Charge Your Car (CYC), one of the UK’s most popular electric vehicle charge point networks, is to introduce a connection fee on each successful charge across its England and Wales tarrif-free public charge points. A £1 connection fee will be implemented from the 1st May 2017, the company stated in an email sent to their 30,000+ userbase. The main reason for the change is to help keep their 24-hour telephone support line, improve the network and software, as well as, “recognise that more of the burden of the cost of operating the network is needing to be met by the driver rather than the site owner.” The charge will be applied as per other CYC charges, per month.
The Charge Your Car network was bought by Luton based Chargemaster in January 2017, when the company stated they did not envisage adopting Chargemaster’s Polar network tarrif system or admin fees.
The currently free charge points on the CYC network are advertised as, “If you are a Charge Your Car member and charge at a charge point without a tariff, free means free,” so it now seems that this is no longer the case. However, Scottish CYC tarrif-free charge points should continue to remain free from the connection fee, for the meantime.
The full email sent to members is shown below.
Dear EV Driver,
We will shortly be adjusting our pricing to more accurately reflect the value users get from the Charge Your Car (CYC) network. This will allow us to continue providing excellent customer service and make significant improvements to our network and software.
From 1st May 2017, Charge Your Car will apply a £1 connection fee to successful charges on all public charge points in England and Wales that do not have a tariff applied to them. This will be invoiced monthly along with any tariffed charge sessions outstanding on your account.
Due to the rapidly growing industry, we have decided to introduce the connection fee so we can continue to improve the service that our drivers have come to expect from us. The level of activity across CYC operated free to use charge points has increased three-fold over the last year, with our network now connecting over 30,000 EV drivers to charge points, and the fee will ensure we can continue to operate the 24-hour customer telephone line, support the growing demand on the network, and continue to develop and maintain online resources for our customers. The connection fee will also recognise that more of the burden of the cost of operating the network is needing to be met by the driver rather than the site owner. CYC in parallel to introduction of this connection charge is reducing its network tariffs to site hosts on next renewal. Please see the updated Terms and Conditions on our website that will come into effect on May 1st.
To find out whether a charge point incurs the connection fee, please visit our live map at www.chargeyourcar.org.uk/map or use the CYC app.
For further details on these changes to our billing, please visit our FAQs page and click on ‘Help’ then ‘Billing Queries’. Thank you for being a valued member of CYC. If you require further support, please e-mail us at [email protected].Kind Regards,
The Charge Your Car Team
The email states ONLY free charge points will attract a fee. There is no “free means free” anymore? Is it me or has the story got the wrong end of the stick?
Hi Anthony, thanks for the pointer – you’re absolutely right and the article has now been amended.
Phew, thought I’d gone crazy! Cheers.
As a newbie to EVs I’ve found a massive number of different maps and payment apps just for the UK (Zap-Map, Open Charge Map, Plugshare, Ecotricity, Polar, Podpoint….etc. etc.). I’m planning on driving to Germany soon so need even more (Innogy, Next Charge).
Which are the best value? Which ones do I actually need? Do I really need them all????
You’re absolutely right and this is either a problem or a blessing, depending on your viewpoint. For your German trip, you may want to take a look at https://www.plugsurfing.com/en/, which provides single access to a range of European networks. For the UK, there’s a new app launching soon called RouteMonkey (http://www.routemonkey.com/) that will hopefully help.
Thanks guys. Much appreciated.
The German trip will be in a prior model i3 – outward trip without range extender, and return trip with range extender. Should be fun! The plan is to document the trip statistics including all costs.
Sounds exciting! We’d love to hear all about it. Please do drop us an email if you’d like to share your story. http://www.autovolt-magazine.com/enquiries/
Hey Tom, I would recommend NewMotion (newmotion.com) which provide a lot more coverage than plugsurfing. Here you can check their coverage: my.newmotion.com
Also newmotion send a free card. But for the chargers I’m looking at the costs are far higher than plugsurfing.
Simply not true. We love The New Motion, but PlugSurfing provides access to over 40,000 charging points now (including TNM points).
Tom, if you do not have a Charging Key already, just drop me an email (adamDOTwoolwayATplugsurfingDOTcom and I’ll send you one for free to wish you luck for your trip. You can then take PlugSurfing and TNM with you!
Adam
Co-founder
PlugSurfing
PS. Thank you for the recommendation, Autovolt!
You’re welcome Adam – keep up the great work! perhaps we should organise a PlugSurfing road trip?
If you can make it to our office in Berlin, there’ll be beer all round! Just let me know of any ideas you might have.
In response to the value question, Polar and Ecotricity are arguably the most expensive networks to use at present. But they’re often the most convenient and reliable. Charge Your Car (CYC) offers good value for money, as unlike Ecotricity they tend to restrict charge times to an hour before a second charge is applied and that first hour frequently costs £5 compared to Ecotricity’s £6/30-minute flat rate. However, each charge point varies in tariff, as the fee is set by the land owner, not CYC so it’s advisable to use their map/App.