IONITY increases electric vehicle charging prices 500% starting January 31

IONITY, a European EV charging network owned by BMW, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, and VW Group (with Audi and Porsche) has announced that prices will be going up over 500% starting January 31 as they transition to a pay-per-kWh system.

Previously, IONITY charged a flat, fixed rate of €8 for a DCFC charging session. This was a good deal if you showed up with an empty battery and filled most of the way. If you arrived with, say, 10% battery remaining, and added 60 kWh during your charging session, then you’d get away with paying about €0.13 per kWh. For context, in France, electricity costs about €0.19 per kWh at home, and €0.24 per kWh at Tesla Superchargers. In Germany, you pay €0.30 per kWh at home, and €0.33 at Tesla Superchargers in Germany.

Starting next month, however, IONITY will be charging users a whopping €0.79 per kWh. (PDF press release). The Audi e-Tron battery is 95 kWh, so if you “filled it up” with 80 kWh, that’s €63.20 to travel probably about 160 miles, give or take. Terribly expensive.

The UK’s Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulations: 2017 requires IONITY to offer transparent pricing in this manner for non-subscription users. But IONITY also enters supplier agreements with its car makers, referred to as “Connected Mobility Service Partners” (MSPs). This is a subscription service where you pay monthly to get a discounted price per kWh, and generally agree via terms of use or a privacy policy in an app to allow the vendor to harvest data from you to enable other revenue streams for the vendor. IONITY does not offer a complete list of MSPs or prices you’d pay on its website.

Source: electrek.co