About three months ago, my German wife took great interest in the new Audi E-Tron car (Audi's first attempt to go pure battery). The commercial and the literature were the driving force. Sometime here in February, the local dealer will have a E-Tron available for a test-drive, and we will get a 30-minute block of time to cruise around in this new Audi E-Tron.
I'm not that hot over battery-cars....mostly because of the charge-time required, the lack of chargers around Germany, the question over cost of disposal of the batteries when they've finally died, and then this stupid question of electrical cost with escalation of grid prices likely to follow in the next decade.
Well, this weekend....the Audi 'deal' came out over charging ports. Audi, within sixteen countries of Europe, has 72,000 charging ports. So as part of their sales package to you....they want to get you into a contract where you'd have a card, and just drive up to port-X, swipe the card, and plug the car in for charge.
The deal? There are two situations:
1. A 4.95 Euro (roughly $6) charge per month (call it a fee), with a 7.95 Euro for a regular charge, and a 9.95 charge for a 'quick' charge (this being the DC method).
2. This situation is more for longer-distance travel, and the monthly fee is 17.95 Euro (figure around $20). In this case, you'd pay near 8-Euro ($10) for a regular charge-up session and 33 Euro-cents per KwH.
So you look over this and start think about cost impact of charging, realizing it's simply not cheap or reasonable.
A guy with deal #1 who charged ONLY at Audi stations....would be looking at a 150 km per day situation and likely spending in the range of 100 Euro minimum. But with deal #1, you wouldn't get access to the longer-distance charge up stations if you were driving once a month for some weekend getaway. If you signed up for deal #2, you'd pay more.
The experts looked at everything and kinda hinted strongly.....you'd be better off to charge only at your house, with your own personal charger. But you see, that's not how you get to the charge-up ports along the autobahns or in far-off locations.
The car companies are figuring in the long-term.....they will force you into some compromise where you have be a 'club-member' and pay some monthly subscription service. The idea of just joining a charge card service for one single month, while you might be traveling beyond your home area? They won't let you get in and out of a contract that easily.
The amusing thing here is that fuel prices for the one and only family car we operate now....figure refueling three times a month....run in the range of 60 Euro for each occasion, or 180 Euro (roughly $200). In some ways, the Audi deal looks attractive but you have to figure that every other year, it's going to expand 10-percent or more.
The idea of putting solar panels up on the house and refueling your car for 'free'? This is the driving strategy for a number of battery-car enthusiasts in Germany.
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