Electric Car Charging Gets CHEAPER If You Follow THESE TIPS

Electric Car Charging Gets CHEAPER If You Follow THESE TIPS

Today’s video is sponsored by energy Sage visit the link in the description to find local verified solar and heat pump experts in your area that can help you get solar on the roof of your home generate power through a local community solar project or have a heat pump

Installed concerns over when and how to charge are one of the more common reasons people site when discussing why they’re not making the switch to electric and for those who have made the switch there’s absolutely no denying the fact that there are a whole new slew of different Technologies to learn relating

To EV charging from the types of connectors used to the speeds of charging and even in some cases the different payment methods offered for public charging and if you’re new to EV ownership you’ll be pleased to know we recently published a brand new guide on this channel link here and in the bit

Below explaining a lot of the stuff you’ll need to know if you are new to the notion that instead of filling your car with explosive juice you’re going to dump large amounts of electricity into it of course as any EV owner will tell you switching from gasoline or diesel to

Electric should save you a significant amount of money on cost per mile travel and we’ve met plenty of people over the years who quickly discovered that even though a brand new and some used electric vehicles can be more expensive than their gasoline counterparts to buy the cost Savings of not having to pump

Gasoline every few days really starts to pay off except if you’ve just gone from suck squeeze bang blow to the quiet hum of an electric motor you’re just exchanging your Reliance on big oil to a Reliance on whatever the local Energy company and charging provider happens to deem an

Appropriate amount of money for the energy you consume and what’s more until renewable energy becomes the norm electricity prices and electricity is just as likely to rise as oil so today in the spirit of all of those tip Columns of days gone by telling you how to get the cheapest gasoline we’re going

To help you discover the best way to recharge your electric car for as little as possible and hopefully at the end of it you’ll be a pro at paying less to charge up before we get too far into today’s video just let’s acknowledge that just as gasoline prices vary from region to

Region so too do electricity prices as do the carbon footprint aka the cleanliness of the electricity you’re using to power your car and because of the rise in anti- sentiment we’re seeing lately we just want to acknowledge that we’ve actually made several videos in the past that touch on EV carbon

Footprints and how clean the electrical grid actually is in comparison to fossil fuel vehicles so we’ll make sure we link those below Okay so you’ve got an EV and you’ve noticed as many have that electricity prices are on the rise and you’re also wondering just what that means for the daily costs associated

With driving an EV just how can you keep your EV running for as low a monthly cost as possible well luckily there are many different ways to tackle the problem some relate to where you charge some relate to when you charge and some relate to the type of charging you pick

But there are also some other good tweaks you can use to save money such as where you get your electricity from and sometimes even what type of charging station you install at home the first thing I want to point out is that the more efficiently you drive the less

Electricity you’ll need to use for a given distance and ultimately that less you’ll spend on charging for everyday commuters the difference between driving efficiency and just mashing your foot down on the go pedal is likely to be pretty small but if you are someone who does a lot of longdistance highway speed

Trips or someone who has to use a fast charging station to fill up your battery pack every time you charge you’ll likely notice the difference in your pocket the same is true if you live somewhere with extremes of temperature or pretty nasty weather for a significant portion of the

Year basically if you’re charging at home where electricity is already relatively affordable and you’re getting 220 Mi on a full charge versus 300 mil per charge because you’re going everywhere at 80 mph instead of 55 you’ll likely not bat an eyelid on the difference in cost but if you only ever

Use public charging stations specifically fast charging stations you’ll notice that 80 M difference in your bank account pretty darn quick especially if you charge at a fast charger that charges upwards of 60 or 70 P or cents per kilowatt hour so yeah the obvious answer to reducing your charging

Costs if you have a heavy right foot is to make your EV go further per charge slowing down effectively reducing your cost per mile or cost per kilometer but when it comes to actually saving money with charging let’s start with public charging because believe it or not there are some pretty big

