e-on rip off EV drivers!

[Mr Miserable]

I've just noted an e-on 175 kW charger in Birmingham near Spaghetti Junction charging 43p per kWh!

Whilst thanking them for their investment in the UK public charging infrastructure I hope e-on fail to see any return for it.

Shell were charging 39p per kWh but reduced it to 30p in a recent promotion. I would hope that this was in response to poor demand at the 39p price point. It's not as if they can claim to have some special expensive additive to their electricity which makes it better for your motor or burns cleaner than anyone else's!

At the risk of sounding a bit of a lefty, ripping off the UK consumer is not something that should be encouraged.
OK so the people being ripped off are more likely to be the unfortunate non-Tesla owners who don't have access to a reliable supercharging network costing 24p per kWh, but we shouldn't gloat.

 

[ACarneiro]

It’s a new market and as such there is no real knowledge from industry as to what the consumer is willing to pay, only what the capital investment and running costs are.
I think prices will eventually stabilise once the dust settles and consumer pressure starts ramping up.
Wouldn’t surprise me if that was something close to 30p per kW/h

 

[Mr Miserable]

The market entrants just need to realise that EV charging is not coffee. (BP model!)

 

[ACarneiro]

Well, we have SuC to fall back on whilst the market matures...

 

[Rooster6655]

I've just noted an e-on 175 kW charger in Birmingham near Spaghetti Junction charging 43p per kWh!

Whilst thanking them for their investment in the UK public charging infrastructure I hope e-on fail to see any return for it.

Shell were charging 39p per kWh but reduced it to 30p in a recent promotion. I would hope that this was in response to poor demand at the 39p price point. It's not as if they can claim to have some special expensive additive to their electricity which makes it better for your motor or burns cleaner than anyone else's!

At the risk of sounding a bit of a lefty, ripping off the UK consumer is not something that should be encouraged.
OK so the people being ripped off are more likely to be the unfortunate non-Tesla owners who don't have access to a reliable supercharging network costing 24p per kWh, but we shouldn't gloat.

This is why I'm glad that Polar have a reasonable rapid charger price of 15-20p per kWh everyone else is not competitive but even so these chargers aren't everywhere.

As they have now invested in the chargers they are likely to be here for a long time so in a few years if nobody is using them then it would make sense to reduce prices to get something back, hopefully sooner!

 

[ACarneiro]

Still lots more needed, though...

It never ceases to amaze me how few chargers (and even fewer rapid chargers) there are anywhere near the centre of Birmingham, for example...

 

[Rooster6655]

Still lots more needed, though...

It never ceases to amaze me how few chargers (and even fewer rapid chargers) there are anywhere near the centre of Birmingham, for example...

Well the ones on the streets and car parks aren’t meant to be reliable either with people getting cables stuck and told to wait days for an engineer or plain awkward to park.

There needs to more chargers all round let’s hope they build all these chargers even if they are overpriced and then over time get more reasonably priced

 

[gangzoom]

I've just noted an e-on 175 kW charger in Birmingham near Spaghetti Junction charging 43p per kWh!

Just be sitting down when you see Ionity future pricing plan for 350KW chargers...

.

Given the power required to run these chargers is enough to power whole neighbourhoods I don't think this kind of pricing is at all unreasonable.

Tesla SCs are massively subsidised by Tesla, and woudlnt stay at the current pricing level as V3 rolls out.

Once EV becomes truly mass market, 'filling up' will cost the same as a combustion car.

Even home charging will go that way, once government works on how to tax it and enforce it.

 

[ACarneiro]

Why do you say SuC is subsidised by Tesla? What data do you have to back that claim?
I appreciate that the capital outlay must be significant (big cables, substation reinforcement, etc) but why would the price per kWh that Tesla pays be so much higher?

 

[ivangr]

I've just noted an e-on 175 kW charger in Birmingham near Spaghetti Junction charging 43p per kWh!

Whilst thanking them for their investment in the UK public charging infrastructure I hope e-on fail to see any return for it.

Shell were charging 39p per kWh but reduced it to 30p in a recent promotion. I would hope that this was in response to poor demand at the 39p price point. It's not as if they can claim to have some special expensive additive to their electricity which makes it better for your motor or burns cleaner than anyone else's!

At the risk of sounding a bit of a lefty, ripping off the UK consumer is not something that should be encouraged.
OK so the people being ripped off are more likely to be the unfortunate non-Tesla owners who don't have access to a reliable supercharging network costing 24p per kWh, but we shouldn't gloat.

the cost will normalise as more competition enters the market.

