Ecotricity to start charging for charging
Discussion
xjay1337 said:
But perhaps Ecotricity do not provide the best tarrif at home?
Looking at the kWH per £ it's awful for most people.
Fine on a Tesla maybe where that would perhaps get you 125 miles but their Superchargers are free for life (as I understand from the bumf).
No good for a tesla, 20 mins might get you 40 miles of range.Looking at the kWH per £ it's awful for most people.
Fine on a Tesla maybe where that would perhaps get you 125 miles but their Superchargers are free for life (as I understand from the bumf).
And ecotricity costs a fair bit more for home electricity, I've seen people talk about 150 charging sessions a year to break even.
PHEV drivers will be committing financial suicide using one of these, and nobody in their right mind will ever use the AC side, that could be as high as £1.50 per kWh
Raoul Duke said:
Pretty sure when I looked through the email they sent and the faq's - the AC charge points are to remain free to use with the swipe card.
Being a recent convert to PHEV use I will be interested to see if this is the case, as paying £5 for 20mins on an AC charge is pointless!
I've queried this and the belief is its only one an old type of charger they're phasing out so effectively no free charge on ACBeing a recent convert to PHEV use I will be interested to see if this is the case, as paying £5 for 20mins on an AC charge is pointless!
I guess they have a business to run, they are not a charity. Admitidly PHEV drivers may no longer bother using them, but PHEV drivers on long journeys would probably be using petrol anyway. I dont think many people brought their EV's on the premise that fast motorway charging would be free for ever - I have one on order, but would rarely intend to use it on any journey where I would need to rely on a public charger to make it to the end destination.
It makes no sense.
The latest pricing is now £6 per 30mins, but what if I only need 15mins a day (as I do)? Am I to hog the charger making sure I get my 30mins worth, thus preventing others from using the charger?
Ecotricity have screwed up massively, it needs to be a pay per kwh charge for it to be fair, the cars charge slower in cold weather too, so a time based system is a shambles.
The latest pricing is now £6 per 30mins, but what if I only need 15mins a day (as I do)? Am I to hog the charger making sure I get my 30mins worth, thus preventing others from using the charger?
Ecotricity have screwed up massively, it needs to be a pay per kwh charge for it to be fair, the cars charge slower in cold weather too, so a time based system is a shambles.
IN51GHT said:
It makes no sense.
The latest pricing is now £6 per 30mins, but what if I only need 15mins a day (as I do)? Am I to hog the charger making sure I get my 30mins worth, thus preventing others from using the charger?
Ecotricity have screwed up massively, it needs to be a pay per kwh charge for it to be fair, the cars charge slower in cold weather too, so a time based system is a shambles.
Charge every other dayThe latest pricing is now £6 per 30mins, but what if I only need 15mins a day (as I do)? Am I to hog the charger making sure I get my 30mins worth, thus preventing others from using the charger?
Ecotricity have screwed up massively, it needs to be a pay per kwh charge for it to be fair, the cars charge slower in cold weather too, so a time based system is a shambles.
By time will benefit the faster charging cars
By kWh will benefit the slower charging cars
By connection fee plus lower rate per min or kWh will encourage longer charging sessions and bigger capacity cars
Whichever way they do it, somebody loses.
JPJPJP said:
IN51GHT said:
I charge overnight at home, then 15mins during the day, that covers me for my 150mile a day useage so that's not going to work.
Switch your home electricity to ecotricity, then the chargers are freeJPJPJP said:
IN51GHT said:
I charge overnight at home, then 15mins during the day, that covers me for my 150mile a day useage so that's not going to work.
Switch your home electricity to ecotricity, then the chargers are freeThey claim to have consulted EV drivers, when asked how many, they admitted on the phone none.
The pay by time is utterly pointless, an EV charges slower in the cold than on a warm day, so it's like popping your money in a vending machine an not knowing how much of a product you'll have dispensed.
A pay per kwh would have been a better solution, with the machine set to cut off at 90% to prevent charge point hogging for the last (and slow) 10%.
Edited by IN51GHT on Tuesday 12th July 11:29
Anyone defending this new policy is either and idiot, or called Vince.
Ecotricity is founded on values that put the state of the planet first don't they? By doing what they're doing they are effectively forcing the hand of many BEV owners to go back to ICE vehicles, or pay more than a conventional car would cost. A backward step surely.
Absolutely no problem with them introducing a charge as you rally can't expect free power indefinitely. It's just the way they have structured and implemented it; as Insight says, it just makes no logical sense. And rtrotting out that it's free when you switch your energy supply to them is balls too as they are so much more money. Would I pay a bit more, yes. You I pay a lot more, NO!
Time will tell anyway. I'd predict them adjusting it downward in the medium to long term. Thankfully it doesn't effect me as all our charging is done at home.
Ecotricity is founded on values that put the state of the planet first don't they? By doing what they're doing they are effectively forcing the hand of many BEV owners to go back to ICE vehicles, or pay more than a conventional car would cost. A backward step surely.
Absolutely no problem with them introducing a charge as you rally can't expect free power indefinitely. It's just the way they have structured and implemented it; as Insight says, it just makes no logical sense. And rtrotting out that it's free when you switch your energy supply to them is balls too as they are so much more money. Would I pay a bit more, yes. You I pay a lot more, NO!
Time will tell anyway. I'd predict them adjusting it downward in the medium to long term. Thankfully it doesn't effect me as all our charging is done at home.
modeller said:
It should be charged on time and energy delivered otherwise the PHEVs will hog.
