It’s the thorny subject that always comes up whenever EV drivers use public EV chargers – price. At a time when the price of a kWh at home can be as little as 7p, there’s no question that paying well over ten times that figure when public charging, hurts. In fact, let’s not beat around the bush, it hurts a lot.
Let’s take a charge of our 87kWh Renault Scenic as an example. At home, a full charge could be £6.09 on Intelligent Octopus Go or OVO Charge Anytime at 7p/kWh. Do the same charge at Instavolt and the same 87kWh could set you back £73.95 at its 85p/kWh rate.
So why is public charging so expensive by comparison and can you do anything to reduce that cost? And, brace yourselves, should public charging be even more expensive than it is now?
The first reason for the price differential is VAT. Public charging is rated at the full 20% while home electricity is only rated at 5%, so there’s an immediate 15% difference.
Then there’s convenience. When it comes to public charging, especially ultra-rapid CCS chargers of 50kW and above, you’re often paying for two different levels of convenience. The first might be location, especially if you’re charging at a motorway service station, which is simple for you to stop at without diverting away from your route. Think about how much more expensive it is to fill up with petrol or diesel on the motorway, compared to a regular filling station, and it’s the same story.
The second level of that convenience is about speed. Some CCS chargers are rated at 350kW, considerably faster than the 7.4kW you’ll get at home. That means – your car’s maximum charging rate allowing – that you can stop for less time and get more charge, exactly what you want on a long journey. It’s also why slower chargers, such as those fitted in lampposts by some councils, are considerably cheaper than those ultra rapid chargers.
Now thankfully, you can do something to slightly reduce the cost of those CCS chargers which we’ve covered here. Either you can have an account with the company itself, rather than just driving up and paying with a credit card or you could have an Octopus Electroverse card, both of which reduce the cost by a few pence per kWh.
Alternatively, one of the other most recent ways to lower the cost is to follow them on social media. The reason is that some of the public EV charging companies have introduced off-peak pricing. Sometimes this is at set off-peak times of the day, but other times they might announce it on their social media accounts. Both mean that if you can delay an ultra rapid charge until evening then you might save a few pence per kWh on a charge.
So, now onto that thorny question, leaving aside those elements of charging speed and of convenience, just why is it so much more expensive than charging at home for what is essentially, still just electricity? A large part of the reason is investment. The larger suppliers are currently investing millions of pounds in fitting ultra rapid chargers and larger charging stations such as those from Gridserve and Ionity, but won’t provide a return on that investment for many years when EVs are far more popular with the public.
In 2023, Gridserve secured £523m-worth of financing to meet its expansion plans. But even smaller, single rapid charging points don’t come cheap as they may require upgrades to the local electricity network. And meeting that funding is also banking on a location being popular enough to be used, but not so popular that some of the bigger players move in locally. Kind of like opening an independent coffee shop in a popular spot and then having Starbucks move next door. There’s a very real risk that unless you remain competitive, all of your business might leave.
So, with all of that in mind… and here comes an unpopular thought… should those ultra rapid chargers be even pricier than they are now? The inconvenient and truthful answer is, whisper this, probably yes, to reduce the burden on those companies to get their return on their investment and enable them to extend their networks still further. At present, a large site with multiple ultra-rapid chargers could take up to 30 years to make a return on its investment.
Of course, those larger companies still need people to use them and, as more and more EV drivers get savvy to reducing their charging costs, so those charging companies need to remain competitive.
So there’s a happy balance that exists currently, between that required investment return for those companies alongside keeping busy and building a loyal customer base that regularly uses and, more importantly, trusts it to provide a good service.
We may all want to have a cheaper rate at public EV charging locations, but for all of the above reasons, we’re afraid to say they may not match your home charging rates any time soon.