 

[Cowpring]

I actually think BP/Polar have it right at the moment. Their pricing structure is reasonable in my opinion.

15p/kwh for a 50kw charger is great if you have the Polar Plus subscription, I can charge the entire car for about £5-£6 which is what it should be.Even without a subscription, 20-22p per kwh is reasonable.

They recently installed four 150kw chargers at Hammersmith flyover, and as an introductory offer, put them on free vend. While E-Taxis are totally abusing this at the moment, I feel like it was the right thing to do instead of rip people off. 43p/kwh is ridiculous, how e-on think they will entice customers at that rate is beyond me. I would never use a charger that expensive and I do all my charging at public chargers (no home charging available)

If EVs truly are the future, and we as a society want everyone to drive them, then we have to make charging as efficient, easy and cheap as possible. Honestly the whole pubic charging system we have at the moment is a total mess - it's a minefield of subscriptions, providers, speeds...it's a bit ridiculous in my opinion.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Just be sitting down when you see Ionity future pricing plan for 350KW chargers...

.

Should be cheaper everywhere else other than Denmark. It's expensive.

Given the power required to run these chargers is enough to power whole neighbourhoods I don't think this kind of pricing is at all unreasonable.

It depends on multiple factors. The higher the utilization, and the more charging that is done close to maximum available charging rate, the more the charging price drops towards the underlying price.

Tesla SCs are massively subsidised by Tesla, and woudlnt stay at the current pricing level as V3 rolls out.

While it seems that Tesla is not trying to make the Supercharger network directly profitable, the cost would depend on electricity pricing, utilization and average percentage of maximum charging rate.

Once EV becomes truly mass market, 'filling up' will cost the same as a combustion car.

The cost would depend on electricity pricing, utilization and average percentage of maximum charging rate.

Even home charging will go that way, once government works on how to tax it and enforce it.

Government policy is not to have special taxation of home charging.

 

[pgkevet]

This has to be a dilemma for government. At the moment EV's account for about 1% of vehicles? Total duty on petrol (fuel duty and vat) id around 50% of the cost - a huge income for gov. To encourage EV's there has to be a perception of cost saving, there has to be a plentiful supply of charge points but they are expensive to install and maintain. Does gov subsidise their installation and encourage losses of tax revenue or just ignore that for the moment and allow companies to seek their own price points?
Probably the logical move (not that gov has ever been rational) would be to move from fuel duty revenue to road mileage pricing by car size/type but again that would require new technology and it always take time to make switch-overs. They've made enough of a mess with smart meters that won't allow change of supplier (or it was always a fix for friends of gov to make money).
If we assume that average Joe gets 8 miles/L , say 20p/mile (to keep it simple) and average tesla over summer'winter does 2.5miles/kwh then 50p/kwh (including any taxes) would be comparative.
It'd be easy to suggest a gov law that all petrol stations have to provide 100kw chargers for every 4 pumps, all parking places have to proved 1 charger per 15 spaces all at max 50p/kwh but likely the 3-phase infrastructure isn't there either.
I would guesstimate that the first fast charger installation costs north of £50K to put in with each subsequent one £25K. Thats a lot of EV charging to make break-even with maintenance costs.

 

[Jason71]

Just be sitting down when you see Ionity future pricing plan for 350KW chargers...

.

Given the power required to run these chargers is enough to power whole neighbourhoods I don't think this kind of pricing is at all unreasonable.

Tesla SCs are massively subsidised by Tesla, and woudlnt stay at the current pricing level as V3 rolls out.

Once EV becomes truly mass market, 'filling up' will cost the same as a combustion car.

Even home charging will go that way, once government works on how to tax it and enforce it.

This is 3-4 times what it costs to run a diesel per mile so I can't see this being the level that sticks .
Tax on home charging is unlikely to be the way EVs are taxed. Too hard to monitor unless the cars themselves are changed to rat you out. Possible but would think road pricing more likely

 

[Jason71]

This has to be a dilemma for government. At the moment EV's account for about 1% of vehicles? Total duty on petrol (fuel duty and vat) id around 50% of the cost - a huge income for gov. To encourage EV's there has to be a perception of cost saving, there has to be a plentiful supply of charge points but they are expensive to install and maintain. Does gov subsidise their installation and encourage losses of tax revenue or just ignore that for the moment and allow companies to seek their own price points?
Probably the logical move (not that gov has ever been rational) would be to move from fuel duty revenue to road mileage pricing by car size/type but again that would require new technology and it always take time to make switch-overs. They've made enough of a mess with smart meters that won't allow change of supplier (or it was always a fix for friends of gov to make money).
If we assume that average Joe gets 8 miles/L , say 20p/mile (to keep it simple) and average tesla over summer'winter does 2.5miles/kwh then 50p/kwh (including any taxes) would be comparative.
It'd be easy to suggest a gov law that all petrol stations have to provide 100kw chargers for every 4 pumps, all parking places have to proved 1 charger per 15 spaces all at max 50p/kwh but likely the 3-phase infrastructure isn't there either.
I would guesstimate that the first fast charger installation costs north of £50K to put in with each subsequent one £25K. Thats a lot of EV charging to make break-even with maintenance costs.

