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Electric Highway
Ecotricity has announced a price change for the Electric Highway with the energy being charged at 17p per unit, and the cost of providing the service will be via a £3 connection fee for all sessions.
Almost a year ago Ecotricity introduced ‘charging for charging’ on the Electric Highway, after being free to use for five years.
At the time the company said that it had limited options for the basis of that charging and opted for £6 for 30 minutes, as the best ‘one size fits all’ that it could offer.
Ecotricity said at the time that it would monitor use of the Highway, use that data and customer feedback – and produce a more sophisticated approach to charging – as soon as it could.
That has now been done and the company claims that the new model that it has developed will give more flexibility and typically lower charging costs across all makes and models.
Ecotricity says that the main issue that it has been wrestling with is the fixed time period charging and the different amounts of energy that various models can use in that time – coupled with the need to reflect in the pricing model the costs of installing and running the infrastructure, not just the cost of energy.
To better balance these issues it is separating the cost of energy from the cost of providing the service.
The energy will be charged at 17p per unit, which is pretty much the rate that people pay at home and the cost of providing the service will be via a £3 connection fee for all sessions.
Based on modelling, this will typically lower the cost of charging for all makes and models as well as charge more proportionally for energy taken.
Ecotricity has also increased the maximum length of charging sessions to 45 minutes to offer greater flexibility to those customers who need a bit longer to charge up.
For Ecotricity customers there will be no connection fee to reflect that its customers’ energy bills help build this network.
The new approach will operate from 26 June 2017.
Ecotricity customers currently benefit from its original offer of 52 free charges in a year. The company intends to maintain that offer until a customer’s first anniversary with them, or the first 52 charges (whichever comes first). Customers will then be transferred to the new charging model.
This is how you charge your EV:
You’ll need to download the Electric Highway app to charge up on the network.
Watch Robert Llewellyn’s video about how to use the app:
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-the-road/charge-your-vehicle
Check that the pump you want to use is live before you set off.
Ecotricity provides step-by-step car charging guides for the following charging systems:
DC CHAdeMO
For Nissan, Citroen, Peugeot and Mitsubishi vehicles.
Fast AC
For Renault, BMW (standard i3), Tesla and BYD vehicles.
DC CCS
For BMW (i3 with rapid upgrade) and VW vehicles.
AC Medium
For all Pure and Plug-in Hybrid vehicles.
