Email from CYC

[Jimc]

Dear EV Driver,

We will shortly be adjusting our pricing to more accurately reflect the value users get from the Charge Your Car (CYC) network. This will allow us to continue providing excellent customer service and make significant improvements to our network and software.

From 1st May 2017, Charge Your Car will apply a £1 connection fee to successful charges on all public charge points in England and Wales that do not have a tariff applied to them. This will be invoiced monthly along with any tariffed charge sessions outstanding on your account.

Due to the rapidly growing industry, we have decided to introduce the connection fee so we can continue to improve the service that our drivers have come to expect from us. The level of activity across CYC operated free to use charge points has increased three-fold over the last year, with our network now connecting over 30,000 EV drivers to charge points, and the fee will ensure we can continue to operate the 24-hour customer telephone line, support the growing demand on the network, and continue to develop and maintain online resources for our customers. The connection fee will also recognise that more of the burden of the cost of operating the network is needing to be met by the driver rather than the site owner. CYC in parallel to introduction of this connection charge is reducing its network tariffs to site hosts on next renewal. Please see the updated Terms and Conditions on our website that will come into effect on May 1st.

To find out whether a charge point incurs the connection fee, please visit our live map at www.chargeyourcar.org.uk/map or use the CYC app.

For further details on these changes to our billing, please visit our FAQs page and click on 'Help' then 'Billing Queries'.

Thank you for being a valued member of CYC. If you require further support, please e-mail us at [email protected].

Kind Regards,

The Charge Your Car Team

 

[ChrisMiller]

Whenever I see the phrase "in order to better meet the needs of our customers" in a corporate press release, I am immediately certain of two things:

1. No customers whatsoever will have been consulted before making this change.

2. In some small, ill-defined way, my life is about to become very slightly worse.

 

[user 816]

I still don't get all these schemes, for instance there is a rapid charger post at my local sports centre.

On the CYC site its listed at £5.50 for the first 45 minutes, then 15p per minute thereafter. So too steep for a PHEV user.

Same charger on the Polar map is shown at a simple 9p per kwh, which is very PHEV friendly.

Except there is a 'standing charge' membership fee on Polar which is the only thing that stops me joining, I couldn't make it back each month.

 

[NightPHEVer]

I'm wondering how long it will be before I get a letter from my home electricity supplier telling me that "in order to better meet the needs of our customers" they're going to start charging me a 'special' extra tariff for having a 32amp home charge point in my garage. Due to the govenment subsidy towards the original install, I presume there's a register somewhere with the details of everyone who's got one.

What would happen if everybody had a 32amp home charger - would there be enough electricity. Could the grid take it?

 

[user 816]

I'm wondering how long it will be before I get a letter from my home electricity supplier telling me that "in order to better meet the needs of our customers" they're going to start charging me a 'special' extra tariff for having a 32amp home charge point in my garage. Due to the govenment subsidy towards the original install, I presume there's a register somewhere with the details of everyone who's got one.

What would happen if everybody had a 32amp home charger - would there be enough electricity. Could the grid take it?

Probably... as much charging is done at night when there is a good surplus. Most houses only have an 80/100 amp supply which has to be shared between appliances and charging EV's.

This is going to be a major issue in the future to EV take-up, its easy enough for the manufacturers to put bigger and more powerful batteries in to give us ever bigger range (and consequently less range anxiety) but somehow your going to need to fill it up.

A point will be reached where the time to charge such a big battery will exceed the 'down time' of the car on the power available at home. So we will all want house supply upgrades, can you imagine the infrastructure consequences of that? digging up every street, new sub-stations, upgraded distribution network....

I quite like one of Tesla's ideas, you have a great big (wall mounted) battery at home that charges off peak. They then combine its output with your mains to give you your own high powered rapid charger. Although there are efficiency hits from charging batteries twice, you could offset that by loading the domestic battery from an off peak tariff or better still from solar panels whilst your at work all day.

 

[LondonLass]

I wonder how long until Scotland gets the same £1 charge.

 

[Muddywheels]

I have received this email too and it's as clear as mud - does this apply to all charge points or just free points :?

I paid £20 for a CYC card in October and £130 for a cable so I could use CYC points in York which is where we shop - I have paid £0.75-1.20 total £8 for 8 charges since then because I hoped to reduce my emissions but it 's becoming clear that financially I should of just burnt petrol and put the £158 spent towards fuel so where is the incentive

It feels like I've spent a lot of money again just as the goalpost move with the VED changes and charges for electric increasing :roll:

 

[Muddywheels]

Have now read their FAQ and think this charge only applies to points that are currently free -

https://chargeyourcarsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002220765-Connection-Fee-FAQs

Why are you only applying the connection fee to charge points without a tariff?

As Charge Your Car already applies a small transaction charge on chargeable points, we do not want to add further costs onto these for EV drivers.


When will I incur this Connection Fee and what is a ‘Successful’ Charge’?

The connection fee will apply to any successful charges on the Charge Your Car network in England and Wales that do not already have tariffs. A successful charge is defined as over 2 minutes in duration and with over 1kWh of energy drawn.


Which charge points won’t be affected by this?

The connection fee will not be applied to charge points on the network that already incur a fee to charge. It will also not be applied to charge points in Scotland on the ChargePlace Scotland network.

Points with fees already appear unaffected :?

 

[Regulo]

They weren't involved in writing the Marx brothers' "Sanity Clause" sketch, were they?

 

[chrisnsteffie]

It's funny, because if you look at their announcement on the 20th January 2017, the specifically state that they will not impose an admin fee, and that "free means free".

Check out your old email about it / their own website!

I emailed them about it - no reply!

It does however mean that using a CYC is mostly useless - it only costs me £1 to charge at home anyway, so unless I'm going to be somewhere 4 hours, I'll probably just park normally.