Discounts to be had on charging and while I know some new EVS come with free or discounted charging as a perk for buying new Let’s ignore the impact of new car deals because not everyone has a new car and not everyone wants or can afford to buy a new one to the public

Charging networks then and while you might think that the charging networks own and operate all of the charging stations that bear their name the reality is that it varies quite widely from Network to network and Country to Country and that can directly impact the price you pay for charging your EV in

Some cases charging Network providers reach an agreement with the land owner of each site where they want to install charging paying what amounts to a ground rent on the land the stations occupy sometimes charging networks sell their Hardware to corporate customers directly and then charge a monthly or annual

Service fee that can cover but it’s not limited to things like Payment Processing for customer charging sessions maintenance and exclusive access to a particular charging Network sometimes there’s no annual contract and the operator of the charging station has purchased it outright or had it installed on their own dime although

Often in these kind of situations they’ve been assisted by some kind of governmental incentive program there are also a bunch of other variants on these basic contracts sometimes with a charging Network paying for the electricity its customers uses directly and sometimes through a secondary source but the important thing here is that if

You are at a charging station even if it has the logo of a particular company on it it might be owned and operated by another or indeed the location of the charging station maybe on someone else’s property and if there are other interests inol involved they too can

Influence the cost you pay to fill up so a few years ago there was this high-profile example of this when a gas station owner in Utah erroneously thought that Tesla wasn’t paying its ground rent and therefore made the decision to block access to the supercharges on his

Property it turned out that Tesla had in fact paid its bills and the gas station has since become home to newer faster supercharges but it proved the point rather nicely multiple fingers in one messy pie so just as land owners can have a part to play in how much your fast

Charging session costs so too can the amount the allocation has to pay for the electricity you put into your car while domestic electricity customers likely pay one or two different prices depending on when they use electricity commercial customers not only pay for how much power they use but how quickly

They use it and while it might feel counterintuitive locations whose Baseline consumption is fairly constant and predictable might end up being charged less per kilowatt hour of electricity than a site with a low Baseline consumption and a few fast charges on site even if their total electricity bill is smaller that is

Because utility companies don’t like surprises they like predictable and there’s a whole subset of people on LinkedIn whose sole job it is to model just how much electricity a utility company needs to produce at any given point in any given day to meet demand when a utility company knows your

Business is going to consume 500 Kow of power fairly consistently throughout the day maybe varying by 20 to 50 kilow it can plan for that power consumption and plan its generation accordingly but when your business consumes 50 kilow of power throughout the day and then has sudden

Spikes of up to 800 KW because of the multiple fast charging stations out front it finds it a whole lot harder to predict when you need power and therefore the power company will charge you the business owner an extra fee called a demand fee that penalizes your

Sudden spike in demand you the owner of the business may not like that demand charge especially if it comes from the charging sessions of EV customers so you may opt to pass that cost on to whomever is using your charging station and thus your charging station sessions cost more

Than someone who’s decided to eat those additional demand charges as a legitimate cost of doing business it’s worth noting too that some networks Tesla’s supercharger network is one of them actually charge different fees for charging depending on when in the day you stop byy if it’s a busy period of

The day where demand is high you’ll pay more to charge than you will at midnight when the only other person in sight is someone making their way back to their unid dorm with a burgeoning hangover and a large Donna Kebab with extra chips and garlic

Sauce this by the way is why we’re now starting to see fast charging stations pop up with integrated battery packs in them they actually allow fast charging stations to exist in areas where the network is not fully capable of supporting hundreds of extra kilowatts for fast charging but they also allow

Station operators in locations that aren’t super Often frequented by EV owners to charge up battery banks on site at lower power levels so that when a fast charging station does actually occur the battery can help provide some of the power being put into the car without triggering those expensive

Demand charge fees we had a pretty big discussion about that back in our charging Equity video so the link is in the down below so fast charging costs are widely varied what does this mean for you well first you need to shop around while you might think all fast

