Are Electric Car Charging Stations Free?

There are a lot of changes that come with an electric car around Monticello, but some things remain largely similar. Are electric car charging stations free? For the most part, no. To help with the adoption of this next generation technology, many local governments have put up free electric charging stations for electric vehicles. That said, the answer to the question “Are electric charging stations free?” is still largely no. Charging stations operate similarly to gas stations in the Anoka and Ramsey areas, with a credit card terminal integrated into each station. You are charged for how much energy you “download” into your vehicle, at a predefined rate. That said, electricity is much cheaper than gasoline. If you have any questions, get in touch with us!

Who Pays For Electric Car Charging Stations?

Who pays for electric car charging stations?” If it is a free station, it is generally whichever local government put the particular set of stalls up. If it’s part of a network of charging stations that are not free, as the vast majority of EV charging stations are, those stations are owned and operated by that charging network for profit. All that said, most EV owners charge their vehicles at home the vast majority of the time, at night when electricity is even cheaper.

Electric Savings

There are many ways an EV saves you money over the long run:

• No Gasoline: Kiss your gasoline stops goodbye. The price of gasoline will matter a whole lot less to you, as you’ll simply never need it for your car again. Electricity does cost money, but because it is much easier to generate than gasoline is to dig up out of the ground and refine, electricity is cheaper than gasoline by an enormous margin.
• Advanced Propulsion: Electric motors use electromagnetism to spin a shaft, a process which even in current production vehicles on the road now is commonly above 80% efficient. Internal combustion engines of any type can’t physically come close to that, as the explosions that power them produce more heat than propulsion. Electric motors are roughly double the efficiency of even high performance engines. This all means electric motors require half the energy to produce the same amount of forward propulsion.
• Low Cost Energy: To get the most out of an EV, you’ll install a Level 2 charger in your garage. This charges your vehicle overnight, when electricity is cheapest and the grid is at its least used, allowing you to wake up to a fully charged vehicle for pennies on the dollar. If you have solar, wind, geothermal, or any other at-home renewable energy source, that price can go down to zero. Unless you have an oil well and gasoline refinery, this is not possible with gasoline.
• Mechanical Simplicity: While energy costs and electric motors are responsible for a lot of the cost savings on an EV, you’ll also save on maintenance costs because EVs have far fewer components. Oil changes, tune ups, alternator replacements, and so much more are simply not a thing on electric vehicles. EVs replace hundreds of moving parts in the engine with, effectively, one. EVs still have cooling systems, braking systems, and so on like normal cars, but they are dramatically simpler. Batteries are also lasting longer than predicted, with many now 10 year-old batteries having lost less than 15% of their overall charge ability.

Go Electric at Cornerstone Auto Today!

Looking into turning your Coon Rapids or Big Lake drives electric? Consider our payment calculator and the benefits of buying a car online!