At your suggested price point it's a year at 10 40kwh sessions a day. Ignoring maintainence. That's not too bad. Not likely right now but possible in future though I don't actually think 50p per kw is doable. That's way more per mile than a decent diesel

 

[NewbieT]

Summary
Non-Tesla chargers - often expensive and definitely less easy to use, but don’t write them off.

E.on
I’ve used e.on Birmingham. I averaged 87kW rate with a medium /low state-of-charge.

43p is expensive but it filled a Supercharger gap for me. East-West route to Ipswich, A14 is a desert and avoided a route detour to Newport Parnell or Thetford.

When I go to the Lake District, Charnock Richard Services doesn’t have a South Bound charger and so will probably use e.on there too.

I’m sure e.on’s pricing will come down but right now there isn’t much competition apart from Tesla.

IONITY
Ionity MK- is a flat £8 for your whole session. I tried two charge points and their help phone number (voicemail) didn’t work for me. Be warned. I was looking for alternatives because Northampton Supercharger has 6 bays regularly full with MS free/slowly charging. Newport Pagnell is only Southbound.

 

[ACarneiro]

According to Government statistics, and assuming Tesla buy their electricity in bulk (which would place them easily into a Large or Very Large consumer category), they should pay around 12p per kW/h. Selling it at 24 on their SuC network doesn’t seem like a significant (if any) subsidy.
This is assuming, of course, that they buy all their power in one go. It is quite possible that each of their SuC locations may have a separate supply contract, but even if they were in the Small category they would probably pay around 16p per kW/h.

 

[Mr Miserable]

Given the power required to run these chargers is enough to power whole neighbourhoods I don't think this kind of pricing is at all unreasonable.

It is totally unreasonable! The idea that this is remotely acceptable to somebody is also unbelievable.

I am sure that even the major manufacturers who formed Ionity would not support this level of fleecing - it defies the purpose for which Ionity was created. I cannot believe that this is genuine - if it is, then it needs advertising in every Damler, Ford, BMW, Hyundai and VW showroom.

 

[ACarneiro]

It is totally unreasonable! The idea that this is remotely acceptable to somebody is also unbelievable.

I am sure that even the major manufacturers who formed Ionity would not support this level of fleecing - it defies the purpose for which Ionity was created. I cannot believe that this is genuine - if it is, then it needs advertising in every Damler, Ford, BMW, Hyundai and VW showroom.

... and breathe

 

[Mr Miserable]

This has to be a dilemma for government. At the moment EV's account for about 1% of vehicles? Total duty on petrol (fuel duty and vat) id around 50% of the cost - a huge income for gov. To encourage EV's there has to be a perception of cost saving, there has to be a plentiful supply of charge points but they are expensive to install and maintain. Does gov subsidise their installation and encourage losses of tax revenue or just ignore that for the moment and allow companies to seek their own price points?
Probably the logical move (not that gov has ever been rational) would be to move from fuel duty revenue to road mileage pricing by car size/type but again that would require new technology and it always take time to make switch-overs. They've made enough of a mess with smart meters that won't allow change of supplier (or it was always a fix for friends of gov to make money).
If we assume that average Joe gets 8 miles/L , say 20p/mile (to keep it simple) and average tesla over summer'winter does 2.5miles/kwh then 50p/kwh (including any taxes) would be comparative.
It'd be easy to suggest a gov law that all petrol stations have to provide 100kw chargers for every 4 pumps, all parking places have to proved 1 charger per 15 spaces all at max 50p/kwh but likely the 3-phase infrastructure isn't there either.
I would guesstimate that the first fast charger installation costs north of £50K to put in with each subsequent one £25K. Thats a lot of EV charging to make break-even with maintenance costs.

How much does an electricity pylon cost?
How much would it cost to have them erected to criss cross the whole country?
If you were running the show we would either still be using candles or paying a small fortune for electricity.