[kingjnod]

I love, love, love my Bolt! Because of free charging in parking garages and other places, I have only spent $9 on charging in 6 months!! (driven just over 4k miles)

My wife goes the gym every day and charges for nearly two hours for free, the place we walk on the weekends has free charging, and we have found free charging all over southern california. I haven't even felt the need to install level 2 in my garage yet. I did level one charging once when we were very low and have paid for chargepoint three times.

These free stations can't possibly last, but I will use them while they are here.

 

[NY-Rob]

^ problem with the free stations... when they break, it takes forever, if ever... to get them up and running again.

We have a free public ChargePoint Station at the Supreme Court building where I work, the station crapped out in June of last year. They physically removed the station from the ground and placed an orange cone over the electrical leads. To this day, that's all they've done. No new station, nothing.
They (Suffolk County Dep. Of Public Works) don't even return emails concerning the station any longer. It was nice while it lasted, but it's gone now and probably never to be replaced.

 

[redpoint5]

^ problem with the free stations... when they break, it takes forever, if ever... to get them up and running again.

Is there a common thread as to what breaks on these stations? A transformer and converter are pretty simple devices to take high voltage AC and turn it into 400v DC. There is a computer to facilitate the transaction and monitor consumption. Then there is the charging cable. I assume the computer is the failure point since it's the most complex piece, but it's the cable that people use/abuse.

 

[kingjnod]

There are chargers on the pier in Santa Monica (Clipper Creek) that are just free (no time limit either), no chargepoint card, nothing, just lift the cord from a holder and plug in. Because of the salt air they are rusty and sad looking and appear to be about 40 years old, but they are never broken and I have never seen all 6 filled up at the same time. My favorite place and it makes me think that clipper creek is the way to go if they can handle that environment.

 

[neutrondrip]

I'm pretty lucky in that there are three free charging stations where I work. I've also spent less than $10 for charging in the four months I've had the Bolt.