fiver for a 20 minute fast charge strikes the right balance

Pincher

Below is an e-mail from Ecotricity, dated 7th July 2016.

Basically, no more free electricity for my car.






Dear Me Me Me

I’m writing to you as a member of the Electric Highway to let you know of a significant change to our service.

After five years of providing charging for free, we’re moving to a ‘charging for charging’ model.

When we began in July 2011, there was a bit of a chicken and egg situation – people were reluctant to buy electric cars because there were no charging facilities being built, but nobody wanted to build those facilities while there were still so few cars on the road. That’s when we jumped in to help kickstart the electric car revolution in Britain.

And that’s going pretty well: today there are over 40 models to choose from and 64,000 plug-ins on the road. The Electric Highway itself comprises almost 300 electricity pumps – of the fast charging variety.

The combination of more cars on the road and faster charging means we're now delivering two million miles of clean driving each month – all powered from the wind and sun. That’s a great result. It’s also a growing cost. And to keep pace with demand, we need to build more electricity pumps – at existing and new locations.

So the time has come for us to charge – for charging.

We’ve taken a lot of feedback from EV drivers in order to arrive at the right pricing model. We’ve decided that a simple flat fee of a fiver for a 20 minute fast charge strikes the right balance.

Here’s how it will all work and when it will all happen

First, we’ve created an Electric Highway app. You’ll need this app to use our pumps once we’ve changed over to the ‘charging for charging’ model.

The app will have other features that you’ll find useful. It will show you a live feed of our entire network so you can see the location and availability of your nearest pump, making it easier for you to plan your journeys. You’ll be able to track the progress of your charge with the app’s charging countdown, and there’ll be other features coming in the future.

The transition to ‘charging for charging’ will require a hardware upgrade of each pump. We’ll start that work on Monday 11 July and we’re aiming to have the entire network finished by Friday 5 August.

During this transition period, you’ll need the app for some pumps and your swipe card for others. The app itself will tell you which pumps have switched over to the new charging model.

Once the work is complete, our entire network will only be usable through the Electric Highway app.

We’ve updated the FAQs on the Ecotricity website to provide more information, should you need it.

I hope this is all clear and that you’ll understand our need to finally move to ‘charging for charging’ – it’s the next vital step in the evolution of the Electric Highway and it will allow us to continue to reinvest in improving and expanding the network.

Viva the EV revolution

Thanks for being with us.

Dale Vince

P.S. Nearly forgot ... the Electric Highway will still be free to use for Ecotricity energy customers – so if you’re not already a customer, now is a pretty good time to switch. You’ll not only get free use of the Electric Highway, we’ll give you a discount on your energy just for having an electric car. If you’d like to switch, just click here.










How do I continue to get free charging?



Step 1: Switch your energy to Ecotricity


You can do that online here. You'll get a £40 discount on your annual bill just for having an electric vehicle.



Step 2: Create an Eco ID

Your Eco ID allows you to access your Ecotricity energy account and the Electric Highway app with the same login details. You can create your Eco ID once you've completed your online energy switch.

Step 3: Download the App
Download the Electric Highway App, login using your new Eco ID and register your car and your credit/debit card.*

Enjoy free charging!
That's it! You'll receive free charging once your account goes live (normally within about three weeks), and it will remain free for as long as you have a live energy account with us.

*You won’t be charged for using the Electric Highway as an Ecotricity energy customer, but we will ask you to register a credit or debit card when you set up your account. That’s just so that, if you switch to another energy supplier and would like to continue to use the network, we’ll already have a payment method set up for you to do so.











How do I pay for charging?



Step 1


Download the Electric Highway app.

Step 2


Create a new Eco ID.

Step 3

Register your car and your credit/debit card.

Step 4
Use the App to pay for charges as and when you need them. You'll simply need to enter the last 3 digits on your card to authorise the card.









Copyright © 2016 Ecotricity, All rights reserved.


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EricMears

Pincher wrote: »

Below is an e-mail from Ecotricity, dated 7th July 2016.

Basically, no more free electricity for my car.

I got the same email. This was my reply

Thank you for your email.

