As go the Batteries, so goes the Nation

 Predictions are HARD. Especially about the future of batteries! but here we go anyway:
       Yes there is a glossary of most of the acronyms buried somewhere down the page.
And remember this is not 'just' about cars.
The future of energy production and storage economics are also at stake...

Other Note, a year later: Global production of Lithium is around One Million Tonnes.
Lithium reserves in Nevada alone top 100 Million tonnes.
Lithium refining is now possible without toxic reagents nor significant excess water usage. First production plants using these processes are already being built.
We no longer regard any part of long life (20-25 yr.) LFP production to be North America 'resource constrained' with the possible exception of Graphite. All of the remaining constraints on building out a distributed-power electric future come down to Politics/Fiscal Policy and investment capital.
[FYI: we are lumping all of; NIMBY, Save the U.A.W., Save the Sage Grouse, Save the Indian Burial sites, Save the existing bureaucracy, under 'Politics'  here.]

Note six months later: LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate, ie: No Nickel or Cobalt content) cells, in quantities of 50,000 are already down to around $70/kWh. That makes some of the arguments below even more compelling. Granted that is FOB in China. Tesla and others are near to making the same come true in the US factories. That sounds like a nifty 22% drop. Cool, huh! But don't forget the U.S. allows a $35 per KWh in tax credits, so that drop cuts the after tax cost of LFP cells IN HALF. This is going to get really interesting ... especially when they get the cost down below $50 in 2025 or 2026. What happens when the most expensive part of your car or home energy storage system has a net cost near Zero Dollars?
Boggles the mind.  (subject to politics, obviously)
Way down at the bottom of this post*** you'll find an addendum about how the cost of LFP cells are declining over time. Hint: It's around 20% per year.. Translation: That's around $50/KWh by late-2024-25. Don't forget there's also a $10/KWh credit for cell integration into packs. So even someone like Tesla who are integrating CATL (China) LFP cells into the stationary battery 'Megapack' market see some gain from the credits. These also 'stack' so making your own cells and integrating them can see a total of $45. There have been many announcements from many players surrounding getting into this market. Only one that's actually executing so far. 
Also of note (May'23) LFP batteries have improved to 180Wh/Kg, M3P have hit 210Wh/Kg. NCA are approaching 240Wh/Kg and the first production Sodium (instead of lithium) cells are around 150Wh/Kg and still improving. This stuff is getting better fast.
Be aware that these both M3P and LMFP add Manganese to the chemistry, which tends to reduce the life somewhat, but that may be a viable tradeoff (12 yrs. vs. 20 or whatever) for some folks, especially still with no nickel or cobalt content, assuming the price doesn't jump much.

* Late 2021 Estimates based on then current CATL/BYD/Tesla announcements. See Glossary below**

From current (so to speak) events you might have, rightly IMHO, concluded:
                       "As go the Batteries, so goes the Nation"
based on the plans and statements of a President or two and a legislative body or two. U.S. China, Europe Etc.

This of course sounds like ridiculous hyperbolae. However, it's not unfair to say "Energy Independence -IS- independence." Just ask the several rulers of European countries that decided, 20 years ago, to rely on Russia for gas supply.
     China has figured this out, and the U.S seems to have it kinda sorta in mind, some days of the week.
Since almost all of the oncoming reduced-climate-impact energy sources are electrical in nature, and very few of the uses can directly operate from intermittent sources (Wind, Waves, Solar) some sort of storage medium is required. Pumping water uphill to a reservoir, and heating sand (I kid you not) are potentially viable storage methods in some few situations, but most of it is going to come down to batteries.

Maybe Fusion will be come 'the thing' some day, but it always seems '20 years off.' Both Hydro and Nuclear are difficult to add, build and/or scale up. My prediction is that Wind and Solar, combined with Battery Storage (combined with some existing natural gas emergency generating capacity) are going to 'win' in most situations. Both Wind and Solar are now cheaper to implement than other generating processes. Battery based electrical storage facilities are already on line in Australia, California and Europe, replacing gas 'peaker' electrical generation plants for less than half the cost.

"But mining all those minerals for battery production is going to destroy the earth!!"
                             ... as if the alternatives aren't already destroying the earth... ;-)
Most of the nay-sayers have some sort of vested interest in the status-quo. Once you get past all those political, labor, sunk-cost industries and NIMBY environmental/justice concerns, there are some really valid problems with scaling up materials and factory production processes to meet the kind of battery demand that is certainly coming.
However, a lot of this is at least partially based on outdated information and/or predictions. Many of which continue to be promoted because it serves the narrative purposes of the speaker. 
Also keep in mind another point the nay-sayers aren't making note of: all EV production currently in process uses only 10% of current world wide Nickel production, there are alternatives for some of that 'other' 90%, and that Nickel will make up a declining percentage of the total average battery pack going forward (see below.)

Let's all go all over all that:   [Edit] Also;  There's a nice Youtube now.

While Sodium is becoming a significant component of the batteries we need, (there's some industrial-scale production in China, granted it's unproven and about half the energy-density) Lithium is the key and most voluminous element in all the battery types shown above.  Lithium is a very common substance world-wide, and while the process of extracting and processing it does not have NO environmental consequences, the processes and methods for extracting it with relatively little (especially compared with the alternatives) environmental impact already exist. Now granted the costs of doing this responsibly are higher than strip-mining and washing all the waste products downstream with copious quantities of water, but they are VERY do-able with current technologies and at not-extreme cost. For some time to come the 'dirtiest' sources will remain the cheapest and everyone involved needs to keep an eye on that. Still, Lithium cost and availability seem like comparatively less difficult problems to solve.

The next two big concerns are Nickel and Cobalt. Cobalt for its scarcity, high cost, difficult (and dirty) processing/refining and the concerns surrounding justice for the workers in the countries where it's found.
Nickel has issues for many of the same reasons, especially the 'dirty' part, though it is MUCH more common than Cobalt. These would, IMHO, be almost 'show stopper' issues if there weren't good alternatives:
One thing that seems to get lost in all the outdated predictions and outcry and narratives above is that Less Than Half of current Tesla production of both electric vehicle and/or stationary (think power plant) batteries use ANY Cobalt or Nickel.    OK so some nickel is used in car production, but very little and not in the batteries for nearly 55% of current Tesla car production volume.
Now that doesn't mean that GM and Ford and Nissan and Renault/Stellantis (and to some degree VW) are keeping up with this trend, they are, let's face it, much much slower to make changes, but the writing is on the wall and I don't think they're going to be able to ignore this (see below) over the long haul, despite the significant sums they have sunk into NMC based battery production.
EDIT: Just been informed that the GM Ultium chemistry is NMCA (added aluminum, 70% less Cobalt compared with the early Chevy Bolt batteries) so that's at least somewhat better going forward. More on that later. Ford has announced LFP plans, but nothing in production as yet as far as we know.

