Does anyone know how the free charging stations get financed/paid for?
Is there a federal program that pays for this?
Is this a loan/lease that has finite number of months/years before the model becomes a paid service?

I only have 4 stations in my metro area of about 1,000,000 people.
From what I can tell:
1 is at a Nissan dealership
1 is at municipal building (not sure if it's accessible to non-employees)
1 is at a private company (not sure if it's accessible to non-employees)
1 is at a Latitude gas station (not sure if it's free)

I'm trying to picture how this charging in town would work for me or my wife.
I can see if the stations were available at the mall, grocery store or book store.
In my town, all but the 1 Latitudes location are not not a destination location, so if it takes 30-45min to get a quick charge, what do people do while they wait?

Time is money, and if I had to dedicate an hour (30-40min charge + short drive time) each day to top off my batteries at a conservative $20/hr, that would be more than $100 per week in wasted productivity.
Mathematically, this just doesn't add up for me.
Now, if that Tesla model S can go 250+ miles on a single charge, then I would only have to charge the car at home at the end of the day (overnight) and that would make more sense.