Charges for electric car owners

Electric car owners are facing a €16.99 per month bill to give them access to the network of standard chargers across the country — and if they want to use the fast chargers they will have to pay approximately €7.50 per charge.

Access to the network of standard and fast charge points is currently free for existing owners of electric vehicles (EVs). However, from January 2016, new customers are facing a monthly bill of €16.99 to give them unlimited access to the standard chargers dotted around the country.

Everyone, existing and new customers, will have to pay from April and an extra 30c per minute charge will be introduced on the fast chargers.

Furthermore, on the role-out of its scheme, ESB committed to providing the first 2,000 customers with a dedicated charge point installed in their homes by ESB ecars for free. That total is still a number of months off — as of May, according to ESB, there were approximately 1,400 EVs registered.

However, once the 2,000 total is reached, it is expected the free charger element will likely be finished with a number of options still being considered for the cost of the charger, which is in the region of €900. Options include building it into the cost of the car, making it the subject of a monthly arrangement or having it paid off in weekly or monthly installments.

ESB is expected to announce today that, from April, new and existing users will have access to a number of payment plans for accessing charge points which will be “tailored to their individual driving needs”.

Options may include the likes of an “all you can eat” allowance which might give a driver access to all standard and fast chargers for one set price.

At present there are in the region of 800 standard and 70 fast chargers around the country. ESB is to develop a further 10 fast chargers over the course of the next year.

ESB has said a full charge on a standard public charger will take between 2-6 hours depending on the car’s battery and charge status. A fast charger can have the vehicle filled from empty in as little as 25 minutes.

In relation to the health of the public charger network, ESB says its percentage availability for charge points is currently running at 95%-96%. It said it is currently in the process of introducing a new IT system which will improve its ability to remotely monitor chargers and carry out remote operations.

It said total global EV sales are forecast to reach one million during 2015 with tens of thousands already on the road in countries such as Norway and the Netherlands. In Ireland more than 600 EV have been registered to date in 2015.