Charging networks charge pretty similar prices to one another that is a long way from the truth your biggest chance of getting a good deal on a fast charging session is to visit a charging station that’s either subsidized by a local business such as a franchised dealership that sells EVS or a fast charging

Station that has been sponsored by or received local or national funding to help pay for its upkeep it’s fairly common too to see brand new charging stations installed by a new charging Network offer free or discounted charging rates for the first few months or years as a way to drum up customer

Interest and support sometimes charging networks who have received assistance in the forms of Grants or abatements may even have been forced to keep costs low as part of the agreement that funded the station in the first place charging stations operated by businesses for customers are also often discounted especially if it’s at a

High value location where customers picking that particular location are more likely to spend money at the associated store such as a restaurant a coffee shop or a mile and as the ageold alter of consumerism would dictate the more competition between charging stations in a particular region the more

Likely it is you’ll get a good deal charging I know of one dealership in the greater Portland area that purposely placed its fast charging station so that it could be used 24/7 even if it itself was closed and it charges a frankly ridiculously small amount to use since

It charges by the hour rather than the kilowatt hour conversely if the charging station is on its own in the middle of absolutely nowhere and there are no other charging stations nearby the charging station especially if it’s a moderately fast one can often cost more

To use in much the same way that rest stop gas stations have a habit of being significantly more expensive than Supermarket gas stations in a big city the same is true for remote fast charging stations if you’ve got the Monopoly on fuel you can charge whatever the heck you want

That said I should however point out that this isn’t always the case there are actually two really nice fast charging stations at a rest stop in Northern California I think it’s the colier rest stop just south of the California agricultural checkpoints if you’ve never been through them they’re

An experience anyway it’s where charging used to be free for the first 20 minutes or so and it’s a really beautiful rest stop so if you are someone who travels with furry friends who need to take a walk while you charge it is the best best place to stop I’ve not been there

Though for about a year so I can’t say for sure if it’s free or not I should also note here that some laws relating to power generation and distribution can also affect EV charging stations and sessions in some parts of the world for example charging networks are prohibited

From charging you per kilowatt hour that you put into your vehicle and instead they must charge you for the time you spend at the charging station this is usually not the network fault but rather outdated consumer protection laws set up to try and protect utility companies by stating that only an official utility

Company can measure electricity by the kilowatt hour and charge customers for it where that is still the case you end up paying for the time you are spent charging nothing else which means if you’ve got an old Chevrolet bolt EV with a good old 50 kilowatt DC fast charging

Capability you are going to pay a whole lot more to charge than someone who’s just pulled in with a nice shiny new Porsche tyon while pricing can vary greatly from location to location one thing that is almost universally accepted is that if you want to regularly use a particular charging

Network you’ll likely pay less per kilowatt hour if you sign up as a member you’ll usually pay a set monthly subscription fee that gives you access to discounted electricity rates and if you road trip a lot that can save a lot of money in the process C personally I

Know for example that Electrify America’s charging membership can pay for itself in a two-day round trip between this studio in Oregon and San Diego California the cautionary tale though is that it’s all too easy to sign up for every single charging Network you come across in a very Carefree way but

Having too many cards and accounts just like having too many credit cards can be a slippery slope only actually join the network that you will use the most and be aware that some networks in some countries now have interoperability between them which means that you can

Have one ring to I mean one account to rule them all and before I leave public charging and go to atome charging let’s touch on level two public charging while some of the things that influence fast charging are less financially problematic for level two charging stations you still see overall variances

In pricing I’ve seen level two charging stations offer free or near free charging as long as you patronize the business or buy a valid parking ticket and I’ve seen level two charging stations that are seemingly using the proceeds from just your charging session to fund a bottle of Don pron and a spot

Of caviar later that night for each of the company Executives and sadly it’s all down to shopping around so how do you go about finding the cheapest places to plug in well while it would be great to see an EV equivalent to the various gas St finder apps that

