[Fabulist]

I went to the closest Walgreens to my house, and to my horror found that they are now charging $2/charging session. Shame on you Walgreens! Their parking lot has a one-hour limit, which means that you can, at most, get less than $0.60 worth of charge, so the $2.00/session, particularly if you are in and out of there in 10-15 minutes is exorbitant. Were they seriously losing that much money on the charges that they had to start charging at payday loan rates?

 

[doug]

I went to the closest Walgreens to my house, and to my horror found that they are now charging $2/charging session. Shame on you Walgreens! Their parking lot has a one-hour limit, which means that you can, at most, get less than $0.60 worth of charge, so the $2.00/session, particularly if you are in and out of there in 10-15 minutes is exorbitant. Were they seriously losing that much money on the charges that they had to start charging at payday loan rates?

Did you take a photo? I think it's the network they chose to use. It has been a point of controversy.

Who really spends that much time at a Walgreens anyhow?? At this point they should be using charging stations to attract EV drivers, not to screw them.

I think what makes more sense if for them to do something like parking validation. E.g., you don't pay a fee if you come in and buy something.

 

[scottf200]

Walgreens responds to complaint about expensive $2/hour 350Green charging stations
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?14996

 

[Fabulist]

Walgreens responds to complaint about expensive $2/hour 350Green charging stations
http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?14996

So I am not the only one to be surprised by this. I charged at the same station for free just a couple of months ago, and posted about it in the "Charging in the Wild" thread here.

Obviously, the company that fronted the cost for installing the charger has a right to recoup its investment and make a profit. My beef is with Walgreens because it seems unrealistic for them to view EV charging as anything other than a convenience to draw customers away from other pharmacies, the same way the offer free parking or on-line prescription refills. It seems unrealistic that this could generate a whole lot of revenue, let alone any profit.

The charger is on the Chargepoint network, so if I wanted to, I could register a credit card to my account and start using it but with a Fisker (or a Volt for that matter), it is not really critical to charge every time you stop for a couple of minutes. The thing I miss the most is the primo parking spot, which comes as a premium in that neighborhood. The only way I would pay the $2.00 is to use the parking spot for an hour while I am having dinner across the street at our favorite neighborhood restaurant. Using the parking spot for an hour is worth it, the charge is just a bonus.

 

[scottf200]

<snip>The thing I miss the most is the primo parking spot, which comes as a premium in that neighborhood. The only way I would pay the $2.00 is to use the parking spot for an hour while I am having dinner across the street at our favorite neighborhood restaurant. Using the parking spot for an hour is worth it, the charge is just a bonus.

I've sat in presentations by 350Green. They install the chargers "free" to the businesses but then get some percentage of the fee. I think some of their installs are costing them quite a bit. Will take a lot of years for them to make the money back I would think. L3 chargers are tough because many business do not even have the transformers or panels to support them. Hence mostly L2 installs.

In the presentation they talked a fair amount about the criteria on where they put in the chargers. Generally there needs to be businesses surrounding the sights or within x walking distance. I don't think they expect you to be in Walgreens for an hour.

Hope that helps explain. I'm not surprised they are charging for charging. But like you said we drive extended range EVs so we have choices.:thumbup:

 

[Fabulist]

I've sat in presentations by 350Green. They install the chargers "free" to the businesses but then get some percentage of the fee. I think some of their installs are costing them quite a bit. Will take a lot of years for them to make the money back I would think.

I think this is a perfect example of one of the long-term pay back installations.

In the presentation they talked a fair amount about the criteria on where they put in the chargers. Generally there needs to be businesses surrounding the sights or within x walking distance. I don't think they expect you to be in Walgreens for an hour.

Because parking is so tight in this neighborhood, Walgreens has very strict limits on how long you can park in their lot and they are very clear in the signage that it needs to be limited to the time you are spending in their store with no specific exception for charging. They even have an attendent there during the busier times of the day to enforce the limits. So unless they consider the purchase of electricity for charging an EV shopping at the store, I will most likely be chased down by the attendent and told to move my car if just plug in and stroll off towards other stores in the vicinity.

Hope that helps explain. I'm not surprised they are charging for charging. But like you said we drive extended range EVs so we have choices.:thumbup:

It does, thank you. I would be less surprised if they allowed parking in their lot for charging only. Under their current rules, the $2 charging fee makes no sense.

And yes, it is good to have options.

 

[Fabulist]

I don't want to keep harping on Walgreens but, to (mis)quote Khan Noonien Singh, "they task me!"

So today I park my car in the neighborhood Walgreens and plug in the expensive charger so that I can have a good parking spot for going to dinner across the street at our favorite neighborhood restaurant in Noe Valley. In that neighborhood, it's worth $2.00/Hour to get a great parking spot and the charge is a bonus.

It was only upon my return that I noticed a small homemade sign attached to the lower left corner of the banner that blatantly encouraged ICEing the single charging station:

All I can say is: "Et tu Walgreen?" I am very disappointed, as is, I am sure, Steven Colbert.

 

[marswill]

Another finger wagging candidate might be the city of Cupertino. They have a dual ChargePoint charging station on Rodrigues Avenue at the City Center but only one of the adjacent parking spaces is reserved for EV's. The other one can be used by anyone. Unfortunitely the one that can be used by anyone is the only one a Karma can use unless they parallel park in the wrong direction at the reserved space as the cord will not reach other wise. I talked to one of the Cupertino Policemen about this and he agreed that not having both parking spaces reserved for EV's didn't make sense to him either.