don’t qualify to use them.
But Delaware — where we tried to charge our car — appears to have no such laws on the books. And, as far as I can tell, neither does the District of Columbia.
In those states, by contrast, any restriction on blocking the use of an EV charging station would be at the discretion of the owner of the property where that station is located. In the same way that the owner of a parking lot can post “No parking, towing enforced” and tow away cars, presumably any rules against blocking access to EV charging spots would be privately enforced.
Shockingly expensive, to boot
The other big surprise to me was the cost of using these public charging stations. Based on the few places in Ocean City MD where the hourly rates for charging were posted, our level-2 charging (240 volts) would have cost anywhere from $0.50 to maybe $1.25 per kilowatt-hour. That compares to somewhere around $0.12 per KWH for residential energy use in Virginia (reference).
The lowest rate we observed — 50 cents per KWH — makes electricity as expensive a fuel as gasoline. Based on the EPA ratings for the Prius Prime (for miles-per-gallon and miles-per-KWH), electricity at 50 cents per KWH costs as much per mile as gasoline at just over $5 per gallon.
(YMMV. Literally. Note that the standard of comparison above is the efficient Atkinson-engine Prius. If, by contrast, you would otherwise be driving a standard (Otto-cycle) non-hybrid, your gasoline cost per mile would be higher.
Let me use the 2018 VW Golf as an example, because that came in an electric and standard gas model. Fueleconomy.gov lists those as getting 28 KWH per 100 miles, or 3.6 gallons of gas per 100 miles. Doing the math, $0.50 per KWH costs you the same as gasoline at $3.90 per gallon. Or, if gas at $5 a gallon, you break even if you pay no more than $0.64 per KWH.)
But no matter how you slice it, the whole notion of big cost savings from electrical transport goes right out the door if you’re paying an appreciable fraction of a dollar per KWH.
So I’m left wondering whether the high prices observed in and around Ocean City, MD were merely a result of being in a resort town. Or whether we were paying more because of the slow (level 2) rate-of-charge (which means we occupy the charging slot for a long time, to receive just a modest amount of electricity). Or whether that’s the norm, suggesting that it really is that costly to deliver electricity to a car in that fashion?
It only took a bit of internet search to find that the 50-cents-per-KWH charge is not out of line with prices elsewhere. And I’m starting to get some hints at some reasons this market is so screwy.
Electrify America runs a chain of charging stations, and they charge $0.43 per KWH for level-2 charging, per their website.
But that’s only in locations where they are allowed to charge per KWH. Because, in some states, the only entity that can sell electricity is the public utility. In those states, electric car chargers have to price by the minute, not by the KWH. Electrify America charges $0.03 per minute for level 2 charging. Because a Prius Prime charges at a rate of just about 3 KWH per hour (the actual rate varies over the course of the charge), with per-minute charging, that’s about $0.60 per KWH for a Prius Prime receiving a level-2 charge.
Blink charging quotes rates ranging from per $0.39 to $0.79 per KWH, per their website. But, as with Electrify America, in states where they are not allowed to charge per KWH, they charge per minute, where the highest cited rate ($0.03 per half-minute) would cost about $1.20 per KWH for level-2 charging of a Prius Prime.
I think that’s enough to tell me that the pricing we observed in Ocean City is not out of line with prices elsewhere. It’s also enough to tell me that more-or-less the entire fuel cost savings from electrical transport vanishes if your only charging option is a public charging station. If your only access to charging is at five-to-ten-times the residential rate per KWH, chances are that your per-mile fuel cost for electrical transport exceeds that of the equivalent gas-powered transport.