Tell you exactly how much each station is charging I don’t think there are any yet that are focused on cost at this time luckily though for us most charging station apps and some thirdparty apps give charging costs so my advice here is get to know which charging stations

Nearby to you have good pricing and good reliability and when going on a longer distance trip further a field spend some time before you leave planning where you’d like to stop if cost is important to you of course I mean you could go Whole Hog

On this and do what I do which is pack a small portable cooler with drinks and snacks and something to cook with thus avoiding costly drive-throughs and poor quality gas station fruit I think that saves me more money than picking the best places to charge but I’m a bit

Weird like that I mean not everyone makes tea at the side of the road now do they finally for public charging I should throw in a cautionary tail be wear the automaker branded charging networks I’m talking about ones like Ford’s blue oval GM’s GM energy and a

Whole slew of others built around plug and charge because while plug and charge is very convenient you pull up you plug in and off you go with no worry about smartphone apps or credit card readers my personal experience is that it can sometimes cost more to use for example

If I choose to use plug and charge with Fords blue oval charging Network on an Electrify America charging station I’ll pay full price for charging rather than the discounted price I pay from having an EA monthly membership so just bear that in mind public charging out of the

Way let’s look at saving pennies at home and of course the first thing to note is that charging at home is and always will be your friend I mean it always will be cheaper than paid for fast charging we’ve covered home charging stations a bunch on the channel before so I’m not

Going to rehash that particular topic but the first way to save money on charging at home at least long term is to make sure that you use your own power that you’ve generated on the roof of your home which is where today’s video sponsor energy Sage comes in because

Even if you are charging your EV at night when there’s no sunlight to harness energy you generate during the day can easily help offset your ev’s daily energy consumption energy Sage helps homeowners connect with local verified solar installers across the us and now heat pump specialists in select

Markets who really know their stuff and can help you navigate the process of installing solar panels help you join a community solar program or get a heat pump installed we used energy Sage when we looking for installers willing to help us put solar panels on the roof of

Our home and our energy Sage verified installers were professional knowledgeable and even put us in touch with a truly amazing Credit Union that allowed us to finance our solar panels for as low a monthly payment as possible with the US federal government now offering 30% tax credits on all

Qualifying solar panel installations for the next 10 years there is never a better time to get solar especially with utility companies consistently putting up the price you pay for grid consumed electricity so follow the links below to sign up for either of energy sages free no obligation services and get that ball

Rolling today and if you choose to use an energy Sage installer for your project we’ll get a small referral fee so you’ll be helping us out too and thanks to energy Sage for sponsoring today’s video of course if you are heavily into energy management you can

Of course get very deep into the rabbit hole of solar charging and if you’re also into home automation you’ll find a whole slew of different projects out there that will help you figure out how to integrate your home charging station with the solar you’re generating on your

Roof ensuring that you charge your car with the energy you’ll otherwise be sending back to the grid and since most utility companies charge you more per kilowatt hour then they will pay you per kilowatt hour you generate it makes sense to use any excess energy on site

To charge your EV rather than sending it back to the grid and if you’d like us to do a video specifically on that topic let me know in the in the doobly doobly down below of course generating solar on your roof might save you money long term

Especially if you’re able to finance the panels for a great deal but not everyone who can charge at home has access to or can afford solar panels so there are some other options we should look at that could save you Pennies on your home EV charging experience one of the most

Obvious of course is to sign up for a time of use use program with your local utility company by paying more for the electricity you use during the day you can actually pay far less to consume electricity during off peak periods which allows you to charge your EV

Overnight and perhaps do a load or two of laundry in the meantime it’s actually going to cost you a lot less but time of use only really works if you’re someone who has a predictable work schedule and you also work away from home if you are

Like me and you have a home office and you consume electricity during the day it can actually end up costing you a lot more so be careful before you switch to a time of use tariff the next option of course is to go for a smart meter charging station many utility companies

