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Public charging prices not dropping when wholesale prices drop

Del2005

People are always complaining about petrol stations ramping up their prices when the price of crude increases and not dropping them as fast when crude drops. I've only a sample of 1 year but the cost of charging at public chargers hasn't dropped since I signed to multiple companies. The domestic suppliers are dropping prices, not as much as the wholesale price, but public charging prices are the same as when I signed up last year.

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electricus

I don’t think we’ll see any big reductions or price competition while the fast charging networks are still expanding. Building charging infrastructure is expensive and the providers will be looking to cover costs.

On street charging for those without home charging is a different matter and shouldn’t be so expensive.

edit: typo

Flinty997

Happens a lot in Ireland across a wide range of products.

It's self defeating to keep prices high thus causing people to go back to other fuels. This reducing the numbers of customers.

k123456

Its unfortunately the same for

Residential elec / gas customers , rates have come down, but very slowly

Bank accounts, when wholesale interest rates rise ; customer deposit interest rates do not follow suit

etc

This indicates a lack of regulation from the government

veryangryman

A massive lack.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972757#Comment_121972757

Price regulation doesn't work. It was tried in the past (1980s) and was a complete waste of time and money. Think about what you're trying to do and the complexity involved.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972757#Comment_121972757

It indicates a lack of competition, due to over regulation in some areas

And cartel like behaviour for those participating in the market

crl84

No-one is going to be reducing prices when their CapEx on getting sites up were anywhere from a few thousand (for an AC charger stuck on an existing wall), to 100s of thousands.

A 150KW DC charging unit costs 50k+. Once you add in groundworks, grid connections, multiple units, you're not far off half a million for a larger site.

That's a lot of electricity that needs to sold to make costs back, ignoring ongoing maintenance.

SharkMX

Its to keep the chargers as free as possible. The charging network is so bad that if it was any cheaper it would be even harder to get a charger when you need one. For that reason I think the price will actually just be going up in the next year or so.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972992#Comment_121972992

These days I see more available chargers than taken ones, the prices are to fund growth not to keep people away.

The problematic ones are where there's only a single chargers at single location but I avoid using them. Thankfully there's way more choice than their used to be

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972992#Comment_121972992

Well that certainly a valid reason. I use them so rarely its not really an issue for me.

Might be a problem for people who do regular long distance journeys.

Padraig Mor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972973#Comment_121972973

Are they not getting grants to install them - that's why Tesla is opening new sites to all cars, condition of the funding? Now, maybe the grants don't cover the full cost, I've no idea, but I don't think the companies re footing the full cost themselves.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973210#Comment_121973210

There are grants being made available which will bring down some of the cost, up till now Applegreen, Maxol, CircleK have been paying for it themselves. No doubt they'll also be applying for funding based on the new funds available. Government is transitioning away from EV purchase incentives and towards infrastructure funding instead.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973210#Comment_121973210

Not any more. There are still accelerated capital allowances (100% in first year).

There will be a residential charging grant where off street parking is limited or impossible. No detail on that yet.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973239#Comment_121973239

Grant scheme is here, and on etenders https://www.tii.ie/roads-tolling/tolling-information/zevi-ev-charging-infrastr-LDV/15.02.2408.08.01.124_LDV-Scheme-Launch-Brochure_I03_2024.02.15-%281%29.pdf

https://www.etenders.gov.ie/epps/cft/listContractDocuments.do?resourceId=3094604

Applicants need to have submitted by April 10th, and have the infra ready by December 2025.

Main requirements are that sites aren't within 30km of another charging pool, it's on the designated road network and

No one company can run more than 40% of the sites.

prawnsambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973264#Comment_121973264

Ok, this is a new scheme. There was a previous one launched in 2022 which closed in early 2023.

40% is generous enough to be fair.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972973#Comment_121972973

Is there grants , carbon offsets, and write downs for capex built into those figures often people mask the actual money spent with basic things like the works and the units when in fact the incentives and tax system allows business to minimise these costs extensively.

jackofalltrades

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058344870/public-charging-prices-not-dropping-when-wholesale-prices-drop

Here's what John Byrne the head of E-cars told the Irish Times on August 16th 2023.

“We purchase our electricity in blocks, so as the wholesale price has come down, and as we roll over our contracts and buy our next blocks of energy, then we hope to avail of those lower wholesale costs and pass those savings on to consumers. We always try to keep a good delta of pricing between us and petrol and diesel, because we know that cost helps to drive more people into electric motoring. The price of petrol and diesel has remained fairly constant, so the price of electricity will have to drop, and I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to pass on those reductions in the near future.”

That “near future” should, hopefully, mean by the autumn of this year, and the plan is that prices will be reduced if not on the actual day of the new energy supply contracts being signed, then certainly within a matter of days.

