The Netherlands is one of the first countries to experience significant commercial adoption of electric vehicles and as a result of that charging infrastructure is popping up all over the place. It's important to carefully think about the pricing policies one develops for using charging infrastructure as the initial pricing models will partially determine the future of electric cars.
We thoroughly believe pricing structures related to electric car charging should not be done solely based on the price for the quantity of energy flowing into the car (kWh). Several other factors are involved in determining the pricing structure of which I'll use the speed of the charging process to support that claim.
In Amsterdam currently there are several providers offering charging facilities throughout town. Let's distinguish between two providers. One that charges at 240V/16A (offered by let's say Provider A) and another type offering 240V/32A (let's call the provider of these stations Provider B)
- Provider A (240V/16A): 14 hours or 21 kilometers per hour
- Provider B (240V/32A): 7 hours or 42 kilometers per hour
Scenario 1: pricing solely based on kilowatt-hours
Suppose both Provider A and Provider B base their pricing solely on the price per kWh going into the car and they set their price at 25 cent per kWh. This means as a user of the charging station it doesn't make a difference where I charge. I always pay €13,50 (54 * 0,25). Assuming I'd like to have my car charged up as quickly as possible, I'm always going to charge at a charge station offered by Provider B, it's quicker and the price is the same. Which is nice for me as a user... in the short term.The long term effect though will be the exact opposite. Assuming a 32A charging station is more expensive to buy, install and operate, Provider B's margins will be lower than the margins Provider A is making on charging. Provider B might consider to fit new charging locations it's realizing with a 16A connection, as its cheaper hence increasing their margins.
In other words: although in the short term it's more attractive for me as a user (faster charging against the same price), the long term effect is that all 32A charging stations will be phased out in favour of (cheaper, for the operator) charge points and a less attractive charging network as a whole.Scenario 2: pricing based on kilowatt-hours as well as speed
Suppose Provider A and B based their pricing on a combination of price per kWh and charging speed. And let's say they stayed away from the term kWh in their pricing models but instead based their pricing on time. We could then come for example see the following prices being set:- Provider A (240V/16A): €1 per hour (translating into €14 for a full charge)
- Provider B (240V/32A): €3 per hour (translating into €21 for a full charge)
Conclusion
It's clear that Scenario 2 is the best option to go for. This is however not the case in Amsterdam right now. Most providers are charging based on a price per kWh and don't take into account the charging speed. This will not cause big problems in the short term, but will result in a suboptimal situation in the long run. There are several other factors to take into account when settling on pricing models for electric car charging. Things like availability of a charging station, ease of use, parking facilities and fees, services offered in the region of the station can all influence pricing. We might even move towards a price per kilometer driven in the future.Only when freedom exists for market players to take into account all these factors, a truly competitive market will develop. This in turn will result in a more attractive charging network for end consumers.
Tags: Kosten, laden, love to load, Toekomst, vergelijking
In my opinion the charging service provided is here presented as a core business, which implies that turnover is related to the sales of kWh.
In the real world companies can decide to offer charging as a added service for free or at very low costs. Already Nissan and the ANWB offer free fast charging. If other parties are willing to give it away for free, how can charging of ev’s evolve into a sound business case? Will just charging as a payed service (either fast or slow) ever be profitable if it’s freeware?
I’m an EV driver -- fast and free exists, so that’s where I go.
Hi Marc,
> If other parties are willing to give it away for free, how can charging of ev’s evolve into a sound business case?
Good to see you’re asking the exact same question as I am. So IMO it’s fair to say that by not thinking about commercial models around charging, in the short to medium term the consumer is better off, in the long term however a less optimal situation will be the end result. If there’s no real money to be made, nobody will continue to invest in it.
I think the market (drivers, providers, dealers, OEMs, et cetera) at least needs to be aware of this when talking about pricing models and introducing subsidized charging facilities.
Paying for charging started way too fast. Basicly the paying started in the Netherlands because one local government decided to stop free charging. At the point they pulled the plug there where less than 1% electric cars on the road if not lower…
There is a slight adaption but the various charging stations / organisations / types / paying methods put a brake on the adaptation of electric driving.
Hallo Karl,
I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. We’re not seeing any slowdown in the adoption of electric vehicles at all. In march EVs as part of new car sales exceeded 1% and we’re expecting this to continu through the rest of 2012, resulting in somewhere between 1 and 2% of all new car sales to be EV/REV/PHEV.
Other than that there is not a lot of difference between the various stations. All public and semi-public stations use a Mennekes plug and all charge passes of all different providers are interoperable, so usable on all charging stations. There are exceptions, but most of the providers work together to make this usable for eveybody.
