GridServe on Porsche charging service

[Murph7355]

IONITY is a special case, though, because it is part owned by Porsche - think of 30p as an in-house discount constructed to make EV driving cheaper for all the manufacturers in the club (and 74p for outsiders). They also got a lot of EU funding to accelerate growth (although recent funding for expansion is from Blackrock who will demand good returns).

I'd be absolutely gobsmacked if Porsche were making an actual loss at those rates (as opposed to an opportunity loss).

They may be breaking even, but this is Porsche who charge what they can get away with for absolutely everything. So I suspect it will be running at a profit.

I doubt any company will open their books. But I think, as with traditional car makers etc, the networks are struggling reacclimatising to something new.

They may end up forced to by white knight political types. Who knows.

They do have a difficult business model to tussle with though. People tended not to have petrol pumps at home, but more and more can get chargers.

I generally only go to 2 or 3 destinations outside of return range of the car on a regular basis. Paying for a charger install at those places would actually pay for itself pretty quickly at current public charging rates.

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[anonymouse]

I generally only go to 2 or 3 destinations outside of return range of the car on a regular basis. Paying for a charger install at those places would actually pay for itself pretty quickly at current public charging rates.

Sure, let's see the sums

I am just saying that a full business case to run a decent sized set of chargers might be surprisingly expensive. Remember that they need a lot of high power infrastructure, which may require rights to run high power cables over other properties (who may in turn be charging extortionate rates); the kit is expensive as can be the groundworks; they need on-call maintenance to travel all over the country fixing physical damage and faults; they have to pay fees to the hosting site owner; and a well -designed charging station will have capacity for peaks ie be empty most of the time.

I'm not saying all that costs 79p/kWh, just that I don't know what it does actually cost or what margins they make. I'd welcome seeing some numbers!

 

[Throb]

The other issue "most" CPOs have is that they have no other income streams at the sites in the way some petrol stations have, such as shops. I've heard that most petrol stations don't make money on the fuel, and it's the shops where they make their profits.

 

[MrB]

Yep. The new PCS Plus is ridiculously expensive. You may as well just go with Ionity Passport.

When I get time later, I'll tweak the chart to show a more varied range of situations.

Amen to that. I’ll be binning either Porsche charging option in 25 days time when my 3 years are up and going to IONITY passport. Shame their prices aren’t aligned with the ones they charge in Europe (33-39 eur cents per kWh on the higher discount Passport) but still going to be far better value for my usage case than Porsche’s meagre gruel.

 

[ct4s]

All I can say from reading this thread, and as someone who runs an analytics co, is that electric charging is a cluster-fook either by design or accident (probably the former).
Imagine explaining this to someone who doesn't like tech and is unsure about getting an electric car. They will certainly stick to petrol / diesel for a few more years.

And why is Porsche even trying to make a profit from charging?
Given their poor sales, they need to do everything they can to encourage us to buy and use their EVs. So, they should consider a massively subsidised rate, say free for 20 mins, before a [low] fee kicks in.

I rarely public charge, but had to do so this weekend.
Being daunted by the an app for each network, I completely forgot about using my Porsche card (never used it yet) and instead used the Gridserve (20% app discount ended yesterday, 10% for Oct) and Ionity apps.
Why can't Porsche use GPS too see that I've pulled up at a charger and prompt me via the PCM and Porsche app to use my Porsche card to charge! It would be quite simple to code this.

Overall it's a complete mess, so much so my wife doesn't want to go electric and millions will feel the same way for many more years.
Car companies (except Tesla) and charging networks are doing way too little to change perception. And the govt is ineffective beyond tax breaks for companies and company car drivers.

 

[W1NGE]

All I can say from reading this thread, and as someone who runs an analytics co, is that electric charging is a cluster-fook either by design or accident (probably the former).
Imagine explaining this to someone who doesn't like tech and is unsure about getting an electric car. They will certainly stick to petrol / diesel for a few more years.

And why is Porsche even trying to make a profit from charging?
Given their poor sales, they need to do everything they can to encourage us to buy and use their EVs. So, they should consider a massively subsidised rate, say free for 20 mins, before a [low] fee kicks in.

I rarely public charge, but had to do so this weekend.
Being daunted by the an app for each network, I completely forgot about using my Porsche card (never used it yet) and instead used the Gridserve (20% app discount ended yesterday, 10% for Oct) and Ionity apps.
Why can't Porsche use GPS too see that I've pulled up at a charger and prompt me via the PCM and Porsche app to use my Porsche card to charge! It would be quite simple to code this.

Overall it's a complete mess, so much so my wife doesn't want to go electric and millions will feel the same way for many more years.
Car companies (except Tesla) and charging networks are doing way too little to change perception. And the govt is ineffective beyond tax breaks for companies and company car drivers.