I’m afraid I’ll be declining your offer for several reasons :-

• A flat charge of £5 per visit is far too expensive. I would never be able to charge more than 18kWh in a session and realistically it would be far less but even so that represents something in the order of 30 pence per unit. I realise you will have some overheads but since the majority of the network is already in place, the bulk of those should already have been accounted for.
• My one serious attempt to use your network fell at the first hurdle when your CCS @ Chieveley proved to be incompatible with a VW e-Up! I have seen reports that you were investigating that situation but have never seen any announcement that it might now work. I really wouldn’t want to spend 3+ hours trying to recharge there again ! I have since tried using other CCS outlets in your network and can confirm they seemed to work well but of course a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and Chieveley was a dreadfully weak link compounded by your lack of a ‘helpline’ at weekends.
• I have investigated your home energy offer but found that even with a £40pa ‘EV Discount’ your offer would cost me around £200 pa more than my present supplier. I’d need to use one of your EV chargers more than 40 times per year before that became competitive and really can’t envisage that ever happening.

No reply from them as yet (apart from an auto-ack at 10:30 on Thursday promising one "within two working days". I doubt they'll actually bother to reply.

I found the existence of their network very useful when bringing the car home from Southampton last year - and it would have been even better if I could have had the fast charge at Chieveley rather than several hours of slow charging there, at Oxford and at Cherwell Valley so I could limp back to my sister's at Towcester and give it an overnight charge there. Luckily, from there, I found two other CCS units that did work during the rest of the trip home.

I've never seriously needed their network since although I have tried it out a couple of times just to confirm that there isn't an intermittent fault with the car and our pattern of usage for the e-Up! means that we're seldom likely to need charging other than at home.

Pincher

I have a petrol hybrid, so it doesn't affect me too much.

Just curious what the pure electric crowd is going to say.

Ectophile

So not only do you have to pay to recharge, but to use the charger at all, you have to have a smartphone and a data contract so you can use their app to turn it on.

As an aside, assuming petrol at £1.10/litre, £5 would buy you 4.5 litres, which contains about 44kWh.

michaels

Go over to speak ev - to say it is not popular is an understatement. Many who would have to fast chare frequently say it tips the balance from having an EV to having an ICE.

EricMears

michaels wrote: »

Go over to speak ev - to say it is not popular is an understatement. Many who would have to fast chare frequently say it tips the balance from having an EV to having an ICE.

Yes, I'm a member there too and can confirm we're not happy bunnies !

It won't in fact make any difference to me as I'd always use my diesel engine vehicle for longer trips - only partly because of refuelling probs main reason is how much luggage I'd need.

EricMears

Ectophile wrote: »

As an aside, assuming petrol at £1.10/litre, £5 would buy you 4.5 litres, which contains about 44kWh.

Only theoretically ! My gallon (near as dammit 4.5litres) would get me 50 miles down a motorway. (as mentioned above) A full battery would probably take me 70 miles so possibly still more economical than spending same amount on DERV

Pincher

If I was designing it, I would provide a limp home option for 100% electric vehicles. Something like a lawn mower engine, with a five litre tank. Pull the chord, charge for five minutes. £200?

EricMears

Portable petrol-engine electricity generators are readily available. To be able to charge an EV successfully they'd have to have enough output to be able to charge the EV via it's 'Granny lead' which in my case means a steady output of at least 5A (or 1200W). Most such generators are sub 1kW but I've just done a quick eBay search to find the cheapest new generator that would do the job and came up with this one :-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EBERTH-5-5HP-4-05kW-petrol-generator-portable-gasoline-4-stroke-engine-AVR-2200W-/262143270390?hash=item3d08f4ddf6:g:K~kAAOSwvt1WRieB
at £155

However, have to point out that its size (Dimensions (L x W x H) 605 x 435 x 460 mm) and weight (39kg) would make it a tad inconvenient to carry about in the back of my car.

Should also point out that running it for 1 hour would produce 1.2 kWh which would take me almost 5 miles (possibly less if the weight reduced my normal range).

No doubt there are higher powered and lighter versions available but suspect they wouldn't be very much smaller or lighter and would almost certainly be a great deal dearer.

EricMears

BMW offer a range extender as an 'optional extra' for their I3 model.

According to Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3
" range extender (“REx”) option powered by a 647 cc two-cylinder gasoline engine with a small fuel tank "
and poking about a bit further, the option appears to cost just over £3,000

Pincher

EricMears wrote: »

the option appears to cost just over £3,000

BMW will charge £10 for a condom, if they sold one.

Hmm, if BMWs are babe magnets, a condom dispenser for the backseat should certainly be an option.


Just because they overcharge for it, doesn't mean it's a bad idea.
If Skoda did it, and charged £500, I expect it will be popular.

On the other hand, just buy a hybrid, which I did.