What’s going on with EV charging stations?
Answer Man: Can you shed light on the electric-vehicle charging stations that keep popping up at various places, such as hotels and apartment buildings? Are they free? If not, how much do they they cost?
— Steve Weiss, Springfield
First of all, Steve, I knew nothing about electric cars. I do not own one and neither do I own a hybrid.
But I’m a reporter, right? I am a shedder of light.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
First, the Missouri Department of Transportation has a website with a list of charging-station locations. Forty-three are in Springfield. Most are at hotels (11) or car dealerships (8.)
Joel Alexander, spokesman for City Utilities, did some checking for me and said another popular link for finding charging stations in Greene County and far beyond is an app called Plugshare.
The electric-vehicle market is growing. Tesla led the way with 56 percent of the market in America in 2023; Ford was second at 6.7 percent of the market share.
The number of electric vehicles sold in the United States rose from 54,179 in 2015 to 1,077,138 in 2023, according to a January story in edmunds.com. The number of sales jumped 51 percent from 2022 to 2023.
Edmunds.com Inc. is an online resource for automotive inventory and information, including car reviews based on testing at the company’s private facility.
At Trail’s Bend, charging station free for tenants
Some charging stations are free; many are not.
For example, a few apartment complexes in Springfield have electric-vehicle charging stations for tenants only. It’s an amenity offered to attract renters.
I happen to know there is a charging station at Trail’s Bend Apartments, 2621 S. Jefferson Ave., because I’ve seen it as I run by the gated parking lot on the South Creek trail.
Katie Clark, manager of Trail’s Bend, tells me the station — with two ports — is often used. The charging stations are free for tenants, she says.
A port is the connecting cord between station and vehicle. Stations can have one or two ports.
I went to three separate locations
In response to your question, Steve, I drove to three locations where I knew there was at least one charging station.
It just so happened that each location had a different brand of charging station. I found out later that the three different brands I saw are the three most common in America.
The station (with two ports) at Trail’s Bend is made by Blink, with headquarters in Bowie, Maryland. It is the third largest maker of charging stations in the United States.
I also stopped at Hy-Vee, 2150 E. Sunshine St., where there are two charging stations (a total of four ports.) The charging stations there are made by ChargePoint.
According to an Aug. 22, 2023, article on Edmunds, ChargePoint operates the single largest electric vehicle public-charging-network in the United States.
I looked at both charging stations at Hy-Vee, and one of them did not appear to be working. The monitor on it displayed the message: “station not set up.”
16 stations at Buc-ee’s; charging a battery like filling a pool
I hit the jackpot at Buc-ee’s, where there are 16 new fast-charging Tesla stations — in addition to 120 gas pumps.
Tesla is the second largest maker of charging stations in use in the nation, according to the Edmunds article. But it dominates with its number of fast-charging stations. It has an agreement with Buc-ee’s for installation of charging stations.
Tesla has more than double the number of fast-charging ports as its three top rivals combined.
Here’s an important point: there are three types of charging stations: Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.
Levels 1 and 2 take longer to charge a vehicle battery because they use alternating current; Level 3 is considerably faster because it uses direct current.
Charging the battery of an electric vehicle is like filling a pool with water. A garden hose can do the job if you have a few hours to spare.
That’s why Levels 1 and 2 work fine if you’re using a charging unit at home or at a charging station at your work or near work. You don’t mind if it takes a few hours.
So you know, adding a 240V charging system at home can cost $1,600 or more.
Level 3 is what’s needed for highway driving, when you must get back on the interstate quickly to make it to that rehearsal dinner in, let’s say, Denver.
323 miles on a single charge
At Buc-ee’s, I talked to two different Tesla owners who were charging their car batteries. They both had Tesla Model Ys.
Kattie Milazzo and Omar Gomez stopped at Buc-ee’s on their way from Los Angeles to Boston.
Here’s how it’s done: The charging head goes into a receptor behind the driver’s-side rear tail light — the piece of it on the side of the car. It pops up and you plug in the charger.
How do you pay for a charge?
Through a Tesla app, Gomez tells me.
In fact, they bought the car through the app.
“There was no dealer,” he adds.
How far can you go on a full charge?
“323 miles.”
But nobody does that, they say, because nobody wants to get that close to a dead battery. When there’s no more juice, Milazzo tells me, everything shuts down.
“You can’t open the doors. You can’t open the glove box. You can’t open the trunk. Everything is electric. You’re done for.”
Story continues below.
MORE ELECTRIC VEHICLE NEWS FROM THE DAILY CITIZEN
Range anxiety keeps the kilowatts flowing
“Range anxiety is a real thing,” Gomez says.
How much does a full charge cost?
Something between $18 to $25, Gomez says. “It depends on what state you’re in.”
According to the Tesla website, a new Tesla Model Y gets up 120 MPGe, which stands for “miles per gallon equivalent.”
It’s a metric created by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2010 to compare the fuel efficiency of hybrid and electric vehicles to gas and diesel vehicles.
Can you charge your Tesla at a non-Tesla charging station?
Yes, they say. But you need an adaptor that costs about $10.
I researched this. You need what’s called an SAE J1772 adapter. I saw a price range of $10 to $40.
How long does it take to fully charge a battery that is almost depleted at a fast-charging station?
About 20 minutes.
Do you go in and shop while your battery is charging?
“Yes. We got some Beaver Nuggets,” he tells me.
Nearby is Keith Holland, of Springfield, who is charging his Tesla Model Y.
He’s not sure about how long it takes to charge a nearly dead battery because he never lets his battery get nearly dead.
Rental car companies lead push for chargers at airport
In the coming weeks, four ChargePoint charging stations will open at the Springfield-Branson National Airport. They will be installed for use by the seven rental-car companies, not for public use in parking lots.
“The rental car companies asked for the chargers,” says Kent Boyd, spokesman for the airport. “They tell us that they plan to add more and more electric vehicles to their fleets.”
They were installed at a cost of $1.1 million, Boyd says, which includes design, installation and hardware.
Money for the chargers comes from the “customer facility charge,” Boyd says. Every person who rents a car at the airport pays a fee that goes into a fund used to maintain and improve the area the rental car companies occupy.
If the chargers someday are used in the parking lots, Boyd says, there must first be a way to prevent someone from connecting to a charger and then flying off for a two-week vacation, preventing anyone else from using the charger.
In my research for this column, I read that some of the charger companies require customers to pay for extra connection time even after the charge is completed.
This is Answer Man column No. 79.
