It sounds easy enough, plug into electricity and drive off with your EV. The EV-world being in its infancy can feel like looking into murky waters. Not always very easy, but we want to inform you of your different options so you can make an informed choice of where you could charge.
Home Plug Charging
With a simplified calculation made for a basic electric vehicle (f.e. Nissan Leaf), we’ve come to a few estimates for home charging. All prices are of course subject to change and differ per country and sometimes even municipality.
Charging at home from a regular home socket is cheap but slow. You will only pay for your electricity and the charging cable needed for this form of charging. Be warned, this takes very very long. On average it will take about 15 hours to charge (depending on the electricity grid).
In the Netherlands, the price per kWh at home is €0.22 on average, in Belgium €0.28 Germany has kWh prices that are the highest in Europe, almost €0.30. France is the cheapest in Europe with an average of €0.15 kWh and the UK is in the middle with 16 pence a kWh (approx €0.17) So, if you have the time average costs of home plug charging in Europe would be €0.22 per kWh. Roughly said, on a European (estimated on 5km/kW) average you pay less than 4 cents a kilometer. But in France, this is even less. When you charge at home do take into account that peak and off-peak rates and distribution can apply.
Home Charging Point
A home charging point will save you a lot of time compared to home plug charging. Saves time, but costs a bit more. But it is worth considering the investment. Especially when you use solar power. When you investigate getting your home charging point to consider the following: installation costs, usage of the home charger and potential increase of grid connection costs.
Even if you live in an apartment, it is still possible to have a home charger. In France, the “droit à la prise” is granting everyone (apartment owner, apartment tenant, with or without private parking space) the right to ask for a home charging solution to condominium trustee.
The real fun with all home charging starts when you use solar power to cut down your electricity costs. Make sure you buy a charging station which matches charging requirements of your car, such as different phases and the maximum speed. If you want to know more about plugs and cables, read more about it here.
Information for a charging station at home
The Netherlands: https://www.laadpaal24.nl/, https://www.zappi.info/en/
Germany: https://www.abl.de/en/, https://www.wallbe.de/en/,
https://www.mennekes.com/
France: https://www.se.com/us/en/, https://www.carplug.com/en/
United Kingdom: https://myenergi.com/product/zappi/
If you’re not able to have a home charging station Allego is working together with municipalities to get public charging points for all EV drivers. Did you know Allego came up with a new concept which helps EV drivers to request for a public charger? In the Netherlands you can use Openbaarladen.nl More information about requesting a public charger in your hometown can be found here.
Public charging
It’s good to know where we can charge when we are at home, but of course, most importantly we want to find out what happens when we are on our way.
Problem is: public charging prices vary a lot, so it’s difficult to give an estimate of costs. As a general rule of thumb, think of it like this: just like with phones you can choose to pay prepaid or you can have a subscription. In general, subscriptions are cheaper, depending on how much you use it and the different price plans of the provider you choose to use. Direct payment is a good alternative for users who use public charging occasionally.
What do I pay for in public charging?
Obviously, you pay for the electricity, but chargers, their material and maintenance also cost money. AC-chargers (or slow chargers) are less expensive than fast DC-charging. When it comes to DC-charging or fast charging, costs can go up quickly due to the high grid connection costs and the costly infrastructure. Read the earlier article.
Next to these obvious costs also think of: fees for the (payment) administration, a 24/7 helpdesk, developing a web portal, apps and keeping the stations working and up in the air. Knowing exactly what you pay isn’t that easy yet. Because how you pay for all these different services differs per MSP and their pricing plans.
Although we want to, we simply can’t give an estimate due to the huge differences. However, we communicate Allego direct payment costs via the Smoov app as this is within our control. Some independent sites can make some calculations based on your preferences. We’ve listed them here for your convenience.
The Netherlands: https://smoovapp.eu/, https://laadpastop10.nl/
France: https://chargemap.com/
Germany: https://smoovapp.eu/, https://www.goingelectric.de/
United Kingdom: https://www.zap-map.com/live/
Belgium: https://ik-rij-elektrisch.be/laadpassen/
Allego tries to make your charging experience as smooth as possible. We are doing all we can to be transparent in our work, work together with all parties and welcome all different forms of payment. Did you know that e.g. you can already pay for your EV using blockchain technology? We’ll talk a bit more about that in the next article.
#KeepDrivingForward