They said they'd reduce prices and they never did. As the biggest player in the market no one else is going to move until they do. They also clearly understand that charging prices have to be cheaper than petrol or diesel so as to drive demand for electric cars, which new sales are down 14% this year. Someone really needs to find out answers as to why their prices are so high.

[Deleted User]

Where there's profit to be made you can be sure they'll make it. We all knew prices would rise considerably though, it was only a matter of time.

Another reason we usually don't bother taking the id3 a lot of places now, I was a lot more keen to endure the hassle when it was free but the prices now, I'm not so keen to pay for the inconvenience, meaning inconvenience to me and the Missus, she's not into it at all and in fairness she tolerated the whole thing long enough.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975653#Comment_121975653

Free though... fairly obvious you'd be happy to avail of anything that was free. I'd include public transport in that.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975656#Comment_121975656

I didn't abuse the free charging in fairness unlike many that were on FB at the time looking to Kill people at the thoughts about putting some control on the amount of time one spent sucking endless KWh out of the grid. Glad I'm long off Facebook.

I'll be entitled to free travel when the time comes just like you and everyone else will.

You can't deny there was a lot more tolerance to charging because it was free.

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975727#Comment_121975727

We only had about 6 months of free charging, but even with the abuse chargers were usually not blocked. Much fewer EVs on the road then.

MrMusician18

I've posted on this before but the two main reasons why prices aren't falling are a lack of competition and a lack of price sensitivity.

On competition, the charging companies have deliberately chosen sites that are a distance from other chargers. This means that when you arrive at ballybaile with 10% you have no choice but to use the charger that's available. Battery tech that offers the highest speeds for the lowest state of charge also encourages charging at a selected point rather than points along the way. There are only a handful of colocated rapid chargers in the country. We need far more.

Secondly, cheap home charging means that drivers of EVs are not really sensitive to public charger price as long as their overall costs are substantially lower than diesel. Occasional use of rip-off public chargers doesn't change that equation by much.

The other consideration is that the charging companies are under pressure to get a return on their massive capital investment.

The key to cheap charging is lowering the capital cost of installing chargers. This will allow Co-location of charging companies and reduce their pressure for return on investment. However doing any kind of job that involves building is extremely expensive here, so don't expect much in the short term.

If the country had actually been serious about charging, a state agency would have fully built out and owned the charging network and allowed other companies to sell energy through it. By using a grant system and passing ownership across into a semi state this has resulted in a lack of competition.

MojoMaker

Electricity would need to hit Eur1.10 per KwH for it to be more expensive by the kilometre than the diesel it replaced for me.

Granted it wasn't a particularly efficient diesel SUV but it was fairly typical of the vehicle category that first time EV drivers nonetheless spring from.

Even if it was more expensive per kilometre the other huge advantages completely outweigh the cost. EV ownership is so much more than what it costs you or doesn't cost you per month. It's a completely different and completely better overall driving and ownership experience, and is contributing in its own small way to cleaner urban air for all of us.

It would want to be significantly more expensive to own and operate for me to think twice about a move to EVs, but I accept I am lucky in where I find myself.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975804#Comment_121975804

Some chargers were much more abused than others. It was definitely an issue.

k123456

Free chargers , free driveway charger and 5000 u grant , reduced tolls encouraged me to buy an EV, I will be honest (at the time) saving the planet did not . However , I'm on my 3rd EV now, and free charging is gone thankfully. I will say < I would not move back to non ev, and now that I have an EV and a solar system < I am hopefully doing my bit for the planet. So Yes incentives do work

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121976588#Comment_121976588

Never really used the faster ones, they were probably abused more. But the rural type 2s were normally not busy and were very handy when shopping or out for a walk when we had a shorter range Ioniq 28kWh.

The only free charging I made sure I got full value from was my 2000kWh free with my ID.3 1st. Used at Ionity, don't think I have used them since, even though missus uses Ionity fairly regularly.

My Model 3 does most of my standard longer runs such as Cork and Dublin Airports return without charging, even in coldest weather, haven't used anything other than home charging plus occasional SuC in last two years.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121977135#Comment_121977135

The Street AC points were handy destination charge points but aren't most of them being replaced with a single DC unit now ?

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972973#Comment_121972973

For comparison, do none of these costs apply to petrol or diesel pumps?

I think too much fuss is made of the initial costs of the units, it costs just as much, maybe more, to build a petrol station but operators are able to take single digit profit margins from ICE fuel

Throw back to when wholesale costs were roughly where they are now and ecars were charging per kWh €0.268, €0.305 and €0.37 for AC, DC and HPC respectively. This is probably close to what it should be costing today to charge as wholesale costs are roughly where they were back then

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978193#Comment_121978193

Yes they were handy. Problem is they weren't profitable, or rather as profitable, as DC

crl84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978694#Comment_121978694

They do, but most will have been in existence for much longer than EV stations/locations, and have far higher turnover of customers/fuel sales/ancillary sales, so it's much easier and quicker to generate operating profits and start paying back those costs.