The remaining components of the batteries are less of a concern. Phosphates are a done deal, mostly from fertilizer manufacturing processes. Iron, Steel, Copper and maybe some Aluminum, Zink and  Magnesium are already available in sufficient and relatively inexpensive quantities. The last big component is Graphite, which while largely sourced from China today, can be processed elsewhere with existing technologies. More of a short-term concern.

** Glossary.    Now that it's scrolled up off the page, let's go over the table/graphic included above. 
                              ...   Yes, we remain cruel AND unusual...  ;-)
      Unless noted they ALL contain Lithium salts, Copper, Steel and Graphite.
      Which are all, at least relatively, available and low-ish cost.

The first high volume high capacity lithium batteries were of the NMC type (third column) and were used from 2010 onward in the Nissan Leaf and the Mitsubishi iMiev. I believe a variant of this is in the LG produced cells in the Chevy Bolt and that it forms the basis for the cells used by most GM, Ford, Stellantis and VW production. They're all looking at alternatives, but are right now (2022-23) wedded to high volumes of Nickel and Cobalt. (see GM/Ford edit above) This also forms the basis of most Cellphone and battery-based consumer electronics devices, although that (by mass) will pale in comparison with EV and Stationary Power uses.

The NCA Cell is almost exclusively in the high performance or long range Tesla and some GM  vehicles.  It has Aluminum as an added component and requires less nickel and cobalt. Slightly higher energy density and slightly better cycle life seem to be the other advantages with a somewhat higher risk of thermal runaway (burning up) as a trade off. Obviously they have, a million vehicles later, got that mostly under control. While this was in almost 100% of Tesla production in early 2019, it represents apparently less than 50% now. Tesla moves fast.

LFP and it's variants are arguably the up and coming new champion. It's components  [Lithium, Iron(Fe), Phosphate] are considerably cheaper than the competition. The production processes are not significantly worse and it may prove cheaper to actually manufacture once that all gets shaken-out. Refining, transportation and local availability are less of an issue. It's much much less likely to catch on fire so not only does safety improve, but the weight and complexity of impact/fire suppression engineering is reduced. As an additional bonus, the better chemical stability results in a much longer life. Both in the number of cycles it can survive -and- the number of years it will live.
Yes, There's more!
The LFP cell LIKES to be charged up to 100% and discharged (almost) completely. Discharging below 2.5V/cell under load tends to destroy it, but they all have similar limitations. The NMC and NCA cells hate to be charged above 90%. Impacts cell life.
The big trade off with LFP cells has been reduced energy density, both by weight and volume. So it took about a 20% bigger battery to get the same range. In theory. However the packaging efficiencies and willingness to support a wider range of charge-states (the 90% thing) make up for some of this.
As a member of this planet, you might have considerable interest in a battery pack that can last a million miles. As management in a car manufacturer you're probably opposed to anything much longer than the 8 years you're required to support. Impacts sales, Don'tChaKnow. Point is, like everything else, there's competing priorities.

LMFP/M3P are LFP variants, included here because they're already in production (in China) and because they make up much of the difference between LFP and NMC without giving away most of the LFP advantages. These should eventually bring the LFP arm of the business up to parity.
LMFP has some manganese added to the mix to increase energy density. This tends to decrease cell life though, so much work is going into ameliorating that. CATL has their M3P variant with added Zink, Magnesium and/or Aluminum among other things. Other manufacturers are adding silicon to the anodes or using nanoparticle graphite or coatings... Point is there's lots going on in this space without even talking about sodium batteries or solid state batteries. Those have a real chance to impact actual product production and volume delivery next decade. LFP variants will impact deliveries this year.
LFP cells can be tweaked to have lower internal cell resistance than some NMC/NCA chemistries. Since this is directly proportional to the amount of heating that occurs during charge/discharge, this can end up being a significant advantage in packaging density and the complexity/costs of cooling solutions.

Results: Looked at from a geo-political perspective, China currently holds many of the cards in this game. They have been doing a good job of predicting what the requirements for this will be, and then 'command economy' style, making it happen. They have up to 80% of the refining capacity for some of the materials used in battery production right now, although they may not have completely seen the shift to LFP coming (they are the largest LFP manufacturing region right now though). Graphite is still a key despite the LFP shift.
They do not seem (right now) to be using this as much of a lever, but they are making it really easy for Tesla and VW and GM and others to move much of their car production there, about 90+% for GM and a bit under 50% for the others. This is why the recently enacted incentives in the U.S. are such a big deal. The legislation carefully excludes Chinese made cars and raw materials and refined materials from any of the incentives contained there-in. Everybody and their brother has since announced materials, mining and manufacturing plans in the U.S. and some of that is already in motion.
It seems unlikely that China will be able to resist turning the screws on this entirely. The example of Russia's success with energy monopoly gamesmanship won't be lost on them. We'll see if 'on-shoring' these processes can happen fast enough to keep that from being a big issue. The size of oncoming investments in that area would argue in favor, the extreme slowness due to permitting processes and NIMBY and lawyers would argue against. If course the more agile players (mostly read 'Tesla') are already shifting most production out of California and into Texas, TN, GA, Nevada and Ontario and weren't using China for most of the vehicles and stationary battery production they sell in the U.S. to begin with, having seen the writing on that wall early on.

Other stuff:

All that noise about how "EVs use more materials than ICE" has been debunked throughly.

Tesla and BYD (the second largest EV Manufacturer world wide) are both working on very high reliability battery packs (LFP anyone?) that they can bond together to become the base 'frame' of the vehicle. Tesla also has large single aluminum castings that bond on the front and the back of that pack which everything else (motor, drivetrain, suspension) connect to, leaving those three parts to replace about half the parts used in 'normal' vehicles. Talk about your killer manufacturing advantages.

LFP should completely take over the stationary/power-plant market within 2-3 years. U.S. and China will reach 80% LFP during 2023. The lower cost, lower maintenance (100% charging range) and three to four times the usable life are hard to compete with. Who cares if it's slightly larger and heavier. They're taking over the 'house size' battery market too. Sodium batteries may eventually take over this niche, but we're not nearly there yet.
Virtual power plants of connected cooperating houses with solar and a big house battery are becoming a big thing in a number of markets. As a result I'm not planning to invest in companies that put up or operate large gas power plants or transmission lines unless politics kills the alternatives.
The early stages of this are already in production using LFP cells from CATL of China and should fill out the latter stages of the 1.2 GigaWatt plant in Monterrey California (already partially on line).
Each of the shipping-container sized 'MegaPack' batteries now has about 4 megawatt-hours (4MWh) of storage capacity and an inverter that can supply 2MW+ of power, enough to keep 4000 homes going for a 'peak' hour -or- about 400 homes indefinitely. At somewhere a bit less than 2 million dollars each (in quantity), these MegaPacks don't seem cheap, but they've dropped in half (on a per-capacity basis) over the last five years and that curve shows no signs of flattening out (So each 1GWh=$500K now and ~$250K in late 2025). Even 5 years ago the MegaPacks were less than half as expensive to buy and install than a gas powered plant and take one quarter the time to get on-line. So now they're over 4X less expensive.  Add to which they cost a tenth as much to operate!! completely ignoring the cost of gas to fuel those other plants!! 
All of this is now being done with no Nickel, Cobalt or Nuclear materials and relatively little fossil fuels in the materials or production processes. This isn't pie-in-the-sky that fixes all our problems, but it does work, at least mostly, right now and at the very least cuts many of those problems in half - or better.

