It wasn’t long ago we were all pretty outraged that Tesla increased their charging rates at Superchargers. Well now it’s Evie’s turn and the price is even higher.
Reported by EV owner Jon Day on Facebook, the EVIE Networks pricing change places the new rates at:
- Ultra-Fast Chargers (up to 350kW): 60c per kWh + 0c per min
- Fast Chargers (up to 50kW): 40c per kWh + 0c per min
While it looks like Evie is moving away from the controversial per minute charging (owners have no control over the speed of charging), the increase to the cost per kWh now places Evie as the most expensive place to charge.
When Evie first launched, they were priced at 35c per kWh consumed + 25c per minute while charging. Jumping to almost double the per kWh cost is a big deal and a rise that will have a meaningful impact on the overall cost of road trips and holidays.
By comparison, Tesla’s new price for Supercharging is A$0.52 per kWh, while the Chargefox network still costs on average just $0.40 per kWh.
This price rise from Evie also comes with no justification for the rise, be it increase energy costs, or desire to raise more income to invest in the rollout of more charging location, any communication would be appreciated by the EV community.
The increased rate for fast charging, does comes at an awkward time, when 2 of their 12 sites are suffering from outages.
Update
We now have a copy of an email sent to Evie users confirming the pricing change. This change will take place this Sunday, December 6th, 2020.
It’s probably worthwhile mentioning for those non-EV owners that a vast majority of charging occurs at home for a fraction of this price. This means the occasional weekend roadtrip, or perhaps an upcoming holiday at Christmas, would increase in cost, while the regular ongoing cost of owning an EV remains substantially cheaper than an ICE vehicle.
Yes, I know these chargers are not cheap but this is surely more than a little “over the top”, and a great incentive to NOT use them except when absolutely necessary. (That’s substantially dearer than driving my ICE vehicle, (a diesel SUV), and that is without any “EV tax” added.)
Luckily for me, it’s not often that I need to charge away from home.
The Evie charger at Coochin Creek QLD is located in a highway service centre so is a good spot to stop if you need a charge and a meal. The removal of the per minute charge removes the penalty on short range slow charging EVs that need to plug in more often. I haven’t needed to use this charger as I have a long range Model 3 but will definitely stop in next time I drive to the North Coast to give them my business. EV drivers need to support independent charging stations so that we can charge at more places and remove the uncertainty of turning up and finding a charger unavailable or in use. If you don’t like 60c per kWh then plug in to the slower 40c per kWh charger instead.