Welcome to my Charging Site Reviews. One of the main reasons I decided to start a blog
was to share information with others about Electric Vehicle Charging locations.
|
Business/Location Name |
PS Food Mart #1035 |
|
Address |
720 N Main St, Perry,
MI 48872 |
|
Network |
ChargePoint |
|
Station Details |
2 linked 62.5kW
Stations or 125 from one station |
|
Cost |
$0.15/min |
The PS Food Mart is at a
Citgo gas station about halfway between Flint and Lansing along I-69, in Perry,
MI. This site serves the northeast to southwest corridor from Port Huron,
MI (on the border with Canada) and Coldwater, MI. There aren’t any
other fast chargers available between those two cities. This follows the
current standard ChargePoint site roll-out, and you can expect to see
several reviews that match this same layout in the future. I found out that the local electric utility
company is offering a nice rebate/refund for installing these sites.
Accessibility
This station is in the southwest corner of the gas station parking lot. Taking M-52 (Main St.) south from the freeway exits, the gas station for this stop is located on the southeast corner of the intersection of M-52 and Lansing Rd. From the stop light at this intersection, the chargers can be seen just past the ‘Welcome to Perry’ sign. Since these chargers are placed in the corner of the parking lot closest to the road, it is very unlikely that a vehicle that was not charging would park in these spaces. However, since the parking is ‘nose in’, there is no pull-through parking for anyone pulling a trailer. These charges are placed with diagonal parking spaces, so this may make parking vehicles that need to back in to charge (like the VW ID.4) more difficult.
Amenities
Window washing, air for tires and trash cans are all within the same parking lot, along with a drive-through car wash. Compared to my first stop, this site offers many more dining options. Inside the gas station is a Subway sandwich shop. Other walkable fast food options include: McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Jersey Giants, and as of the time of my visit, a KFC coming soon. Other food options include: a bar/pub, BBQ, and Chinese food. At the intersection are 3 convenience stores, and within a longer walk distance are two dollar stores and a drug store. There is no covering for the chargers, so they could easily become icy or blocked by snow in the winter time, and the direction of the chargers will make clearing snow completely from the front of the chargers difficult in winter.
Concentration
Even for a secondary site like this, two chargers is not enough for this site. On a secondary route like I-69, and at a convenient halfway point, there should be more chargers. This site has room to grow, but it will take more to add to this site, and additional spots will more likely be blocked by non-electric vehicles. This may provide an opportunity for other charging networks to open a station at this exit.
Location
Overall, I think this is a pretty good location for a charging stop. At about 100 miles from both Port Huron, MI and Coldwater, MI, this site would serve any electric drivers that are traveling the I-69 highway and supports more highway miles to alleviate concerns about charging options.
Speed
These ChargePoint shared power chargers are a decent solution for now, but they will quickly become taxed by the next round of electric vehicles. My Kia can pull more than the 62.5 kW a single station will output, as shown in the graph below. However, with more vehicles like the ID.4 and Mach-E coming that can do 100kW charging by themselves, and combined 125kW stations like this will be strained by just one of these vehicles. If two vehicles try to charge at the same time, they will obviously result in much slower speeds than possible so I score this stop as “just adequate”. (Thanks to ChargePoint for adding graphs like this in the app. I think all of the app providers should put interactive maps of your past charging session history.
Summary
Having only travelled 80 miles from my first stop of the day, I had sufficient battery life when I arrived, but the battery pack in Elektra was all the way up to operating temperature for the first time since I purchased her. I pulled up to the left charger, station #1, like I had done at the previous stop. I plugged in and tapping the charger with my phone brought up the dreaded error that I had seen at my previous stop. The screen showed; “Sorry, station needs maintenance. A fault caused charging to stop. Please return plug and try again or use a different station.” Having already seen this message once that day, I was disappointed to see this same error immediately at my second stop. I quickly moved to station #2, which started charging without any issues. This time, I decided to call ChargePoint to test their customer service. I was connected to a real person in less than 2 minutes. The rep was able to easily identify the chargers I was referencing. Using their backend systems, she could see that the charger showing the error was reporting a power supply error, therefore unable to be fixed by a simple reset of the station. While I was on the phone with her, I did see that the lights on the broken station changed to white and it showed unavailable. However, shortly after I hung up the call, the charger lights went back to the normal green ready color. I was frustrated knowing the next person to pull up to that charger was bound to have the same error. With a few more minutes to charge, and not having had lunch yet, I walked over to the Taco Bell and grabbed a quick burrito.
This stop was great from
a cost standpoint, even though I did stay and charge well past the heavy taper
in the charging speeds that happens at 80% in Elektra. At a cost of around
$.18 per kWh for this stop, I think this is the best price I’ve paid yet for DC
fast charging. This site scored a strong 60% on my very tough rating
scale and surpassed my expectations compared to the first stop.
Cost and Charging Details
|
Total Cost |
$5.70 |
|
Total kWh |
32.02 |
|
Cost per
kWh |
$0.178
(Calculated) |
|
Charging
Time |
38 Minutes |
|
Average
Charge Speed |
50.56 kW
(Calculated) |
|
Total Score (Max 44) |
Score Percentage |
Accessibility Total |
Amenities Total |
Concentration |
Location |
Speed |
|
26 |
60 |
6 |
8 |
6 |
3 |
3 |
