Over 47 free electric car chargers in South Africa

There are at least 47 charging stations across the country where electric vehicle (EV) owners can top up their cars for free, a MyBroadband analysis shows.

When it comes to the cost of recharging an EV’s battery, there is no doubt that charging at home is the optimal choice.

In these cases, the electricity used by the EV will cost the same as electricity consumed for any other purpose in the home, which means you are typically paying in the region of R3 to R4 kilowatt-hour (kWh).

At that rate, MyBroadband’s calculations have shown that the cost of travelling a kilometre in an EV is about a third to half the price of the petrol needed to cover the same distance in an equivalent petrol model.

When solar power can supplement the recharge, the cost can be as low as R0 per kWh.

However, there may be cases where a user must top up when travelling longer distances, or forgot to charge at home.

In such instances, they can use one of the roughly 400 public chargers currently available in South Africa.

Most of these carry a significantly higher price per kWh of electricity than you would pay for home consumption.

Public charging point operators (CPOs) like Chargify, GridCars, and Rubicon must charge more per kWh to cover the cost of their charging station rollouts and eventually start turning a profit on their charging sales.

Entry-level 47kW DC charging stations start from around R400,000 and go up to R1.25 million, so the capital expenditure is significant.

The cost of charging is often determined by the level of convenience the charger offers, which is linked to the time it takes to charge your battery.

Public charging prices are typically more affordable on charging points with lower AC speeds between 7kW and 22kW, while the 25kW to 200kW DC charging stations carry a significant premium over regular electricity tariffs.

The table below summarises the most common per kWh prices when using charging stations from the major CPOs in South Africa.

Dozens of free public chargers

However, there are a few cases where using a public charger would be better than using your own home’s electricity.

Some businesses — including certain malls, car dealerships, and hotels — absorb the charging cost by having charging stations on their premises.

These properties might either have excess solar power during the day or wish to make using their facilities as attractive as possible and wagered that the cost to run a public charger is offset by the income that customer generates.

MyBroadband perused GridCars’ map — the most comprehensive map of chargers in South Africa — and found roughly 10% of the chargers listed were completely free to use.

Many of these chargers were available at BMW dealerships.

These chargers are also open for use by owners of other brands, although access might be restricted outside regular operating hours.

From our own EV test drives, we have identified at least four other free charging stations not shown on the GridCars map.

To find more of these chargers, it is useful to check the Plugshare app, which uses crowdsourced data to collect charging station locations and details.

When relying on Plugshare, it is advisable to see if another user recently checked in at one of the chargers and reported it was functional.

MyBroadband also found several chargers on Plugshare tagged as free, when they are actually paid.

There are also several free charging stations at accommodation facilities that are available exclusively to customers.

The table below shows the 47 confirmed public charging stations where you can refill your EV’s battery for free in South Africa.

Full article HERE

(source: Mybroadband)