Title says it all! Anyone do this acting as a individual civilian? Kinda like vending machines or whatever, might be easy to install a couple chargers in a couple locations (for 3-5k I would expect) and then profit?
Is this profitable? Any personal anecdotes or experiences?
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Take a look at McKinsey & Co. They have quite a few EV charging reports and case studies laid out with costs, utilization, break even calculations, and federal subsidies.
A 2 port 7.2 kW ChargePoint is about $15k, they charge 10% of the sales to process your transactions, and there is $500ish per year in other fees.
If you could mark up the power bill by $.20 per kWh it would take about 13,000 kWh per year to break even assuming a 8 year depreciation on the charger and no additional maintenance costs. This would require about 5hr/day of charging to break even.
Not as an individual I don’t think. It could work if you own an office building, install a few stations and and charge the tenants and employees working there. A captive audience is better than hoping for random users.
Are you an electrician? I’m guessing not. Are you going to get bonded and insured? File permits? When you add it all up you’ll realize it’s not THAT lucrative. The fact that you’re asking this though implies you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Edit: I can’t tell now if you’re actually talking about OPERATING them too? If so, no, it’s not profitable without the land and you’d still need to manage billing.
We (Denmark) have quite a few business and private people who set up level 2 chargers and make them publicly available, at a cost that’s either static or based on current utility prices plus a mark up.
Generally I think they’re profitable, but it’s a long term ROI; depending on mark-up (which would depend on local availability, and location) ROI is probably reached at 5-14000kWh, so roughly 450 to 13000 hours of charge time, based on $1200-2000 for the box and installation.
How long that ROI would be in real time would of course depend on actual utilization.
There are of course also the sly business’, like a tourist attraction where the best parking spots are reserved for EV charging and they charge ~$0.8/hr on a 7.4kW outlet :p bet they’re making bank.
Calculate how much power will go through these each day. Then see what that nets you . Hint: not much.
Level 2 chargers aren’t really profitable.
I spend like $4 max on a level 2 charger so I doubt you will break even as quickly as you would like
It’s anecdotal, but I hardly ever see paid L2 public charging stations in use. Locals will charge at home to save money, and visitors will use DC quick charging.
I don’t see this working out well as an investment.