Features
8 juil 22

EV drivers missing chance to save on home charging costs

A high proportion of fleets and their drivers are missing out on major savings from operating electric cars and vans by failing to take advantage of the cheapest home charging tariffs, according to a new survey.

Delta-EE questioned 1,169 EV owners across eight countries - France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland,Spain and the UK – and found that 42% do not have a dedicated home charging point, and more than half do not have a time-of-use tariff that would offer cheaper electricity prices for charging at off-peak times of day.

With fleets in the vanguard of EV adoption across Europe, the findings suggest that companies could be making significant savings in business mileage reimbursement costs by encouraging drivers to install a home charger and switch to an EV-specific tariff.

Easy wins

William van der Byl, EV Charging Service Manager at Delta-EE, said: “Many EV owners are still missing out on easy wins to get the cost of charging their cars even lower. For those with off street parking, installing a dedicated home charging point means that they can get better access to smart charging and cheaper overnight rates.”

The survey found that 14% of drivers thought a standard wall plug was sufficient to charge their vehicle, while a further 14% said the cost of a wallbox was too expensive.

Off-street parking

Among the drivers questioned, 80% have access to off-street parking, although this varied between countries, from 61% in Spain to 88% in Norway. These percentages are far higher than the share for all car drivers, indicating that off-street parking has been an important element for early adopters of EVs, and highlighting the future importance of public and workplace charging solutions as more fleets and drivers switch to EVs.

Delta-EE found that 74% of home chargers are now internet-connected, paving the way for smart charging at low cost times of day, although only 32% of drivers have changed their energy supplier as a result of getting an EV. Across the eight countries, fewer than half (49%) of EV drivers have a time-of-use tariff, and the majority of these are simply a day/night product – only 24% have an EV-specific tariff, and even fewer (13%) have a contract where the tariff varies throughout a 24-hour period based on market prices.

Smart charging is not only cheaper, but also extremely useful for supporting renewable energy by storing electricity at times of excess production.

Public charging

The survey also found that 49% of EV drivers have more than one charge card or app to access public charge points, highlighting the continued lack of interoperability between charging networks and the administrative complexity facing fleet and finance departments in reconciling differently formatted invoices and receipts for expense claims.

Images: Shutterstock, Delta-EE

Authored by: Jonathan Manning