What determines the price of charging at a public charger?
Public charging points are not like fuel pumps. As a rule, they do not display how much you pay per kWh you draw from it. That makes it difficult to budget your expenses - let alone know which charge points to avoid because they are expensive.
What you actually pay, depends on the owner and/or the operator of the charger - which is called the CPO, for Charge Point Operator, but also the provider or network - the so-called e-mobility service provider or EMSP - you use. There are four ways the use of a charging point can be billed to the consumer:
• By the minute, whereby the charger dispenses however much energy the car can take during that time.
• By the kilowatt-hour (kWh), much like taking fuel at a pump.
• Per session, regardless of the time spent or the kWh charged.
• With a monthly or annual subscription fee, which either gives you unlimited charging or a certain credit.
A combination of billing methods is also possible – it all depends on the CPO and the EMSP. And let’s not forget a starting fee may be applicable, which can vary from 12 cents to more than 2 euros. Next to this, EM(S)Ps sometimes bill transaction and roaming costs when you use a charger that is outside their own network, which can be as high as 1 euro per kWh. Considering an EV easily consumes 18kWh/100km, that’s shocking.
What can also inflate the bill is the so-called idle fee. That is the case for Tesla’s Supercharger, for instance: if you don’t move your car within 5 minutes after it is fully charged, you pay €0.40 per minute you block the Supercharger – or even €0.80 per minute if the station is 100% occupied.
Let’s say you are having lunch and you don’t pay attention to your phone. The app has warned you that your Tesla is fully charged, but you only notice it 60 minutes later. This ‘carelessness’ is penalised by an idle fee of €24 at best, or €48 if the station is fully occupied. By the way, if you don’t have a payment method linked to your Tesla app, Tesla will bill the outstanding amount during your next workshop visit. What would normally have cost you roughly €17 for 60kWh suddenly becomes €41 or €65.
These are things to consider before plugging in your EV. Fortunately, there are useful apps such as Chargemap, ChargePoint and others, to guide you through the forest of public chargers. It's always best to check the rate (and the availability) first to avoid unpleasant surprises. Most modern EVs also have public charge point information in their (connected) navigation system.
As EVs gain in popularity, a price war between the various charge point providers might bring the rates down over the next years - or at least level out the huge differences. Here too, legislation could change things for the better, but it seems that governments in Europe have other priorities for the time being.
Photo credit: Shutterstock, 2020