I think preventing PHEVs hogging them is kind of the point. The charging point spaces tend to be among the closest to the facilities so you get people plugging in to get a few miles on slow charge while they waddle in for lunch. Now that the company car favourite 3-series and C-Class are available as plug-ins that will only get worse.The whole concept of longer-distance electric journeys works as long as you can either pull straight up to an empty bay or only have a short wait for one - that means either keep on throwing money at expanding facilities or damp down demand by making people pay. When ecotricity started proving them there were only a few hundred electric cars on the roads - there's now more than 75000 plug-in cars in the UK and that will keep on growing. They've been giving away cards to anyone, customer or not, who has an electric car. At some point they have to make it work financially.
sjg said:
modeller said:
It should be charged on time and energy delivered otherwise the PHEVs will hog.
I think preventing PHEVs hogging them is kind of the point. The charging point spaces tend to be among the closest to the facilities so you get people plugging in to get a few miles on slow charge while they waddle in for lunch. Now that the company car favourite 3-series and C-Class are available as plug-ins that will only get worse.The whole concept of longer-distance electric journeys works as long as you can either pull straight up to an empty bay or only have a short wait for one - that means either keep on throwing money at expanding facilities or damp down demand by making people pay. When ecotricity started proving them there were only a few hundred electric cars on the roads - there's now more than 75000 plug-in cars in the UK and that will keep on growing. They've been giving away cards to anyone, customer or not, who has an electric car. At some point they have to make it work financially.
A DC charger costs about 10X as much to install compared to a slower AC charger. It should therefore be priced in a way to discourage those who can't take advantage of the speed. As mentioned above what the charging companies, and DC-enabled customers want is for the turnaround to be quick.
One of my local charging companies charges per kWh & per minute. (.15 CHF per kWh & .09 CHF per min) I suspect that this reflects the cost of running one of the stations as to my knowledge there are no subsidies for charging stations in Switzerland.
The issue as I see it with what Ecotricity are doing is that it's too crude. Yesterday I stopped off at a DC charging station for 7 mins - just enough to get me home safely. In busy times this is the sort of behaviour I would imagine you want to encourage.
There has to be a good business model to encourage people to install & maintain these charge stations. If someone prices too high it'll encourage new entrants. This, in my book is a good thing. We need DC charging stations to be as common as petrol stations.
Although I'm looking at almost 25,000km a year in my i3 at the current rate I don't charge that much away from home. I don't mind paying more to charge on the times I need a charge whilst on a journey. What is important to me is having the availability of a charger. At the moment, because of Ecotricity, in the UK you have this. Here in Switzerland (or Germany / Austria which are both close to home) many long journeys are simply not an option.
Couple of points from what I've read on speakev.com (100+ page thread if anybody has a few hours to kill!)
The DBT units used by Ecotricity aren't capable of charging for how much energy you take but can charge for a timed fill up.
The DBT units can't be fitted with the hardware for taking payment from a credit card, which is why the App has been developed. Windows phone users don't get the App and I believe some chargers are in areas with poor mobile coverage. Not sure how the older generation who have electric cars will cope if they don't have a suitable phone or aren't tech savy.
Ecotricity have a monopoly on charging at Motorway service stations. Tesla challenged this in court but i presume lost.
Mr Ecotricity was on the radio yesterday (Radio4 i believe) discussing his charging plans. There was an irate Outlander owner on bemoaning the disappearance of free charging. I believe that Mr Ecotricity said something along the lines that the Electric Highway wasn't aimed at PHEV users.
Whilst i have a Leaf currently, I've only recently started to use the Ecotricity chargers as i pass one on the way to work and it would be rude not to. When the charging comes into play, i will revert to charging at home which costs me no more than £2.50 for a full charge.
The DBT units used by Ecotricity aren't capable of charging for how much energy you take but can charge for a timed fill up.
The DBT units can't be fitted with the hardware for taking payment from a credit card, which is why the App has been developed. Windows phone users don't get the App and I believe some chargers are in areas with poor mobile coverage. Not sure how the older generation who have electric cars will cope if they don't have a suitable phone or aren't tech savy.
Ecotricity have a monopoly on charging at Motorway service stations. Tesla challenged this in court but i presume lost.
Mr Ecotricity was on the radio yesterday (Radio4 i believe) discussing his charging plans. There was an irate Outlander owner on bemoaning the disappearance of free charging. I believe that Mr Ecotricity said something along the lines that the Electric Highway wasn't aimed at PHEV users.
Whilst i have a Leaf currently, I've only recently started to use the Ecotricity chargers as i pass one on the way to work and it would be rude not to. When the charging comes into play, i will revert to charging at home which costs me no more than £2.50 for a full charge.
You also only need to look at Ecotricity EH financials - depending how you cut, for a company that's never had any revenue, their dept and liabilities etc aren't great for 300 installed chargers. Some people think a charger costs circa £30k each - they should therefore have debt and/or assets of around £10m, I think it's about 1/5 of that (the inference being grants have paid for most of it)
Edited by JonV8V on Tuesday 12th July 16:35
I remember when I had my Leaf, pulling into a motorway service station near the M4 and waiting for the charger. There was a queue of a couple of those chinese electric taxi vehicles (name started with B I think). They were filling up for free, and why shouldn't they? It was free and they needed the charge. Now I needed to get home and I was low, so I had to wait ages for them to finish. If they charger was available and I had to pay £5 then so be it - for an emergency charge it would be fine.
PHEV drivers have the petrol engine to get them to their destination, so they won't run out of charge like an EV would.
PHEV drivers have the petrol engine to get them to their destination, so they won't run out of charge like an EV would.
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