NRG eVgo here in Mass - high price I think

They put one in at the Burlington Mall. No signage that says amount... just "tap card"
If you call to activate it, it's $9.99 (have to give them the CC numbers).
Guy said to go online and sign up. They don't even HAVE Mass listed yet . duh
But everywhere else is $14.95 a month, PLUS DC=10¢ / min., $1 hr L2

I am thinking that it isn't going to be used much. That is too high a price, even for here where Nissan is either Free or a $5 flat fee.
Too bad, it's just 2 miles from my house.

There is a free Nissan charger a few towns over... or at least it may be a $5 flat fee, which I would pay. I have not visited it , yet

I did put the charger plug in my 'i', just to see how it works. It was hard to get it to UN-lock off my car. Thought I was stuck

From the Range Extender thread,

jray3 said:

…I'll agree that CHAdeMO is my preferred range extender within the metro area, but the novelty quickly wore off for highway trips, especially when trying to keep a schedule but running into lineups of LEAFs or a DCFC station out of order.

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Agree with that, and a little disappointing as I had hoped CHAdeMO would provide greater freedom. As it now stands, unless they increase the number of of DCQC stations, drop the price, and provide multiple DCQC EVSEs at one location, my little i-MiEV will not be used for long trips. When our Gen1 Honda Insight bites the dust, I'll be looking to rent a Tesla for those types of trips. Now having CHAdeMO has allowed me to take much longer excursions around the SF Bay Area without planning for lengthy stops to recharge - yesterday was a great example as I had to deliver a bunch of boxes 50 miles away and simply used a convenient Blink DCQC for a 15-minute jolt.

Regarding NRG eVgo,

tigger19687 said:

…That is too high a price…

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Yep, and I've been boycotting them ever since I took my long trip last Christmas. I have provided the company with some feedback about their pricing (I don't mind paying, say, $0.50/kWh). Considering the terrific 'subsidy' NRG got in California for their predecessor's misdeeds, they should be giving it away...

tigger19687 said:

I did put the charger plug in my 'i', just to see how it works. It was hard to get it to UN-lock off my car. Thought I was stuck

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Yep, that CHAdeMO connector is more cumbersome than J1772 and they've gone through some handle mechanical interlock iterations with it.

FYI

Dear Tacoma Mall Management, I was very happy to see the installation of your electric vehicle fast-charger, as well as the Level 2 charging stations, but quite disappointed to see it done without consulting either the Tacoma Electric Vehicle Association or the Seattle E.V.A.. By contracting with NRG EVgo, who has a near-zero market presence in this region and a prohibitively high pricing plan, you have made your property unattractive to a large number of EV drivers. I will not pay $15/month for access to a single DC fast charge station, plus $6/hr for use. This is a shame, because I drive past your property every single Saturday, and get a fast charge every single Saturday, in addition to several times in an average work week. For the time being, I will continue to detour to Puyallup Nissan ($10/hr, $1.67 average fast charge cost) or through the Tahoma Market at Fife ($0.49/kW with no monthly fee, $4 for an average fast charge). And of course, when I stop to charge, I also often shop. EV drivers may be frugal, but we are also in the upper income brackets that your properties pursue. I hope that you will correct this mistake by eliminating the monthly access fee, even with a commensurate raise in the per-minute costs. This correspondence will be mirrored on regional EV owner forums and also copied to NRG EVgo, so I look forward to your response.

I left a little Snarky remark on Plugshare about it

Up until a month ago we had zero QC stations in our area. Nissan recently installed two in our Metro area. One is about 5 miles from where I live in the vicinity of the largest shopping mall in our metro. The other is just across the State line in Mississippi, about 18 miles from me. I've actually used both! I checked with the management of both Nissan dealerships and it is free to use, even for Mitsubishi or Tesla owners (For now!).

I'd like to reward Nissan someday for their generosity by becoming a customer, but I just can't unless they incorporate a Thermal management system in their EV. I really like the Leaf in every way, except no thermal protection which is a deal breaker for me!

eVgo has multiple plans, not just the $15 one. I signed up for the no-monthly-fee plan ("Flex") the other day (along with ChargePoint and SemaConnect, which seems to cover most of the commercial charge stations in my area). I'm not sure if this is true everywhere, but it was true for all the locations I checked. (All the plans seemed identical, so I'm not sure why they even make you pick a region.) I'll pay slightly more if and when I do charge, and I paid a $5 setup fee, which is waived for the plans with a monthly cost.

As far as the actual rates, IMHO none of the commercial chargers seem competitive with home charging, or even with gasoline. But, you pay for convenience, I guess. I'd pretty much only use any of them if I couldn't get home on the charge I had.

wmcbrine said:

... IMHO none of the commercial chargers seem competitive with home charging, or even with gasoline. But, you pay for convenience, I guess. I'd pretty much only use any of them if I couldn't get home on the charge I had.

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Yes, I agree, that is exactly their useful purpose. When I was charging at the DCQC Blink station the other day, two Leafs pulled up waiting their turn - it was a 'free' charge for them on Nissan's plan (they were local and were only using it because it was free). I doubt if they will continue using those stations when they are no longer free to them. Three years ago I often used the new L2 charging stations in town just to show that they are being used and needed; nowadays around here, most of us only use public charging stations when we need to.