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How do you pay to charge an electric car?
Around the world, the sale of electric vehicles (EVs) has picked up significantly over the last few years. Consequently, the demand for charging infrastructure—both at home and in public spaces—has surged dramatically. However, for many people, charging an EV remains a novel experience that can be somewhat confusing.
For instance, understanding whether and how to pay for EV charging is a common question among new EV drivers. This article aims to address this confusion by providing a clear overview of the different payment options available and explaining why these options exist in the first place.
**Do You Have to Pay to Charge an Electric Car?**
While there are certainly cases where you can charge your car for free—such as at work or when businesses like supermarkets or restaurants offer free charging—it’s likely that nine out of ten times, you’ll need to pay for it.
**A Brief Summary of How to Pay for Electric Car Charging**
The way you pay for EV charging depends on whether you're charging at home or in a public location. Let’s break this down further.
**How to Pay for Charging at Home**
Paying for home charging is straightforward because your home charger is connected to your electricity meter. The cost of the electricity used to charge your car is simply added to your monthly bill.
The cost of home charging depends on several factors, including your electricity provider, rates, the charger's power output, your EV's battery size, and your driving habits. For a detailed breakdown of how much electricity an EV uses, check out our dedicated article.
Home charging is typically the easiest and often the cheapest way to charge your EV, as you don’t need any additional subscriptions or memberships and pay the standard price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity you use. Depending on your electricity tariff, you might even be able to take advantage of lower prices by charging during off-peak hours, such as at night.
**How to Pay for Public Charging**
Paying for public charging is slightly more complex and depends on the charge point operator or network. While you can often pay-per-use, many networks offer memberships or subscriptions that provide lower rates in exchange for a monthly fee. Payment is usually done through an app, an RFID card or fob, or even directly with a contactless credit or debit card.
**Future of Public Charging Payments**
Regardless of your preferred payment method, one thing is clear: paying for public EV charging can be a confusing process due to the variety of operators and sometimes conflicting processes. Is there a way this can be standardized?
Thankfully, such an approach is already in development as an ISO standard, known as “plug and charge.â€
**What is Plug and Charge?**
“Plug and charge,†or its full name, “Road vehicles – Vehicle to Grid communication interface,†is an international standard identified by ISO number 15118. Despite its potentially complex-sounding name, this standard is designed to greatly simplify the entire public charging process.
The concept behind plug and charge is to eliminate the manual authentication required when connecting to a public charging station. Instead, authentication data will be stored in your vehicle and automatically communicated to the charger upon connection.
This means that the charger can determine who to bill without any user input, streamlining the charging experience to simply plugging in.
**Government Legislation to Protect Consumers**
Electric vehicles and EV charging remain relatively new features in the mobility sector in most countries. Therefore, a lot of legislation and standardization is still needed to ensure consumers are protected and their interests are prioritized.
Many countries are beginning to implement such legislation. For example, the U.S. is working toward the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which mandates interoperability between charging providers, along with similar payment systems, pricing information, charging speeds, and other features that will significantly enhance the user experience.
In Europe, the “Fit for 55†proposals include legislation aimed at improving the user experience and ensuring fair, open, and accessible charging infrastructure under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR).
**EV Roaming**
While interoperability and compatibility within a country’s charging networks are crucial, ensuring EVs can be charged across borders is often overlooked. This is where roaming comes in.
Imagine this: EV charging roaming is akin to mobile phone roaming, allowing you to connect to a foreign country’s network and use data and phone calls just as you would at home. In 2017, the EU introduced the "Roam Like at Home" regulation, making it possible for consumers to call, text, and use mobile data at no extra cost anywhere within the EU.
Roaming in the context of EV charging ensures that drivers can use and connect to public chargers outside their home country. But it goes beyond just cross-border charging.
With roaming, drivers can charge at stations belonging to any other charge point operator (CPO) network with a single subscription. This means no more different charging cards or app subscriptions.
Instead of paying at the machine, the driver would simply continue to pay for charging as they do at home: with their service provider or charging subscription.
The difference between roaming and ad hoc payment options is akin to the shift from adapting an old-fashioned payphone to accept a credit card to utilizing the digital connectivity of a smartphone today.
Paying for EV charging can be a daunting and complex experience, particularly for new EV drivers. Unfortunately, there is no universal method that EV drivers can always rely on, as different networks, operators, and countries use different approaches—whether through an app, using an RFID card or fob, or simply by credit or debit card.
However, as the EV market matures, new legislation and standards mean that today’s fragmented charging landscape will soon become a thing of the past. For instance, plug and charge is set to bring unprecedented levels of transparency, interoperability, and user-friendliness to the charging experience.
To learn more about how new regulations in Europe impact EV drivers, check out our dedicated blog. Alternatively, if you'd like to delve deeper into public EV charging, have a look at our article on using a public charger.