How much does charging cost with the Chargemap Pass?

Updated 7 months ago by Olivier Bubendorff

Since the creation of Chargemap in 2011, our mission has always been to simplify and improve the charging experience for drivers of electric cars.

Different pricing policies depending on the network

As you know if you regularly use public charging stations, the rates vary enormously from one charging station to another. Operators and communities have a wide variety of tariff policies and sometimes it is difficult to find your way around them.

Some networks charge for time spent, others for energy consumed, others per visit. Some combine many of these criteria. Others charge by time interval (for example, per hour when charge started). Some charge more beyond a certain duration.

In the end, it is difficult for the user to compare rates, and sometimes even understand them!

Pricing at Chargemap

When we launched the Chargemap Pass, we chose to bill users for charging with exactly the same logic as the one applied by the operator, based on the charging purchasing costs.

Then we introduced charging fees to cover our Pass operations costs (our technical team, bank charges and recovery, connection fees to operators, our call center, etc.).

When it happened, some of you questioned us about the operation of Chargemap fees, which lacks forward thinking. We listened to your remarks and we decided to change our way of working.

Thus we removed these fixed charges and now incorporate our margin directly into the charge rates. This pricing are fairer and less complex, especially in the case of “small top ups”.

A rate per minute and/or kWh as a preference

As drivers of electric cars, our belief is that there are two appropriate ways of being invoiced for a charge: the time spent and/or the energy consumed.

In the context of time invoicing, it is much more accurate to charge per minute and not per “period”. Some networks charge for a one hour charging, even if you only charged for a few minutes. We want to avoid that.

Many drivers of electric vehicles prefer to be charged for the energy consumed, and for this it seems logical to charge per kWh, again without using set tranches.

So Chargemap does no longer strictly apply the rates of the operator, but promotes billing on a per minute and/or kWh, fairer for drivers of electric cars.

In order to calculate the Charging cost, the energy values and connection time are rounded up to the closest whole number.

A fair price

While we have managed to “smooth” the rates by reducing them to a per minute or kWh billing for many networks, we could not do it in all cases.

In fact, in some cases, operators charge additional fees beyond a certain period so that the space is released quickly. In other cases, a free period is applied for a certain time (at night, for example).

We have chosen to manage these exceptions by offering you a price which is adapted to the use of these networks:

The reduced period: this is a time period during which the price is reduced. It is applied every day of the week.
Occupancy costs: this is a rate that is applied only after a specified period of time, to promote vehicles rotation at the charging station.

Last exception: in rare cases, network pricing imposed us the generation of charging launch fees, under penalty of charging our users unfairly. We limit these cases to the absolute minimum.

A clearer display

In some cases, operators may charge different rates depending on the charging power delivered to the charging stations connectors.

Thus, rates all taxes included are directly linked to the connector on both mobile apps and website.

A streamlined price structure

As petrol prices, the amount invoiced for charging can change. Networks can develop their own pricing or Chargemap can adjust its prices to make them fairer.

Now that the Chargemap Pass has a great number of users, we have the possibility to work with operators to improve charging prices. In doing this, we hope that the whole community will benefit from increasingly better charging prices.

We advise you to check prices on our website or on the Chargemap mobile app before charging, as indicated in our Terms & Conditions. They are shown all taxes included, so there will be no surprise then on your invoice!

IMPORTANT: On some charge point's files, you may see prices listed in the description of the charging point. Please disregard this information and report it to us quickly so we can correct the data. They are in no way an indication of Chargemap Pass prices, so you should not rely on them, otherwise you will be misled during the billing process.