If you look up "Redwood Materials Co." you'll find that Lithium battery recycling is already a 'thing.'
It only makes sense: The recycling process, while technically difficult, yields raw materials for battery production at a much lower cost (and energy/environmental impact) than any alternatives. As batteries and battery production become more efficient over time, the 5% or so losses in the recycling processes is more than made-up-for by those improvements. A single NMC pack from last year yields enough Cobalt and Nickel for two or three NCA packs. We're rapidly approaching the point where EVs are MORE recyclable than Internal Combustion Engine (ICS) cars, not even mentioning all the fossil fuels they didn't burn up.

One other thing that doesn't get much press is that the total cost of charging infrastructure needs to include the cost of putting in and maintaining the space where the car parks during charging, the space to drive into that parking, street cutouts/driveways - etc. The costs surrounding putting this in vary wildly across the country: Land costs, grading, preparation, paving. curbing, lighting, landscaping, permits, taxes, yuck. In some cases you're just adding functionality to existing parking infrastructure. In other cases it's standalone. Including access, you're looking at about 1000 sq.ft. (approx 100 sq.m) and that probably costs somewhere between $10-20K plus maintenance. Like most things it doesn't scale in a completely linear manner. a 12 stall standalone charging setup is barely over twice the cost of a 4 stall installation as far as the 'parking lot' part of it goes in most situations. Since Tesla tends to put in larger (8 and up) sets of charging stalls they have yet another cost advantage, which to be fair, the other players are starting to catch up on. 
Looking at the quotes the major players put out we can infer that they expect the non-parking equipment costs to total somewhere in the vicinity of $250K-400K per high capacity (150KW and up) charging stall. Presumably that includes the grid-tie, trenching, common electrical box and the actual charging station. People who have deconstructed Tesla's financial statements have put out estimates of $50-100K for their costs on the same. Once again it's Tesla in the lead, and the associated costs/benefits writ large. Something that 'just kinda happens' with lots of government 'help' may not be quite as efficient as a process that's designed from the ground up to work efficiently (and well!) as a system.

Notes:

Should this impact any buying decisions you're making now? As usual: It depends.
If you're only keeping a new vehicle for 3-5 years then it should make little difference. In fact the slightly longer range that's quoted to you might sway your buying decisions in favor of NMC/NCA.
If you're intending to keep it for longer, then you'll probably note that you should only plan to charge the NMC/NCA vehicle to 80% on a regular basis to improve the battery life, which brings it to the same 'day to day' range as an LFP pack that started with 20% less range, but which likes to be charged to 100% regularly.
In the U.S. it's actually more constrained than that. The only LFP based vehicles currently available (and even that depends on when and where they were manufactured) are the Tesla Standard Range RWD Model Y, and Model 3.

** Other notes from the chart. The original is over a year old.  Some of the numbers are outdated. First remember this is per entire battery pack, all built up. Some costs on a per cell basis may be lower. Also the cycle life for NCA is probably more like 1400-1500, at least the way Tesla's battery management software enforces how it works. It is now a common expectation for NCA based Teslas to exceed 200,000 miles on the original battery pack. In part because Tesla updates the software 'over the air' when they learn something new.
Increases in range play into this as well. Early Nissan Leafs were lucky to get 60-80K miles out of a pack. Now that number is 150-200+K. Given that the packs now have two to three times as much capacity and that it therefore represents about the same number of full charges this isn't unexpected. Improvements in cell chemistry and battery management electronics also play a part, even for the older NMC based batteries. This also improves the number of years (ie: purely time based) a pack, and therefore the car, can reasonably last. That said, our 2012 iMiev still has 80% of it's original range ten years in, so how conservative the original engineering might have been plays a part (as does luck.)
Given how the major players are now building the pack into the frame, the time-period of the replaceable pack, never a really economically feasible proposition, can be considered to be pretty much 'over.'
The stuff in the second column is interpolations and guesses based on leaks, press releases and innuendo (but I repeat myself) and should be taken no more as gospel than the rest.

*** This is a graph of the (fairly) well known economic principle Wright's Law as applied to LFP cell production. Analysis of the cost reductions of lithium batteries over time have shown a reduction in manufacturing cost around 28% for every cumulative doubling of overall battery cell production. This has proven accurate over the last ten years and looks to continue over at least the next 6-8 years.
NMC/NCA cells are already at relatively high levels of production, as a result it will take 24-28 months for a cumulative doubling pr production. LFP cells are at a considerably lower (earlier in the process) rate of production, which means the doubling will occur in considerably less time, probably around 15-18 months. This implies that not only does LFP have a significant cost advantage now, but that cost advantage is accelerating!

Motive, Means and Opportunity

Edit June 2023: Ford and GM have 'opted in' to using/installing/supporting the NACS (Tesla) charging connector. See the Connecting about Connectors post. If the Tesla charging connector is going on future Fords and GM/Chevy/Cadillacs then it's going to get difficult for the other players in North America. The remainder of this post is pretty much valid. Result: The best one wins.
Edit Apr.2023: Added a bit at the bottom ** about Q1'23 installations

One topic of interest that comes up on occasion during forum threads and other online discourse is the vast difference in cost, efficiency and reliability of the various EV Fast Charger networks.
We might have dabbled in that topic before but it's due for a slightly deeper dive. I guarantee I don't have all my facts perfectly straight on this (much is hidden by the various players for a variety of reasons) but the overview should be pretty accurate.

Like all public crimes there's three parts to it:  Motive, Means and Opportunity. We'll leave it to you to figure out which part is which.

Many parts of this are going to look like Tesla vs. Everyone Else. Thats just basically the facts. One player is bringing forethought, intelligence and engineering excellence to the entire process: Cars, Communication, Site-ing, Design, Power Management, Usability, Maintenance, and Cost Containment, ... and the others aren't.   At least not firing on all of the above eight cylinders at once. There was nothing really preventing any of the other players from having all of these advantages, other than management ineptitude, lack of vision and this quarter's 'Shareholder Value.'
See this youtube for many details, well explained!  