Regarding free charging: we have about 15 MWh flowing through our network per week. This amounts to somewhere between €3.000 and €4.000 per week. Subsidies exist plentiful, think about bijtelling, BPM, MIA and Vamil. The general consensus is that the driver has enough incentives and doesn’t need to drive for free to make it attractive.
rgds,
Alef
Nice post and good timing of bringing this up. I think we need to step away from paying per kWh, even though the kWh at the moment is a unit that allows us to measure in the first place. In line with how some manufacturers (Tesla being one of them) refer to charging rates as “recharge X miles per hour”, which makes for a more commonly understood concept, something which is better grasped by the general public than this elusive amount of electrons.
Also agree that speed is an important factor to take into consideration, speed is the convenience you want to pay for and should be charged more as it puts a bigger strain on the grid than slower charging.
With regards to free fast charging, that is assuming it won’t change to a paid model; I don’t assume Nissan will hand out free electrons to every EV driver, even if they limit it to just Nissan drivers. Perhaps it will be free as part of another purchase or deal, similar to getting your parking paid for when you make a purchase in a shopping center.
Understand that free charging or having to pay the ± €15.00 for a full charge it not going to be a deal breaker, once the car is bought, psychologically those costs are only stacked up against fuel and in that case electricity is still a winner
As Alef said, it is a bit of a bump, but a minor one that is easily stepped over.
Another line of reasoning though; if operator B can charge twice as fast at a same price per kWh, he could, theoretically, charge twice as many cars in the same period. Doesn’t that help his case at least a bit?
The amount of electricity currently flowing through your network is euivalent to what 40 petrol cars use in one week.
In theory all public and semi-public charging stations interoperable but when you go out in the field and try to charge your car there where you need to be you expierience a lot of issues.
Last weekend I tried to visit Amsterdam Zuid Oost and they have charging stations all over the place. Near Woon XL there is a Nissan garage which has a quick charger and a charger using a normal Mennekes plug. No way I could start the charging with my E-Laad card. Most likely they only operated with the Nissan dealers card.
Next stop, was a company that had charging stations near by but that were not accesable because of a fence.
After 20 minutes of wasted time I parked on the normal parking lot.
Next stop was Ikea. No charging stations but one of my apps reported a charging station near by. Drove around for 10 minutes without finding it.
So I parked on the normal parking lot.
Next stop, McDonalds. They have the EVbox for customers. I know you need to go inside for the card because a friend of mine tried to charge a Car2go on the spot without any luck with the included charging card.
On the 2 parking places there were two normal cars parked.
So my conclusion is, that yes they are all over the place, but various issues are still to be resolved. Ofcourse the charging works sometimes but a lot of issues are simply because the charging stations are too old and/or not compatible.
Transferium Arena, Q-Park Amstelveen, Nuon stations on the Johan Huizingalaan and various locations in Amsterdam I have been looking for and trying to but was not successful to charge.
The whole pricing discussion should start when real users are able to charge their cars without any issues.
Hi Karl,
this is useful input. As I indicated above, there are several parties involved in offering charging stations and passes. In theory, they should all work together, apart from a few exceptions. You are highlighting several places where this is not the case. I’m going to take this input and work on it to look at where things are going wrong.
rgds,
Alef
And this is exactly why I dont use public chargers anymore, I keep paying the same amount per hour when my car is fully loaded after a while. Which simply doubles my parking costs! So in this case I would rather pay per KWh.
Hi Bram,
No need to worry about that. If your EV is fully charged -- yet still connected -- the meter stops. You only pay for the time spent charging. For more info, please have a look at http://www.thenewmotion.com/kosten/betalen-voor-elektrisch-laden-veelgestelde-vragen/
I find this a very interesting conversation. You are talking about the long term. What are the visions on the long term? Because I would think that everybody would have their own loading spot that just takes the energy right from the provider they use at home as well. This will gives the owner the choice to have “green” electricity and use my own generated power: the Distributed Energy Network that will be the future if I’m not mistaken. The infrastructure that is put in place now will be just additional to the already existing network. Especially if we will surely beef up the range of electric cars in the nearby future by tech breakthroughs.
@TNM. Prima en leuk als jullie mijn foto (essent oplaadpunt) gebruiken. Ik zou wel graag een naamsvermelding erbij zien.
Groet,
Doede Bardok
Hallo Doede
absoluut. Dit had überhaupt al moeten gebeuren. Excuses hiervoor. Ik regel dat dit in orde komt.
thanks,
Alef
Hi Erik,
The long term vision in my opinion is along the lines of your comment I would say. A flexible, smart and balanced grid where as a user you have a (certain) choice where your energy will come from and where your energy will be going, when, how and maybe even against what price.
