New Ecotricity charges

Just got emailed this:

From Wednesday 3 January, we’re removing the connection fee - making it a true pay as you go system. It’s really simple – you only pay for exactly what you use.

From the same date, it will cost 30p per kWh to charge up at the pump – it’s a slight increase to balance the removal of the connection charge, but overall the new system will be cheaper for the majority of people who use the network.

Which is progress of a sort, but charging 3 times the going rate for electricity is still unhelpful

Some quick thoughts on the back of an envelope...

PHEV 80% 10kw/h =£3.00 for maybe 20 miles so 15p a mile. Cheapest petrol about £5.26 a gallon and say 35mpg = 15p a mile! So your wasting 20 minutes to stop for.. nothing!

I would gladly pay a generous 15p per kw/h but this is still a bit silly, having to drive by many dormant unused chargers every day.

Agreed. Ecotricity sucked us in by providing free charging at many service stations then tried to stiff us with exorbitant electricity charges.

Pause for a couple of minutes and do the sums, guys! At 30p per kWh, the average PHEV user will occupy the charger for half an hour and pay about £3. How many sessions per day will the average charger deliver? 20 possibly - possibly a few more at motorway service areas but less at other locations - they are likely to be largely idle overnight and the turnaround time during the day will not be instantaneous. So, the income per charger is likely to be no more than £60 per day and the cost of the electricity delivered is likely to be something like £8 per day. That's a total annual income of as little as £18,000 - that has to cover the cost of the charger, installation, maintenance and profit.

My company considered bidding to run the London charging network - we did the sums and came to the conclusion that it was not a profitable exercise. At 30p per kWh, I guess it might be profitable, but at 15p, I don't think there would be a hope of making a profit. PHEV owners have the choice between charging or running on petrol and, at these prices, it does not make much sense to charge. Ecotricity will be hoping that there are enough pure EVs around who don't have that choice and will be forced to pay up!

Its pricey for EV's too.

I keep seeing news that so many millions are being put up by the government to encourage the uptake and increase charging network etc.

This is a ready made network all ready to go, I don't understand why they don't offer a simple subsidy to the networks to make the charges attractive. Surely this would speed up the uptake of EV/Hybrid vehicles a lot for the sake of a few million a year. Drop in the ocean.

I don't see the point of giving funding towards new chargers no one can afford to use.

BobEngineer said:

Its pricey for EV's too.

I keep seeing news that so many millions are being put up by the government to encourage the uptake and increase charging network etc.

This is a ready made network all ready to go, I don't understand why they don't offer a simple subsidy to the networks to make the charges attractive. Surely this would speed up the uptake of EV/Hybrid vehicles a lot for the sake of a few million a year. Drop in the ocean.

I don't see the point of giving funding towards new chargers no one can afford to use.

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I doubt that the government really wants us to take up EV on any large scale - they just want the publicity of encouraging it. They make far too much money out of fuel duty and it would be very difficult to levy the equivalent on electricity used for charging without also impacting on the cost of domestic electricity.

Whether it is good or bad for us Outlander PHEV drivers it a swift kick in the teeth for Shell and their 49 pence per kW/h! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Looked at another way, 30p per kWh is equivalent to ~8 l/100km or 35mpg (assuming fuel at 120 pence per litre, and 3 miles/5km per kWh which is a reasonable ballpark figure for EVs (cars anyway, the new Tesla Semi electric truck claims ~0.5 miles per kWh)). So looking purely at fuel costs when choosing a new car, if this is the long-term price you'd pay, the decision to buy an EV becomes cost neutral.

Most BEV drivers do most of their charging at home/work and only use rapids for topping up en route on a long journey. So the pricing is hardly going to alter the cost benefit overall of running on electricity. Anyway people who complain about it being 3 times the cost per unit need to put themselves into the shoes of the business running them. I know a few people who do this at a restaurant. "I could buy these ingredients for £3" etc etc. Yes, but the cost of the ingredients is a small part of the costs associated with providing a restaurant meal.

Steve

Daff said:

Most BEV drivers do most of their charging at home/work and only use rapids for topping up en route on a long journey. So the pricing is hardly going to alter the cost benefit overall of running on electricity.

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Or, alternatively, most people who buy BEVs charge at home because public chargers are so expensive. But there's a significant proportion of the populace who have no possibility of charging at home, and BEVs will need to address this if they are ever to get near to forming 100% of all vehicles.

ChrisMiller said:

Daff said:

Most BEV drivers do most of their charging at home/work and only use rapids for topping up en route on a long journey. So the pricing is hardly going to alter the cost benefit overall of running on electricity.