We're trying not to come across as Tesla fanboys. We've had at least 7 EVs and none of them Tesla. That will most probably continue. There is a lot to dislike about the leader and #1 brain in that organization. There is also a lot to like, including vision forethought and execution. There's an old saying that goes something like: "It's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." and  it's likely that if the other players put their opinions out there on the twitterverse with the same consistency and wild abandon as he does you would dislike them even more. Why does he do it? He probably has no need to care what you think about it. And while that's probably a form of arrogance, it's also probable that level of arrogance is required to succeed in the formative period of this industry.

Getting back to public EV charging infrastructure, let's look at a concrete (and plastic and steel) example:

<- Tesla 2nd generation charging station  |              'Other player's third generation ->

This is, in a single photo, an excellent example of how Tesla is so far ahead of the competition. 

On the right is actually one of the better 'other player' EV charging stations. Many others haven't looked even this good inside. We're not going into the 'who' on this unit. It's a somewhat generic example.
You can see many off the shelf, presumably low cost components all assembled neatly. It works, there was little custom design engineering required. The manufacturing process was probably pretty straightforward. It's sold to someone else who installs and maintains it. A combination of lower volume, higher complexity and a convoluted many-part supply and installation chain result in this type of charging station costing three or four TIMES as much as Tesla's

On the left is the Tesla charging station. Note that despite having the same charger output capacity, the Tesla station has circuitry taking up a tenth of the space and a tenth the number of components and complexity.
Guess which is lower cost and higher reliability.
One of Tesla's core concepts is: "The best part is NO part." so the entire thing is designed to minimize the number of parts and manufacturing complexity. Almost all the required 'smarts' in this part of the process is reduced to one custom chip on a tiny circuit board. You can do this kind of engineering at low per-unit cost if you know you'll be building lots of them. You also know that you'll be building lots of them if you do it right. They have 40,000 of them installed now.
     Also note that the charging cord is connected so there is minimal wear and tear possible, and that the connections, and in fact the whole internal assembly is sited to be out of the weather and minimize the odds of water damage, even with some flooding! Note the lack of seals, hinges, door latches and water shields. It has the 'bumpers' (galvanized steel posts) to fend off haters in big loud smoky pickup trucks (yes, this is a real thing) built in so that nobody has to install them externally and in fact that entire base-plate assembly may come pre-attached to minimize the effort and smarts required of the installation crew. That base conduit is also a bog standard commercial part to minimize effort for the site electricians rather than being some sort of custom part that requires training.
     There's almost no 'screen' (another vandalism target) instead just a couple indicators and everything else is handled by either smartphone or the screen in the car.  Again, no parts is the best parts.  Even the 'Most likely to be damaged' component, the charging cord is designed for minimal cost and ease of replacement, plus it 'knows' when it's been left on the ground where it might get run over and tells somebody.

Although it's not shown here, there's more to the story. Both charging stations above have a bigger cabinet located somewhere on the premises that handles power distribution and maybe some communications. Here again, Tesla has moved as much of the smarts (and expensive parts) into the single cabinet rather than have them duplicated into the 8 to 10 (or even 20) charging stations that are connected. Thus they don't individually need their own Cell or WiFi connections with attendant costs and some of the power management can be offloaded as well.

One key reality in the whole charging mess is Peak Usage electric billing. Many electric utilities tack on giant surcharges (2X to 4X) on the base rate if the usage exceeds a certain amount, even for a moment. That higher rate may be applied for an hour, a day, or even the entire billing period.
If you are buying individual chargers from a vendor and plunking them down a few at a time (therefor meeting the exact letter of your contract) whoever's the actual end operator of this mess might see extremely high electric rates, which they would have to pass on to their customers.
If on the other hand, you treat the entire (larger) charging location as a single intelligently interconnected system you can negotiate a slightly higher average rate, and then make sure you limit the peaks so you don't stray into surcharge territory. This of course costs more up front and 'quotes' a slightly higher electric rate, even though the real average billing will be much much lower.
Obviously this second system would never make it through a bidding process or find favor with a bureaucracy. Despite having lower costs to the customer -and- being much more reliable.
Tesla (and possibly Renault) are also beginning to use their utility scale ('MegaPack' style) battery power systems to 'even-out' the load. Buying power at very even off peak or solar maximum times and then feeding it into the highly intermittent high peak load charging market. This also reduces the strain on rural charging locations that may not have high capacity electrical grids nearby.

Another key thought is where to site the charging stations and how many to put in. If you're intelligent, nimble and fast  ...  well that ends up being a comparison between what happens when you pit Corporate/Government bureaucracies/accountant types with almost no knowledge of the electric car industry, against a bunch of engineers [With decision making capability!] who have been given the task of  making charger infrastructure quick and efficient.  
The engineers have access to literally billions of miles of telemetry data from cars, including where they go and what state of charge the batteries are at (and therefor where the best locations for chargers might be) -and- they'll negotiate land and electric rates and maintenance costs based on intelligently placed sets of 8 to 20 chargers-per-location (instead of 1 - 4) based on that car-use-data. Economy of scale is a real thing. Minimizing bureaucracy pays off. Making decisions without being a 'Government partnership' is massively more efficient.
     EA (Electrify America) the EV charging arm of Volkswagen/AUDI/Porsche that was 'forced' into existence as punishment for all VW's malfeasance during 'dieselgate'  is, to it's credit, absorbing many of these lessons and is probably the closest to following Tesla's footsteps. Unfortunately they seem to think this gives them license to price 40-70% higher. I can't wait for real competition in this space. 

Another fun fact associated with incorrect incentives giving bad outcomes: Public/Private 'partnership' charger locations (those partially or completely funded with government/taxpayer money)  have, in actual real-world surveys shown 75-90% usability/uptime. This is a combination of poor software/payment systems, poor maintenance and bad product/process design. Rest assured the people who put these systems in got paid the full amount in their contracts though. How would you like every fourth gas station that you actually needed out in rural areas to be randomly unavailable.
Yeah, me neither.
For comparison Tesla has around 99.4% uptime. How can they do that?
They have real-time telemetry from their chargers - and cars. They iterated rapidly in the early days to get the designs sorted out so they don't fail, an advantage of not being beholden to a contract negotiation process that may span years ... while competitors install previous-generation equipment late and over budget.  -and- since Tesla makes money on charging, they're actually incented to keep them running.

Hold it. Make money? 
Tesla is charging between $0.27 and $0.35 per KiloWatt-Hour (KWh).
The other big players, EVGo, ChargePoint and EA (Electrify America) are all right around $0.43/KWh. EVCS and a few others are around $0.49/KWh.
Wait, that's nearly twice as much. How can Tesla charge less money for charging -and- make money at it?  ...while their competitors are claiming to be losing money on it hand-over-fist despite the (MUCH) higher prices.