The infrastructure that we’re putting in place is indeed additional to the infrastructure that’s in place right now. It is infrastructure however that we cannot do without. If we want to do load balancing (on a local level within the house, on a regional level in your neighborhood, and on a large level in the national or international grids), we need smart intelligent infrastructure. We are working closely with for example grid company Alliander to speak about how the infrastructure of the future will look like.
Does this answer your question?
Alef
Yes, thanks Alef!
@Alef, Thanks
I agree that you might want different rates for charge points with different capacities. However, you fail to mention one point. Even at equal rates a 32A charge point may be more lucrative for an operator than a 16A charge point, because it allows you to sell twice the amount of electricity in the same period of time. In situations where you have a high occupancy of charge points this may be a compelling reason for an operator to install 32A instead of 16A charge points.
Another remark that I would like to make is, that I believe that the basic kWh rate for a 16A public charge point should be equal or less than what you would pay at home, otherwise you encourage people to continue charging at home using household plugs and running extension cords over the sidewalk. This can lead to dangerous situations (I know, because my household plug went up in smoke yesterday) and as the number of EV users grows, this may cause load problems to the grid, as well. Whereas (smart) charge points can throttle the current to limit the load on the grid, this is not possible with household connections. So, I believe the public should be encouraged to use (public) charge points and the way to do that is by making it financially attractive.
-Franc
Wat een ingewikkeld en ondoorzichtig gedoe! …
Het lijkt me redelijk dat een snellader meer betaalt dan een standaardlader; waarom dan niet gewoon een toeslag per kWh voor snelladen (dus 2 kWh tarieven; één voor normaal- en één voor snelladen)? Dat is veel duidelijker dan 2 tarieven “per uur” die uiteindelijk toch niet “per uur” (aan de lader) worden afgerekend.
Plaatselijke overheden kunnen uiteraard ook bij de laders een parkeermeter plaatsen, zodat een eigenaar van een E-auto zijn voertuig niet tot in het oneindige bij de lader parkeert en de lader ook weer voor andere E-voertuigen vrij komt.
PS: Waarom deze discussie in het Engels? Is Nederlands niet interessant genoeg?
@Frans,
ik zou zeggen dat nog een extra parkeermeter plaatsen een beetje overkill is. De wonderen der techniek zijn inmiddels zo ver dat we dat ook wel zonder een extra parkeermeter kunnen.
Deze ideeën zitten overigens zeker in de pijplijn.
Voor wat betreft Engels: we zijn niet alleen actief in Nederland en internationaal gezien kijken veel mensen naar hoe wij in Nederland zaken aanpakken. Vanuit dat oogpunt schreven we deze in het Engels.
Dit lijkt mij een vreemde gedachtenkronkel. Een 32A laadpaal is vast niet 2 x zo duur als een 16A laadpaal. Maar het laden gaat wel 2 x zo snel. Er kunnen dus in dezelfde tijd 2 x zoveel auto’s geladen worden. Het ligt meer voor de hand dat de prijs dus LAGER komt te liggen.
Het prijzen per laadtijd lijkt mij geen goed idee voor een product waarvan de klant waarde ontleent aan de energie inhoud, en de concurerende alternatieven (benzine, gas) ook daarnaar geprijst zijn.
De doelstelling zou moeten zijn om de verblijftijd (dus afgezien van de laadtijd) van een auto aan de laadpaal zo kort mogelijk te maken. En dat moet niet verward worden met de prijs voor de laadtijd.
Mijn vrouw heeft van haar werk uit een weekje een Leaf om te bekijken of dat wat voor haar is, vandaar dat ik mij hierin aan het verdiepen ben.
Als ik eea goed begrepen heb ondersteund niet elke auto per definitief de snellaad standaarden of halen ze er het maximale uit, oftewel, heb je een auto die iets minder snel laad (maar bij een snel lader wel sneller dan bij een normale) uiteindelijk meer voor minder kilometers, dat lijkt mij ook niet de bedoeling.
Je zou dan eerder moeten gaan naar een prijs voor X kilometer of een opslag op de verbruikte kwh, normale laadpaal 20 cent en een snel laadpaal 22 cent bijvoorbeeld.
Vanuit jullie zakelijk oogpunt snap ik dat jullie een discussie willen opstarten om jullie eigen business case zo lucratief mogelijk te maken en goed te praten, maar zo rechtlijnig vanuit jullie oogpunt klopt niet helemaal, zeker gezien het eerder genoemde argument dat je ook meer ‘omzet’ kan maken met een snellaadpaal.