Hmm.

The PCM will give you this detail if you select the EVSE (stopover ideally but optional) and browse the detail (includes images from the location). My Porsche App too will provide same as you know.

I guess it could overall be better but there's always PAYG if you can't be bothered to pre-plan the stop and pay a little more.

Alternatively, the Electroverse Card (aggregator) is really quite useful for many providers and takes a lot away from the thought process. Limited discounts but broad coverage from a single card.

Charging faff is the least of the EV market worries - depreciation and confusion from the manufacturers (hybrid / ev / neither) is a much bigger worry for most.

 

[Bennachie]

Gov. wont help. They want us all out of cars not transferring to EV

 

[anonymouse]

Car companies (except Tesla) and charging networks are doing way too little to change perception. And the govt is ineffective beyond tax breaks for companies and company car drivers.

well I think things ARE getting better:
- several players including IONITY are investing heavily, with rapid rollouts planned and real progress
- regulations introduced in recent years will put all charge point providers on a path to credit card acceptance (PAYG) which will be mandatory
- additional regulations will require all new build apartment blocks, and most refurbishment, to provider charging in parking places.

Prices vary and are complicated to predict when travelling - but petrol is the same.

 

[Murph7355]

....
Why can't Porsche use GPS too see that I've pulled up at a charger and prompt me via the PCM and Porsche app to use my Porsche card to charge! It would be quite simple to code this.
...

GPS isn't really accurate enough to do as you note, I think. But...

Plug n Charge.... What is Plug & Charge? (octopus.energy)

Haven't tried it myself. But might do next time I need to charge out in the wild.

 

[flemo3000]

Received this notification just now:

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I tried using mine yesterday and it didn't work, I spoke to Gridserve customer support and they told me they nothing about it and that they don't yet support Porsche cards or RFID keyrings

 

[bn8959]

Worked for me!

 

[ps500]

I tried using mine yesterday and it didn't work, I spoke to Gridserve customer support and they told me they nothing about it and that they don't yet support Porsche cards or RFID keyrings

I’ve been using my Porsche card at Gridserve at Chester, Lancaster and Burton-in-Kendal since 20th September

 

[tylerdurden]

So, I was a regular user of the GRIDSERVE chargers at Rugby services before I got my Porsche and switched to ionity.

Summarising this thread are we saying grid serve charging is cheaper via PCS then tapping your credit card? I only use ultrahigh speed 350kw chargers (gave up on 50kw chargers years ago)

 

[Throb]

So, I was a regular user of the GRIDSERVE chargers at Rugby services before I got my Porsche and switched to ionity.

Summarising this thread are we saying grid serve charging is cheaper via PCS then tapping your credit card? I only use ultrahigh speed 350kw chargers (gave up on 50kw chargers years ago)

It depends which PCS. If it's the legacy PCS, then yes, it would be significantly cheaper. If it's the new PCS Plus, then it's only slightly cheaper. Either way, it's much cheaper to use Ionity than Gridserve via either PCS or PCS Plus.

If you bought 50 kWh at Gridserve, these are the costs:

Gridserve direct = £39.50
Legacy PCS = £23.50 (at typical charging speeds)
PCS Plus = £37 (at typical charging speeds)


If using IONITY:

Legacy PCS = £15
PCS Plus = £19.50

 

[Sonic]

It depends which PCS. If it's the legacy PCS, then yes, it would be significantly cheaper. If it's the new PCS Plus, then it's only slightly cheaper. Either way, it's much cheaper to use Ionity than Gridserve via either PCS or PCS Plus.

If you bought 50 kWh at Gridserve, these are the costs:

Gridserve direct = £39.50
Legacy PCS = £23.50 (at typical charging speeds)
PCS Plus = £37 (at typical charging speeds)


If using IONITY:

Legacy PCS = £15
PCS Plus = £19.50

Just looking to renew my subscription now and pretty shocked to see the new PCS prices!

To my maths, assuming there's no idling/time-based charges, this means it's actually cheaper to charge directly with Gridserve with no subscription than with the standard PCS. You can't make it up.

E.g. assuming a full rapid charge of 80kWh at Gridserve within the hour. If it takes longer than an hour, the PCS will then add even further costs!

Gridserve direct (79p/kWh): £63.20
PCS Plus (74p/kWh): £59.20 + (£29.99pcm subscription)
PCS (89p/kWh): £71.20 + (£9.99pcm subscription)

If you were to do this once a week, as an example, this would cost in total over a month:

Gridserve direct: £252.80
PCS Plus: £266.79
PCS: £294.79

So it just makes no sense to me at all to have a PCS subscription unless you're frequently using rapid chargers multiple times a week, or are frequently using Ionity or Porsche chargers - as every PCS option is more expensive.

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