The price of charging

Why the cost of highway charging is pricing some fleets out of EV adoption - By Paul Hollick, chair, Association of Fleet Professionals

For fleets whose drivers don’t have access to home or depot charging, the cost of power can price fleets out of EV adoption.

The whole total cost of ownership argument for EVs is very much based around low-cost charging. Electric cars and vans are relatively expensive to buy and residual values remain difficult to predict, but operators should be able to at least partially balance this out with low charging costs.

For drivers who live in terraced houses or apartments and can’t install a home charger, and who don’t often visit a location with car park or depot charging, there is no choice but to use retail charging and it is exponentially more expensive.  sing a public charger on the motorway might be 80 pence per kWh compared to perhaps a quarter of that or even less for those who have a charger on their drive.

The situation is unlikely to change until on-street charging infrastructure is dramatically improved. We are urging whichever government is elected this year to examine this issue with some priority. We’ve been working hard on mapping areas where charging is most required, and there are clear opportunities for fleets to work with local authorities who are accessing centralised Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Funding. There is the potential for change to happen quickly with a constructive approach, we believe.