Electric car owners hit by £5 motorway charging charge ~ station of gear

Kia Soul EV - electric car charging point

The sole provider of UK motorway EV charging stations, Ecotricity, has decided to start charging users a £5 flat-fee

2016-07-07 14:40

Electric car drivers will be charged a £5 fee when using rapid-chargers along the UK’s motorway network, after the sole provider of motorway charging stations, Ecotricity, decided to introduce a flat-fee for electric car charging.

The £5 flat-fee for a 20-minute charge will be introduced along the company’s 300 rapid-charging stations across the country. Most plug-in hybrids and EVs would see about half of their battery charged in 20 minutes. The switch to charging will be manually implemented at all charging points, with work starting on 11 July and expected to be completed by Friday 5 August.

Tesla owners using Tesla’s own Supercharger network won’t incur the charge, although owners of the upcoming Model 3 will be required to pay to access the network in the future, according to statements made by Tesla Motors CEO, Elon Musk.

The latest figures show there are nearly 60,000 electric cars on UK roads, with registrations up 23 per cent on the previous year. The surge in sales has experts predicting that the Government targets to see all new cars sold by 2040 using electric power will be met.

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In an e-mail to it's users, Ecotricity said: “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 £5 for a 20 minute fast charge strikes the right balance.”

Do you think it's fair to charge electric car drivers a flat-fee for charging use. Tell us in the comments below...

Martin Saarinen

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