Petition Ecotricity to make their charging prices fair

Ecotricity have just set prices for charging at their fast charging stations throughout the UK.

The price set (£6 for 30 minutes) is grossly unfair to iMiev/Peugeot Ion/Citroen Zero owners, as we are never going to need 30 minutes of charge.

In fact, their pricing scheme means it now costs about twice as much to drive an iMiev a long distance as it would to drive a typical diesel car doing 60 mpg! As compared to half as much if you were able to charge at home.

I have started a petition at https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-pricing-small-electric-cars-off-the-road - please sign, in the hope we can persuade them to change to fairer pricing.

Thanks!

It won't let me sign, says my postal code invalid.

So, how often did you use these fast chargers when they were free?

Would you be 'happy' if they reduced it to 4 pounds for 20 minutes since this car cuts off at 80%? Or would you still be upset at the 'injustice' of having to pay more than it costs you to charge at home a few times per year (when you really need it) at a very expensive to install piece of infrastructure that isn't used most of the day?

You may detect that I am not overly sympathetic <g>.

Personally, I'd like to see the pricing kept at or under what you'd pay for gasoline, if only from the perspective of promoting EV use.

Here in Maryland USA, EVgo is too expensive to use for anything short of an emergency (unless perhaps you use it often enough to justify one of the plans with a monthly fee... I haven't worked that out), although I did greatly appreciate that they went free for Drive Electric Week (but I still only used one EVgo station that week, twice in one day). Royal Farms, on the other hand, is reasonably priced, IMHO.

nikki said:

Ecotricity have just set prices for charging at their fast charging stations throughout the UK.

The price set (£6 for 30 minutes) is grossly unfair to iMiev/Peugeot Ion/Citroen Zero owners, as we are never going to need 30 minutes of charge.

In fact, their pricing scheme means it now costs about twice as much to drive an iMiev a long distance as it would to drive a typical diesel car doing 60 mpg! As compared to half as much if you were able to charge at home.

I have started a petition at https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-pricing-small-electric-cars-off-the-road - please sign, in the hope we can persuade them to change to fairer pricing.

Thanks!

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If you are an Ecotricity domestic energy customer you get to use their CHAdeMO charging network for free. So if you need to use it a lot, you could get your electricity supplied by Ecotricity, and it would be a good value option.

The small number of times you may wish to use the charging network outside of that, it's not such an issue (is electricity worth more if you can get it in 20 mins rather than 5 hours - i'd say it was)... I agree £6 after it was free for so long is a fair bit - bit if you view the Fully Charged episode about it, you will note that they acknowledged that for PHEVs and small EVs, it wasnt an optimal pricing structure.

They were government funded to install to begin with, now they have an effective monopoly, that's true - not sure if a petition will help here, as I have mentioned, you are able to still use the pumps for free.

They can't just give everyone free electricity via a CHAdeMO pump forever. I think we all realised that party would end some day.

rkarl89203 said:

It won't let me sign, says my postal code invalid.

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Sorry about that - is this a UK postcode? If so, I will take it up with 38 degrees.

mdbuilder said:

So, how often did you use these fast chargers when they were free?

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Not very often - when I went on a long journey, and there were charging points I could use to get there.

I would be happy if the price charged bore some relationship to the amount of electricity used, and if the cost of running the electric car was no more expensive than the cost of running a diesel car. After all, the whole network was installed in order to encourage electric motoring, and setting the prices as they are means I will no longer be doing any long-distance travel in my electric car (and nor will anyone else who has an alternative).

phb10186 said:

They can't just give everyone free electricity via a CHAdeMO pump forever. I think we all realised that party would end some day.

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I wasn't expecting it to be free forever. However, the fixed price, no matter how little electricity you use, is unfair. And the price set makes it uneconomic to use my electric car for longer journeys, so i will no longer be doing so. Which hardly helps Ecotricity's stated aim of encouraging electric motoring.

Perhaps you should contact Robert Llewellyn of Fully Charged. He recently did a video about Ecotricity and their charges, see this topic: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3106

Its on the 4th page of the topic I believe.

He may be sympathetic to the cause and it appears that Ecotricity may be flexible in their approach.

phb10186 said:

If you are an Ecotricity domestic energy customer you get to use their CHAdeMO charging network for free. So if you need to use it a lot, you could get your electricity supplied by Ecotricity, and it would be a good value option.

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You can only use it for free 52 times in a year (which is 51.9999 times a year more than I have used it)

misterbleepy said:

phb10186 said:

If you are an Ecotricity domestic energy customer you get to use their CHAdeMO charging network for free. So if you need to use it a lot, you could get your electricity supplied by Ecotricity, and it would be a good value option.

Click to expand...

You can only use it for free 52 times in a year (which is 51.9999 times a year more than I have used it)

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That's kind of fair. I used the one near me at M1 J2 about once a week before on the return leg of my weekly shopping run.