         One obvious reason is that the competitors have contra-incentives:
        "See! We're not making anything on this,
          please PLEASE give us -much- more government money!"
        "We'll even lobby the heck out of you! ...instead of having a CEO who pisses you off."

Yes, it turns out that being thoughtful, and therefore early to market, plus rapid iteration of your charging infrastructure plus really thinking about how the whole interconnected system should operate and then designing the whole thing for low cost and reliability pays off BIG in the end, although maybe not for this quarter's profits, can be a big win for both the corporation -and- it's customers.

While the others are using the same three requirements in the title, to murder your wallet.

**

If this was 'WorldWide' Tesla would be ~2500 and AllOthers ~1000

Gas Price equivalency, and other rants

120MPGe? What -IS- this shit?     ( MPGe is how the EPA rates electric cars )
Does that number have ANY connection to reality?

Lets look at dollars per mile, since that's what most folks actually care about.

Here, Gas is sold in Dollars per gallon ($/Gal) and Electricity at a Dollars per KiloWattHour (KWh)

The average (for current sedans) on the gas side is around 36MPG
At $5/Gal that works out to around $0.14 per mile. Obviously if you have a higher efficiency car or are paying less per gallon then your numbers might be closer to $0.10.
OTOH your fancy new pickup might be closer to $0.30 per mile.

On the electric side we have two radically different price structures.
Home charging and Public charging:

On the home side at an average of $0.12/KWh and an on-the-road use rate somewhere between 4-5 Miles/KWh we're looking at between $0.025 and $0.030 per mile. Wow, three cents per mile. Way better, right? 

But if we look at Public Charging rates things don't look so rosy.
EVGo, ChargePoint and EA (Electrify America) are all right around $0.43/KWh. EVCS and a few others are around $0.49/KWh. So that works out to somewhere between $0.086/mile and $0.126/mile.
Wait, that's no better than my gas car!!
These are just averages. We've seen cost numbers between $0.11/KWh+$2.50 'transaction charge' (a charger on a Reservation that was allowed to only pass on their costs) and states out there who only allow 'Per Min.' charging (instead of per KWh) where the effective rate was above $0.60/KWh. As usual YMMV.

The average person who does 90% of their charging at home should then see an average cost below four cents per mile. Their buddy who lives in an apartment complex and uses public charging all the time might see ten or twelve cents per mile, which is at least no worse than their gas powered brethren.

So about that 120MPGe? If we compare the 36MPG gas car at $0.14/mile and the electric car at $0.03/mile we might conclude that the electric car is 4 - 5 times more efficient on a per dollar basis.  So that would make the electric car look more like 140MPGe.
If we compare with a more efficient gas car that has gets 50MPG it would be more like 100MPGe. (by comparison)
120MPGe seems like a reasonable compromise.

So the average gas car above, going 12K Miles/Yr is around $1600/year. The electric is more like $400.
Now the obvious question is: "Will the difference in cost/mile cancel out the 'higher price' of an EV?
Say you're comparing with a new lower end $25K gas car.
If you're comparing with a new Leaf (actual out of pocket ~$20K) then of course it will.
If you're comparing with a new bottom-end Tesla at $50K, of course it won't!
"But what about maintenance and licensing cost differences?"
Well yes, those will push it a bit one way or another, but it'll hardly erase the larger point.

We might note that not everyone prices charging at such ridiculous rates. Tesla is between $0.27 and $0.35/KWh. How can that be? They're all just selling Electricity right? Which, just like Gas has pricing that fluctuates as you move around the country. How can they do that? are they subsidizing the cost of electricity for Tesla customers?

Well, actually, as the system was in it's initial setup phase there was subsidizing, but these days, according to their stockholder reports it's a profit center.
Wait, how can they charge less money for charging -and- make money at it?  ...while their competitors are claiming to be losing money on it hand-over-fist despite the (MUCH) higher prices.
         One obvious reason is that the competitors have contra-incentives:
        "See! We're not making anything on this,
          please PLEASE give us -much- more government money!"
        "We'll even lobby the heck out of you! ...instead of having a CEO who pisses you off."

But the biggest reason ends up being a comparison between what happens when you pit Corporate/Government bureaucracies/accountant types with almost no knowledge of the electric car industry, against a bunch of engineers [With decision making capability!] who have been given the task of  making charger infrastructure quick and efficient.  
The engineers have access to literally billions of miles of telemetry data from cars, including where they go and what state of charge the batteries are at (and therefor where the best locations for chargers might be) -and- they'll negotiate land and electric rates and maintenance costs based on intelligently placed sets of 8 to 20 chargers-per-location (instead of 1 - 4) based on that car-use-data. Economy of scale is a real thing. Minimizing bureaucracy pays off. Making decisions without being a 'Government partnership' is massively more efficient.

While we're talking about dis-incentives pushing up the cost of public charging it might be wise to discuss Peak Use electric billing. Many electric utilities tack on giant surcharges (2X to 4X) on the base rate if the usage exceeds a certain amount, even for a moment. That higher rate may be applied for an hour, a day, or even the entire billing period.
If you are buying individual chargers from a vendor and plunking them down a few at a time (therefor meeting the exact letter of your contract) whoever's the actual end operator of this mess might see extremely high electric rates, which they would have to pass on to their customers.
If on the other hand, you treat the entire (larger) charging location as a single intelligently interconnected system you can negotiate a slightly higher average rate, and then make sure you limit the peaks so you don't stray into surcharge territory. This of course costs more up front and 'quotes' a slightly higher electric rate, even though the real average billing will be much lower.
Obviously this second system would never make it through a bidding process or find favor with a bureaucracy. Despite having lower costs to the customer -and- being much more reliable.

Another fun fact associated with incorrect incentives giving bad outcomes: Public/Private 'partnership' charger locations (those partially or completely funded with government/taxpayer money)  have, in actual real-world surveys shown about 75% usability/uptime. This is a combination of poor software/payment systems, poor maintenance and bad design. Rest assured the people who put these systems in got paid the full amount in their contracts though. How would you like every fourth gas station that you actually needed out in rural areas to be randomly unavailable.
Yeah, me neither.
For comparison Tesla has around 99.4% uptime. How can they do that?
They have real-time telemetry from their chargers - and cars. They iterated rapidly in the early days to get the designs sorted out so they don't fail, an advantage of not being beholden to a contract negotiation process that may span years ... before installing previous-generation equipment late and over budget.  -and- since they make money on charging, they're actually incented to keep them running.
Plus of course their customers would be really pissed off. Online. Where everyone can see.