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Or, alternatively, most people who buy BEVs charge at home because public chargers are so expensive. But there's a significant proportion of the populace who have no possibility of charging at home, and BEVs will need to address this if they are ever to get near to forming 100% of all vehicles.

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The cost of installing and operating ChaDeMo chargers is always going to be high - they are complex, heavy duty electronic devices, physically large and require a high current mains supply. Unless the government were to subsidise them quite heavily, I doubt that any commercial organisation could justify offering them on terms that would make them attractive to any owner of a hybrid vehicle.

Slow chargers are a different matter and i guess that, if the demand were there and local government was cooperative in the planning system, then we could see a commercial network of open access slow charging points - but even then, it would not be at a price that would satisfy many here. Public access devices dotted around car parks and along the kerbside are vulnerable things and the cost of maintenance will always be high. The number of charges purchased per day will be low - even a PHEV with its small battery takes at least three hours to charge on a 16A circuit - that limits the number of charges sold to no more than 8 per day - in practice it is likely to average about three. The cost of installing and operating the charging point plus any profit has to be distributed over that small number of customers - that is what will limit the lower price at which they are economical to operate.

Our local council has installed several 16A charging points in town centre car parks - I think I've seen one of them in use once! I went into town to visit the optician a few days ago - I parked in a bay close to the charger, but did not plug up. I was going to be there for about half an hour - the amount of charge I could have taken on was far too small to justify the effort of getting the cable out and the cost was going to be comparable with the value of any petrol saved. Any idea of free parking while charging is long gone!

Beyond the investment in the unit, the parking place itself is usually also a value that usually needs to be considered in any financial calculation...

So the Polar - Chargemaster network is a curiosity. 'Free' for most slow chargers, 9p kwh for rapid chargers although there are not many of those.

But then there is a £7.85 standing charge per month.

So if say 10p/kwh as a rough figure if you can take onboard 78kwh per month on slow charges your getting your charging as cheap as at home and its very worthwhile.

But as mentioned you need to be somewhere you might not want to be for a long time, in either a PHEV or EV.

If you only used their rapid chargers and took on 78kwh you would pay 19p kwh

So if you had an EV with a 30kwh battery and took an 80% (24kwh) charge 3 times a week, so 72kw/h, per month 312kwh so £7.85/312 = 2.5p+9p = a very attractive 11.p kw/h

If your 30kwh EV is only using their free slow chargers and manage to get 3 x 80% per week then they are only getting 2.5p per kwh from you!

Yet Chargemaster are making money out of this? Doesn't seem to add up by other peoples comments.

I would love Chargemaster to offer a phev special PAYG rate of say 14p per kwh on rapidchargers, but they would need to expand the locations.

BobEngineer said:

So the Polar - Chargemaster network is a curiosity. 'Free' for most slow chargers, 9p kwh for rapid chargers although there are not many of those.

But then there is a £7.85 standing charge per month.
...


Yet Chargemaster are making money out of this? Doesn't seem to add up by other peoples comments.

I would love Chargemaster to offer a phev special PAYG rate of say 14p per kwh on rapidchargers, but they would need to expand the locations.

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I have to admit to not following the public charging network closely, but as far as I know, there is virtually no ongoing investment, is there? My assumption is that Chargemaster are effectively running on a legacy network set up with a variety of subsidies and some early speculative investment. They can afford to run it at little more than cost price, but I doubt that they are significantly investing in new hardware. It's a similar situation to the London charging network - created with a lot of public sector investment, but then allowed to decline because the income was too small to cover maintenance of the installed kit, far less enhancement of the network.

Chargemaster are putting in a few new rapids each month, recently it seems linked to Harvester pubs or holiday in hotels. Podpoint is another putting in new points too.

BobEngineer said:

Its pricey for EV's too.

I keep seeing news that so many millions are being put up by the government to encourage the uptake and increase charging network etc.

This is a ready made network all ready to go, I don't understand why they don't offer a simple subsidy to the networks to make the charges attractive. Surely this would speed up the uptake of EV/Hybrid vehicles a lot for the sake of a few million a year. Drop in the ocean.

I don't see the point of giving funding towards new chargers no one can afford to use.

Click to expand...

The Government were initially subsidising Ecotricity, but not any longer. I get my domestic electricity from Ecotricity £40 annual discount because I have an Outlander, not much I agree, but every bit counts. Because I am a customer I pay 15p/kWh at their public chargers. Which makes it still worthwhile for me to use them.