50% of the time I couldnt get to a working one due to a Leaf or a fault.

I dont use the car for commuting - so id have trouble making 52 CHAdeMO charges a year.

mdbuilder said:

So, how often did you use these fast chargers when they were free?

Would you be 'happy' if they reduced it to 4 pounds for 20 minutes since this car cuts off at 80%? Or would you still be upset at the 'injustice' of having to pay more than it costs you to charge at home a few times per year (when you really need it) at a very expensive to install piece of infrastructure that isn't used most of the day?

You may detect that I am not overly sympathetic <g>.

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mdbuilder,
The cost of connecting a Network Connected Charge Point to the Electric Grid (distribution network exists) is nominal at best in comparison to construction of a Gasoline Station, not to mention the Personnel, Maintenance, and Serious Environmental operating liabilities of the underground storage tanks. This is on top of perpetuation of the use of fossil fuels at such a low efficiency rate. The sale of Vehicle Electricity needs to reflect some semblance of actual cost amortized over a reasonable investment period as are all real property investments. The cost of my home electricity is approximately $0.15/kwh US. I think that a $0.20/kwh would be the maximum required to make a profit distributing electric vehicles.

You may detect that I am - overly sympathetic to all options for divorcing ourselves from our current addiction to fossil fuels. Water/Wave, Solar, Wind, and Geo-Thermal.

Thanks for the Soap Box,

JB Patry

What are you smoking?

Against my better judgement <g>.

Say you wanted to run a business supplying fast charges to the public. You are not the government, you are investing your capital and expect to actually make a return. Assume the following:

You have a location that is free to you to install your equipment.

It will cost $25,000 to purchase and install the equipment

You pick a spot where there are a reasonable # of electric cars in the area rather than most of the country with may 1-5 cars per county. You are hopeful that every day 5 cars will visit your charger and charge up 16 kilowatts. 365*5*16 = 29,200 kilowatts per year in electricity sales.

How much should you charge to cover your costs and generate a profit of some sort?

You expect the equipment to last 10 years, therefore allocate $25,000 / 10 = $2,500 per year in depreciation cost.

Maintenance is vital to keeping the revenue stream going, you figure 1 visit per year to clean the filters and do a general check and one visit per year to respond to trouble calls when something breaks or (more likely) vandalism occurs. $300 * 2

Profit - Your business model has a 10% hurdle rate for profit based on capital investment so $25,000*10% = $2,500 per year expected profit.

$2,500 depreciation + $2,500 profit + $600 maintenance = $5,600 / 29,200 kilowatt sales = 19.178 cents per Kw + 15 cents per Kw cost of electricity = 34.2 cents rate * 16 Kw average charge = $5.48 per charge.

Note that the assumed level of sales is probably totally optimistic over a network at this point, there are I am sure installations at popular spots which meet this but lot's of others that don't even come close. Maintenance includes the cost of the visit but nothing for parts, probably too low. Cost of the electric is probably too low in California for instance where the general cost is MUCH higher and demand rates during the day for high current service on a fast charge may be much more expensive than the 'regular' high cost of juice.

jbpatry said:

The sale of Vehicle Electricity needs to reflect some semblance of actual cost amortized over a reasonable investment period as are all real property investments. The cost of my home electricity is approximately $0.15/kwh US. I think that a $0.20/kwh would be the maximum required to make a profit distributing electric vehicles.

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Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone could make a profit reselling electricity for 5 cents per KWH? Seriously, I doubt that would even cover the damage to the equipment by vandals or careless users - If you had to repair or replace just the cord or the connector a few times per year, I think they'd be losing money . . . . without even considering a return on their investment or the depreciation on the equipment

I would bet you that there would be very little, if any profit if they were charging 50 cents per KWH. For me, if I needed a regular L2 charge somewhere to get me home, I'd be happy paying 50 cents - If I could get a quick charge for $1 per KWH I would think that's more than fair. My time is worth quite a bit - Paying double for L3 vs L2 seems quite reasonable and DCQC requires a much bigger investment on their part to save me that time and there's much more to be lost with careless users or vandals

Oh, I agree it would be very nice if we could all recharge (even at L2 speeds) anywhere we liked for only 25% more than it costs us at home, but seriously that's never gonna happen in the free market where someone expects to make a reasonable profit. If I was a businessman looking to make a reasonable profit on my investment, DCQC for less than a 50 cents per KWH isn't something I'd be investing my money in - I doubt there's much (if any) money to be made there

IMO, any sort of public charging should be priced so that I'm only tempted to buy what I NEED to get home where I can fully recharge for 10 or 15 cents per KWH. If public charging isn't at least as expensive as diesel or gasoline, people with hybrids who really don't need to recharge at all would be hogging the charge points and we BEV drivers either couldn't get a charge when we NEEDED it, or we'd have to wait in line to get it

Don

Rational and well thought out