Bad Recommendations

 Bad Recommendations? It's the only kind available:

EDIT Spring'23: Nissan Leaf not looking so good right now on the Fed.Tax.Credit front.  Nissan apparently hasn't bothered (subject to change) to get the IRS to certify the U.S. manufacturing of the car, and batteries. Both are made in TN. so it should qualify, but apparently the manufacturer has to do some work for that certification to happen. They seen to be focusing on their new vehicle, set to be built in Japan, where it isn't going to qualify anyway. Kind of a mystery. The Oregon rebate is dead until next year so that doesn't help much either, at least around here.
It looks like the Chevy Bolt/EUV still qualifies but they're shutting the plant down to start doing the SilveradoEV pickup. Almost all of the remaining production is spoken for, so that's mostly a dead issue.

EDIT Summer 2022: I'm getting repeatedly asked if the Nissan Leaf (which I have voted for with my dollars three times now) is still a good deal and "Should I get one?"
The answer is, as usual, It Depends.
As a LOCAL TRAVEL ONLY machine, you can't beat it.
$19,000 for a new, reliable, capable vehicle? Sign me up! ($21K ex.Oregon) There is definitely going to be a 2023 model year and they kept the $27.8K base price for the 40KW version. There seems to be a really high probability of the 2024 model year happening as well, so the vehicle should be parts-supported through 2032 at a minimum. The reliability has significantly improved over the earlier models, one of the advantages of a long production run. 11 years at this point.
With the other players you will spend at least $10K (and more probably $20-30K) more for an EV and if you are buying it for local use only you will basically be getting nothing for that extra money. It has equal drive-ability and space as a Chevy Bolt (and is MORE 'made in USA') and while the Hyundai/Kia and Teslas do have a bit more room and comfort for long distance driving, remember we're getting this for  LOCAL TRAVEL ONLY, where that doesn't matter and the additional range of those competitors doesn't matter either.
If you're looking for a long distance travel machine, get a Tesla Model Y. $60K. Yes that's THREE TIMES as much money but a long distance capable EV is realistically $50K and up.   Even the bigger battery version of the Leaf (which I have now) suffers from slow charging speeds and unreliable charging infrastructure. Only in the rare case of regular 100-120 mile commute does the bigger battery Leaf make any sense. In that case the $25K for that version is pretty much viable. If you're under 80 miles of regular range requirement per day then the cheaper 40KW version is fine. Please note that the Federal Tax Credit should reach phase-out for Nissan vehicles somewhere in 2023, especially if they get their new ($50K) EV into production. Don't dawdle around too much if you're going to do this.

Of course this is all based on finding one that is 

A: In stock (rare for 2022's) and

B: does not have 'Additional Dealer Markup' ... which is very rare right now

There's also the problem where in a scarcity situation the dealers

are only ordering the highest markup models.

We looked for over three months before finding the current one. ...In Vancouver WA

                    END EDIT, and a return to our regularly scheduled programming. ;-)

Gas prices got you down?
        So everybody and their brother is out looking at EVs.
....but that means there's lots of demand.
        Right at the same time as supply constraints.
Guess what that means for prices.
MSRP if you're lucky.
                   [Dealers/MFGRs are screwing with that number. An example we track had an MSRP of $27.9K and dozens in stock at various Seattle area dealers (looking in Oregon is almost a waste of time) and now the MSRP is shown as $28.9K with like one or two units 'coming soon']
And that $35K 'introductory price' Tesla Model3 is currently almost $50K, plus several months wait.

So, what to do? If your gas powered vehicle (yes, I hate to say this) is paid for, in good shape and gets reasonable mileage (30MPG+) then I'd just hold on to it. Even a used car that gets good mileage is hard to find right now. Heck 10 year old Honda Civics' are fetching pretty close to their original 'new' price.

What's available? Assuming you qualify for the federal $7500 rebate (or lease to get same, see previous posts) here's what you can reasonably expect to have a reasonable shot at actually getting. Sorted by price (and with state rebate price in [] brackets) Price shown includes rebate(s).
*= Serious availability problems

Nissan Leaf S Base  40KWh battery   $21.5K  [19K]
Nissan Leaf S ePlus 60KWh battery   $27.5K  [24K]
Chevy Bolt base                    $28K [25.5K]
Hyundai Kona Electric           $30K [27.5K]
Chevy Bolt EUV                     $32K [29.5K]
Kia EV6* and VW ID4*          $36K [33.5K]
Ford Mustang and Volvo/Polestar EVs are in a similar price range but very hard to get (years of delay)
Then there's the Tesla Model3 at $50K and the ModelY at $60K, plus months of waiting, but they live outside my economic universe.

You can still get a base model Nissan Leaf. Yes it's a 'refreshed' 12 year old design and the long-distance-travel charging infrastructure is, um, not so great. (see previous post) but it is a nice reliable ride for local trips. The 150-ish miles of range are plenty for local trips and the reliability has been very good since 2015 or so. You're looking at around $29K if you can find one. After Federal rebate (yes! still available!) it's $21.5K and state and local here would bring it down to $19K. Leases in the vicinity of $1-3K down and $100-200/mo. Not bad, and the longer range version is around $35K, but their unwillingness to support modern (CCS, like they've done elsewhere) charging is a serious blot on this model's future prospects. The longer (220 mi.) range ePlus units are about $6K more.

Speaking of serious blots, there's the Bolt. Nominally a GM product, about 60% of the content (and about 80% of the 'functionality') comes from LG of S.Korea. Chevy? Yeah, sure.
It's pretty much recovered from all that recall mess of them burning your garage down (-SO- last year) but since nobody trusts them they've actually reducing prices. The base Bolt (~250 range) had $5K chopped off it's price from 2021 to 2022. That puts it at $28K or so if you can find a base model at a dealer who hasn't jacked the price (good luck).  Have to admit, they did stand behind the product ... once the NHTSA got involved. Also note you're probably talking to a dealer that doesn't give a shit about EVs.
Be aware that GM squandered all their federal rebate money on the Chevy Volt (still a pretty nice ride) and you won't be getting any rebate there. Still these are a pretty good ride per$$. Make sure to sit in one for an extended period. I didn't like the seats AT ALL after about 40 min.

If you can find a Hyundai Kona Electric base model at a reasonable price (including rebate!) then these are a really nice ride and don't have the shortfalls of the above. Availability IS an issue so be prepared. I've also heard the dealers not stocking the base model hardly at all, but that may just be here. They do have a really nice warranty.

Everything else on the list has either terrible availability or prices outside my reality.

What about USED? We sold our 2018 LEAF for about $17K a year ago. Check out the new one (after state rebate) above. Yep. $19K. Hmmm, which to choose...
Even 2013-2014 Leafs with the old small (24KWh) battery are fetching $10K or so. Bummer.

A good economic case can be made for Teslas if you assume current trends in resale values. I know people who got some of the first Model3's and recently sold for basically what they paid for it. We can't assume that $Zero Depreciation is going to continue, but if it does -AND- you have a chunk of capital you can afford to tie up in that it could come out being a really great deal. YMMV.
Sure a nice ride though.

