The accessibility and affordability of electric driving depends not only on the purchase price of the vehicle, but also very much on the cost of running it. These figures from the Bloomberg News Hyperdrive newsletter show that there are significant price differences between petrol and fast charging. The second figure shows for the UK that there are huge price differences between public fast charging, ‘regular’ home charging and home charging with a special off-peak tariff. For other countries, the differences may be less extreme, but they remain.

So what, many will think, because a coffee on the motorway or in the city centre is simply more expensive than a cup of coffee at home. “Most EV users charge at home anyway” is a common response, and “you have to look at the charging mix, then fast charging is only a fraction”. This may be true for the first and most vocal group of EV users, but for a significant proportion of the population, private charging is not an option. The affordability of public charging therefore deserves more attention if we want to make EVs accessible to every driver. 

This means addressing the underlying differences in the treatment of (fossil) fuels and electricity for road transport, including grid tariff structures, taxes and levies. Secondly, it means providing ample charging options where car drivers park anyway (because time is money too) – in public places and at work, and, on the other hand, adding tariffs that, as with smart home chargers, use the flexibility of the charging process to make more efficient use of the grid, exploit low demand/high renewable supply, and thus result in much lower charging prices for users. There is much more that can be done on affordability and leveraging flexibility even with public charging.