Photo: Catalin Garmacea
In the once-great land called the United Kingdom, something is clearly amiss. After empty-headed people had voted for the UK to get out of the European Union, a green energy outfit decided that it would be a great idea to charge battery-powered vehicle owners £6 for a 30-minute electricity top-up. And that’s a biggie.
You see, charging £6 for a 30-minute fast charge is like paying the same amount of pounds sterling if you want some milk in your coffee. It’s not simply ludicrous. It is a huge offense to every battery-powered vehicle owner.
While the popularity of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles continues to soar, Ecotricity plans to rip off the same people that gave up on the range anxiety-free internal combustion engine to travel in more eco-friendly cars. Here’s a number for you: in the first three months of the current year, 11,755 new ultra-low emission vehicles were registered in the United Kingdom.
PHEV and EV owners are a cash cow just waiting to be milked by Ecotricity, the British company which holds a monopoly on motorway chargers, an outfit which boasts 300 rapid chargers across the UK. To make matters worse, Ecotricity didn’t charge owners anything to charge before the company announced last week that they would impose a £5 fee for 20 minutes of electricity. This is the type of situation I’d classify as a case of extortion.
Let me explain. You’re driving a Nissan Leaf and you’re almost out of juice. You pay £6 for just about 100 miles of range. But if you own a Volvo XC90 T8 Twin Engine, £6 will get you 27 miles of pure electric range. The problem is that £6 per 27 miles of electric range for the Volvo is more expensive than what £6 of gasoline offers in terms of range. Apparently, this is too hard for Ecotricity to understand, which is why the £6 exaction is definitely not OK.
Dear Ecotricity, is it that hard to charge per kWh instead of imposing a flat fee? Oh, and another thing: Tesla Model S and Model X owners are not charged anything to fill up their cars via the Supercharger network.
While the popularity of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles continues to soar, Ecotricity plans to rip off the same people that gave up on the range anxiety-free internal combustion engine to travel in more eco-friendly cars. Here’s a number for you: in the first three months of the current year, 11,755 new ultra-low emission vehicles were registered in the United Kingdom.
PHEV and EV owners are a cash cow just waiting to be milked by Ecotricity, the British company which holds a monopoly on motorway chargers, an outfit which boasts 300 rapid chargers across the UK. To make matters worse, Ecotricity didn’t charge owners anything to charge before the company announced last week that they would impose a £5 fee for 20 minutes of electricity. This is the type of situation I’d classify as a case of extortion.
Let me explain. You’re driving a Nissan Leaf and you’re almost out of juice. You pay £6 for just about 100 miles of range. But if you own a Volvo XC90 T8 Twin Engine, £6 will get you 27 miles of pure electric range. The problem is that £6 per 27 miles of electric range for the Volvo is more expensive than what £6 of gasoline offers in terms of range. Apparently, this is too hard for Ecotricity to understand, which is why the £6 exaction is definitely not OK.
Dear Ecotricity, is it that hard to charge per kWh instead of imposing a flat fee? Oh, and another thing: Tesla Model S and Model X owners are not charged anything to fill up their cars via the Supercharger network.
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