Now have EV specific programs that let customers leverage smart grid Tech to charge their cars when there’s excess electricity being generated because it costs power companies more to start and stop generation for pea plants it is sometimes cheaper for them to encourage customers to use the ex access electricity they are generating and

Smart grid enabled charging stations let you do just that there’s a whole range of different models out there with varying types of smart grid Tech and even some new EVS have Smart grid like programs built into them you set the time you want your card to be ready to

Go and the utility charging station and sometimes the automaker negotiate on when that charging takes place in some cases you might even be able to charge for free in parts of Europe for example some utility companies give away Excess power to EV owners to charge their cars

Basically because they know a car that’s charged for free won’t then need to take additional power from the grid later in the day when the grid is under excess strain and while I am on the subject of utilities it’s important to shop around if you live somewhere where you can

Actually do that and choose who you pay for your electricity some utility companies even offer EV specific tariffs to doing some leg work in this regard could save you a small fortune next and I will admit this one is a little weird if your charging station isn’t permanently wired in take some time

Making sure that the circuit you’re plugging into in your home is actually in good condition and that the actual socket itself is wellmaintained it doesn’t matter if you’re plugging into a Nema 155 A type 1 three pin Outlet in Australia or the world’s best designed socket that’s a properly f used and

Switched three pin socket from the UK if you didn’t know if there is corrosion or other flum and jutsum on the metal pins you have a poor electrical connection and poor electrical connections increase electrical resistance in the circuit and increased resistance could not only mean the plug and socket will heat up and

Cause a fire but that extra resistance and heat results in you wasting electricity so yeah you should check that one too and finally specifically for those in countries where 120ish volts is the default power source if you can switch to a level two charging station that’s essentially one

That runs on some flavor of 200ish plus volts because while it’s true that many people can often get by with a level one charger in the longterm those charging stations use more energy and can be up to 10% less efficient than using a level two charging station if you’re trying to

Stretch the pennies out that 10% can add up really quickly so you have it you can save money charging but it takes a little leg work from you tell me how you save money on charging in the down below and I’ll see you again soon thanks for joining me today and if

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Driving an electric car is a lot kinder on your pocket than driving an internal combustion engine vehicle – but with utility companies around the world increasing the cost of electricity, and some charging networks putting up the price of charging in public an astonishing amount – here’s how you can fight those extra fees and charge for as little as possible.

With some careful planning, it’s easier than you might think!

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00:00 – Sponsor Shoutout
00:17 – Introduction
02:23 – Electricity prices vary a lot around the world – as does the carbon footprint of electricity
03:03 – Price depends on lots of different variables
03:40 – Efficient driving will reduce your charging costs
05:04 – Saving money at fast charging stations
05:31 – Rapid charging networks don’t always ‘own’ where the chargers are
07:34 – The impacts of power companies on your charging rate
10:01 – Integrated Battery Packs
10:46 – Tips on reducing fast charging costs
13:36 – The impact of local laws
15:38 – Some notes about public level 2 charging
16:24 – Finding the cheapest public charging
18:40 – Sponsor Segment: Energy Sage
19:57 – Home Automation and solar charging
21:00 – Time of use and EV-specific tarifs
23:02 – Check the health of your electrical circuits!
24:37 – Thanks, and Goodbye!

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Presenter, Audio: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield.
Camera, Editor, Colorist: M. Horton
Art and Animation: Erin Carlie
Producer: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
© Transport Evolved LLC, 2024

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Links:
• Watch our video on charging 101: https://youtu.be/BKHyAmUs2E0
• Watch our video on charging equity: https://youtu.be/ip64lqg6TJg
• Watch our video on CCS secrets: https://youtu.be/BZcyamMRsbA
• Watch our video on choosing a good home charging station: https://youtu.be/7e1zuWbhjjE

Buy our latest T-Shirt: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/157873541

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