On the Road Again

or,   EV Travel on the cheap: 900 miles on Zero Dollars.

We're not exactly post COVID, but finally close enough to get out and do mostly outdoor things.

Being crazy people we're out doing a road trip in the EV. [2021 Nissan Leaf S-Plus, 62KWh battery]

"But I thought EV roadtrips were for rich people with Teslas?
      Besides, aren't most of the chargers Tesla 'Superchargers'?"

With a little thought and minimal planning it's quite possible to do some semi-serious road tripping in a Leaf that you're paying maybe $200/month for (or less, see previous posts!) without shelling out the extra +$400 to $600 a month (we're comparing leases here, YMMV) for a Tesla. Roadtripping in a Leaf is slightly slower, mainly due to slower 'Fast Chargers' (DCFC) but think of yourself as being paid SEVERAL $Hundred$ per hour or your time. See Note on Cost/Mile below.

Wenatchee valley at apple blossom time, Rainer in the distance.

Pre-trip: You pretty much *have* to have several charging vendor's Apps on your phone.
Yes this sucks ... and ... they're working on it.
There are some recent wrinkles to that: Shell Recharge (the biggest non-Tesla charging network player in Europe) has recently bought out GreenLots, a conglomerator (is this a word?) of charging networks in the U.S. and Canada. They claim their account will be able to activate Shell, GreenLots, EVGo and ChargePoint chargers, 'and several more to be named later' and if that's true it may reduce the number of apps you have to cart around, since those were all on my 'must have' list. Stay tuned for updates.

In addition I need (but sometimes dislike) both EVCS (formerly AV/Webasto) and Electrify America (Charge America too darn much IMHO)
My issues with EVCS are almost entirely due to pricing. $20/mo. is what AV/Webasto billed for their all-you-can-eat plan. I didn't need it (well except once) but that was pretty reasonable. When EVCS took over that went to $50/mo. They bill $0.49/KWh otherwise, also a completely ridiculous amount, so if you have need (over 100KWh/month regularly) that monthly amount might look less awful to you. Of course that's only for the rather limited EVCS network and does you no good with the dozen other suppliers. Boo.
They do have a 'First Month's Free" deal so that's one of the things we'll be using on this trip. Yay!

First day: 420 Miles from Eugene to Leavenworth/Wenachee Washington.

Leg one from Eugene to Hood River OR, 100% down to 5%, 188 miles ~ 3hrs.
Cold (38-42) raining and blowing, not ideal 'range' weather.
We almost certainly could have made it to TheDalles but 5% isn't much charge remaining.
Besides, the EVCS charger was free-to-me (see above) and though 44KW isn't fast, Hood River is a nice town to walk around and have lunch in during the 90 min(!) it took to go from 5% to 95%. You kind of have to do -something- since the town seems convinced that a public restroom will attract homeless folks (and they may be right) but if you expect to need that type of relief it will probably be in a restaurant if you're planning to walk less then a mile. We could have cut it off at 90% and have been fine, maybe even 80%. The newer EVCS chargers have a button that allows 80% charge or 100%. See "Note about 100% charge" below.

Hood River to Wapato WA. 120 Miles.
I still had some free charging available through  ChargePoint and their charger at Wolf'sDen Wapato WA which was just about perfect. It went from 30% to 85% in 28 min. peaking around 55KW. Battery temps were edging up so 85% was 'it' and besides we only had like 106mi. left to go. Note that even had it not been free-to-me, this location has an unusually low rate of $0.11/KWh so the charge-up cost would have totaled $5.20

Wapato to Leavenworth: 110 Miles
This part has two mountain passes, one over 4000 ft. and in this case there was still some snow on the ground. It's also (mostly) not major freeway, so keeping the speeds down closer to 60 and allowing some regen on the down-slopes made this work well. We arrived with around 20% SOC left so technically that's the end of the day's travels. We just happened to have time during dinner for some charging so we didn't need to do it the following day.

EVCS (AT/Webasto) charger in Leavenworth. 10 years old this year!

The EVCS charger (behind the Library/City Hall parking lot directly off the main drag, address on PlugShare is somewhat misleading, although the map marker is right) is one of those which hasn't yet been updated from it's old AV/Webasto days and as a result, is, right now, free to use for everyone with a CHAdeMO connector. (mainly Leaf and Kia Soul EV) But I'm sure that will change. Not for the better from my perspective.
We happened to be using it almost exactly 10 years (2012) from when this charger was installed and turned on. Back then it was amazing it worked at all. Now it seems somewhat clunky and slow, but it still moved us from 18% to 80% while we were having dinner. ($50 for two hamburgers. Are you insane? With sides like a small salad and fries, but $50? and that doesn't include tips or drinks. Leavenworth is a very pretty expensive tourist trap.) And if you'll forgive the 90 sec. or so it takes to get going it works well if not quickly. 45KW peak, but then our batteries had experienced a long hard day so their temperature might have been part of the equation.

Yes, this day of the trip could have been done in 30-60min. less time in your new Tesla, Primarily because there would have been one less charging stop, but you paid dearly for that bit of time.

"What if you still had your 'old' 2018 40KWh Leaf instead of the 60KWh Leaf S-Plus you have now?"
I'd just add a charge stop in Portland, move the next charge from Hood River 10-20 miles farther to The Dalles and keep everything else the same. I might have to slow down a bit (5 mph less?) going up the passes but it would only add around 30-40 min. to the day. ...and the 40KW LEAFs cost $8-10K less than the 60KW ones!
I know Tesla owners who go a couple hundred miles per day, several days a week. If that's what you need to do then a Tesla may make perfect sense. Just don't try and tell us how awesomely frugal you are. Yes, I'm looking at you Don.

Day Two and Day Three:
Running around locally in the Wenatchee Valley. Nothing to see here, move along.
At the end of day three we plugged into the same EVCS charger in Leavenworth. Those free electrons sure do taste sweet. 40-90% charge during dinner again. Peaked at 47KW this time!
We may need that tomorrow. Passes Ahead!
Almost makes up for the simply absurd $0.49/KWh that EVCS 'normally' charges.

Day Four, Stevens Pass:
...would be really awesome to look at if the entire thing weren't covered in clouds and rain. Boo.
It was less than 120 miles over the hump and we stopped at PowerSports KIA in Everett for some free charging. They also had the new KIA EV6 on display (WAY Cool) -and- being Cinco de Mayo were hosting a free Mexican themed lunch buffet for all comers. Good deal all around. OTOH they have about the slowest 'fast charger' we've ever seen. Peaked at about 15KW. Since we couldn't spend all day there we only took on about 16KWh.

Day Five:  Dinking around the N.Seattle area. Pouring rain all day. Whee!

