1) How much does it cost to charge in public?
Overall, charging your car at a public EV charging station is more expensive than charging your car overnight at home. As an example, the average cost for home charging is 32p per kWh in the UK and 48p per kWh for a public charging station. But your electricity provider and the times you charge at home will affect the final cost of charging your car at home.
When you charge publicly, the cost for charging your vehicle will differ based on many different factors. We collected a list to explain these components more in detail:
2) What affects the pricing of public charging?
Speed of Charger: While most residential chargers are AC chargers, public chargers offer both AC and DC chargers. AC chargers charge at a speed up to 22 kW while DC chargers can charge from 15 kW to over 350 kW. On average, the slower the charge, the cheaper it will be. Topping up your car with a rapid or ultra-fast charger is the most expensive way to add kilometers to your battery but also the fastest.
Blocking fees: Some Charge Point Operators want to incentivize the proper use of charging stations and discourage drivers to use the charging points for parking after the charging session is complete. Once the session is complete, these CPOs charge a blocking fee, usually per minute, for blocking the charge point. Some CPOs may even charge you a fee for staying longer than X amount of minutes, even if you are still charging your car.
Location: The cost for charging can vary by location. There are currently over 800 000 charging points available on the Plugsurfing app in 27 European countries including the UK. The price for charging can even differ from connector to connector at the same charging station.
Time of the day: Some providers offer dynamic pricing. Depending on the time of the day you are charging, the price might be higher or lower. In the Plugsurfing app, the vast majority of the pricing is not dynamic, and you can rely that the price stays the same during the entire day.
Charge Point Operator: CPOs are the ones who own and operate public charging stations. They can demand as much as they see fit. For example, if a Charge Point Operator primarily offers ultra-fast chargers close to motorways or other convenient spots, their pricing might be on the higher end.
At Plugsurfing, we are on a journey to simplify pricing by removing many of these complex pricing structures. The aim is to offer 100% energy-based pricing (per kWh) for DC chargers (+ possible blocking fees by the CPOs).
3) Why is public charging more expensive than home charging?
While you set up your charging cable at home, public charging stations are managed by Charge Point Operators (CPO) who set up charging stations, organize their upkeep and fix chargers if there are any issues. Additionally, CPOs also grow the network and build more public charging points.
CPOs have to charge more than the cost of electricity to ensure that they can keep their operations running. If you have any issues with your charging cable at home, you have to fix it yourself. Public charging stations are a reliable option for charging your car that is readily available.
CPOs offer access to their network via roaming to apps such as Plugsurfing. Plugsurfing does not own or operate the charging stations but instead connects the drivers to hundreds of CPO partners to make charging an electric vehicle simple and more convenient.
When you use apps like Plugsurfing, you have an easy-to-use and reliable solution that offers one place to charge your electric car instead of having many different apps for each provider. You can find charging points at spots where you need them like a highway, close to the supermarket or a hotel.
4) How can I calculate the price of a full charge?
The majority of public EV charging is charged for in kWh. When the price is based on kWh, you can calculate the price of a full charge similar to the price of buying petrol for your car: You assess how many kWh you will consume based on the capacity of your car’s battery, the current level of battery and the anticipated level at the end of the charge. In most sessions, drivers only charge their battery to 80% because the speed of charging slows down at this point.
Here is an example of this formula in action:
You are driving an electric car with a usable battery of 60 kWh. You currently have 20% of the battery left which means there is 12 kWh in the battery. You are charging at a charge point with a price of 0,58 € per kWh.
You calculate:
(60 x 0,8 – 12) x 0,58 = (48 – 12) x 0,58 = 36 x 0,58 = 20,88€
Note: Pay close attention to blocking and parking fees as these can be extremely expensive.
5) How can I make charging in public cheaper?
If you rely on a public charger quite frequently or need to charge publicly during your vacation, a subscription or discount campaign can make the price of your charging significantly lower. At Plugsurfing, we are putting an effort into offering discount campaigns to our users with our charging partners. Make sure to read our email newsletter to get the newest info on our discounts.
In the UK, you can use our subscription Plugsurfing+ to unlock an exclusive 20% discount at the UK’s top electric vehicle charging networks. For only £6.9/month, you can charge cheaper at IONITY, Instavolt, Osprey Charging Network, Mer, Connected Kerb and Fuuse. If that sounds right for you, find out more about the Plugsurfing+ subscription.