We did stop for a charge at Campbell Nissan, which was kind of a disaster compared with the KIA folks the day before. For starters they have set up with ChargePoint so you do have to pay. OTOH it's only $8 for a full charge. Neither of the two chargers there have a credit card option -or- QR Code scan option. You must have an RFID card or a NFC equipped phone. That kind of phone costs $300 more than the ones we have. Not Happening. But we have the RFID card (remember day one?) so no problem, right? "Not Authorized!" on the display. We found out later that our good friends (NOT!) at EVgo had disabled the card. Of course they reached out to us to let us know in a timely manner (NOT!) Nice folks  (NOT!). Now that we're friends for life, I'll be doing absolutely as much as possible to damage their business and reputation. I don't want them to die screaming in agony, but having all the senior management purged during a bankruptcy would be nice.

We got on the phone with the ChargePoint support folks. The poor trainee person we talked to first wanted the number off of the charger. There was no number anywhere. She didn't want to believe me "Of course there's a number." then she wanted an address, "Campbell Nissan, Edmonds WA."
Yes, but what's the address?
How would I know?
We went around for 5+ min. and she then said she'd talk to someone and call us right back in less than 5 min. ... So 10 min. later. I called them again. Remember the pouring rain? Yeah, so do I.
Anyway the next support person sounded like English was his third language -and- he kept spare golf-balls in his mouth. However he was a technical whiz. From all the typing noises I suspect he was on some kind of command-line terminal app. Turns out that charger does not show up at all on their internal application, and there's three different locations labeled "Campbell Nissan" in their system. 10 min. to find the right charger, "Iz dispay flash now?"  then a reset (4-5 min.) then a full reboot (5-8 min.) and hurray! It worked! In compensation he gave us the charge session for free.
Obviously charging providers cannot afford to have a skilled technician spend 28 min. on the phone to get a single charge session to work. IMHO this whole industry (except Tesla) has a ways to go before this becomes viable.  Nothing against Campbell Nissan, their guy came out and tried to help. The problem was not on his end. Anyway, we picked up 45KW in about 90 min. end to end. We'll need it. Long day tomorrow. Remember the pouring rain? Yeah, so do I.

Day Six:  Mukilteo WA to Eugene OR.

Driving through Seattle traffic in rain that requires the wipers be frequently switched to high speed is not exactly a fun time. Given construction delays on I5 we went around the city on 405. The longer distance plus rain, wind and temperature ran through 80+% of our charge in the 120 miles to Centralia WA. Where the sun came out and the EVCS charger, not yet converted to the new style, was free! Nice places to eat too. It took right about an hour to make it up to 95% charge. In any sort of normal circumstances that would be enough to get us home. ...Almost...

The rain and wind came back and we had to stop for a bit 20 miles from home at the charger shown here. Despite being all upgraded to the new hardware, this EVCS station does not yet show up on their app. It does show on PlugShare.com and there's positive reviews there, which also point out that it's Free. We picked up 10KW in less than 10 min.

Yup the entire trip, 6 days, almost 900 miles, was accomplished without spending even one dollar on charging,  if you ignore the $5 worth of home charging we started with. Not completely without issues but little of that was the normal course of events. Had we taken the gas car we'd have been out $220 or so for this trip. There was around two  hours of 'wasted' time during the trip that wouldn't have happened in a gas car, although the difference isn't quite so large once you include the bathroom and filling-up and meal breaks you would have taken anyway. Would we do it again? Sure, although better weather would be nice.
EVCS will eventually finish upgrading all their chargers and the free sessions will go away. There's still their First Month Free deal so that's not completely off the table.
"But I already used my free month."
Does anyone you're traveling with have a cellphone and has not used 'their' free month? Just sayn'...
________________

Note on Cost/Mile:
The average gas powered auto, at for example 30mpg, runs around 14 cents/mile in fuel costs if gas is $4.00/gallon, or around $66 for a 500 mile day. Your old pickup, driving at 75 is probably more like $150. Currently in WA gas is nearer $5/gal. As they say, Your Mileage May Vary.

This kind of travel in a Leaf will use up somewhere between 3 and 4 miles per KWh. Depending on speed, temperature and elevation gain, usually closer to the 4 mi/KWh mark than 3. 
On the high end, at least in this area, EVgo and Electrify America are roughly $0.43/KWh and EVCS is $0.49. The ChargePoint unit we stopped at was $0.11/KWh. However, that's unusual, even for ChargePoint. I think the location subsidizes this unit to bring in people. Heck, a lot of people pay that much for their domestic electricity, including us!

The worst case  ( 3 mi/KWh @ $0.49) is $81 for that 500 mile day
The best case     ( 4 mi/KWh @ $0.11) is $13.75 for that same 500 mile day!
Even mo'bettah is doing it all for free, but that takes more planning, and luck.

You can see why planning is so important. If planning is too much of a bother for you, just pay, and  resolve to not care much about it.  Or get a car with better charging infrastructure and (relatively) sensible charging costs, ie: Tesla. Most of the folks reading this do care, probably find at least some thought is worth the bother and can't afford a $50K and up automobile purchase.

____________________

Click to expand

Note about 100% vs. 80% charge:
Charge rates taper off starting somewhere between 50 and 80% State of Charge (SOC). As a result, depending in the car, temperature, and charger it can take, for example, one hour to go from 20 to 80% SOC, but then require another hour to go from 80 to 100%. That is often not worth your time, but there are some circumstances where you'll need every last electron to get to your destination.


In the olden-days we wouldn't consider getting anywhere near 100% on a DC Fast Charger, but things have changed a bit in the last couple years: Battery capacities have improved, as have battery management circuits.  The 60KWh (or even 40KWh) packs will be charging at a rate of 5-8KW above 90% SOC. If the batteries aren't running too warm (check the display!) this is only about a tenth of the peak they're capable of, and at least for me it seems unlikely this is causing damage, especially if it's a rare occurrence. Regardless I probably would not have charged this high on a warmer day. Neither would I need to, as the range is generally better on a warmer day, and without the heater running.
Another thought to consider: There are frequently 'L2' Level 2 chargers in the same vicinity as the DC fast chargers. Since they can provide nearly the same charge rate above 85% SOC you might consider switching over to one of those. They often have a lower cost per KWh, and especially if its a charger company that bills by the minute rather than by the KWh. [Some states have laws that only allow per-min. billing, and some companies try to do it everywhere because they're (EVgo?) er, slimy, but I repeat myself.]
Note that the L2 charging is also perhaps slightly better at 'easing' your pack right up to the 100% mark as the electronics that manage it are built into your car.
Anyway, it can be good to switch over somewhere above 80% SOC if there's no 'Charge Startup' fee and you can afford the time. Also, there might be someone waiting for the DCFC. ;-)