Electric car owners with driveways pay £1500-a-year less for charging
Electric car owners with ramps pay £1500 a year less to charge vehicles than those forced to use the public grid
Electric vehicle owners who can’t plug their car in at home – often because they don’t have a driveway – spend around £1,500 a year more on charging than those who can.
Campaign group Fair Charge said the average cost of charging on the public network is £1,838 per year.
Those who have their own charging point, on the other hand, can pay just £323 a year, a saving of £1,515.
Pavement tax: Owners of electric cars that can charge at home can pay just £323 a year for electricity, while the average cost of charging on the public grid is £1,838 a year
This is partly due to the ‘curb tax’, where those who charge their car at home pay 5 percent VAT – well below the 20 percent everyone else pays.
Fair Charge founder Quentin Willson, who caused “a shocking difference in charging costs,” said: “The Treasury is sabotaging the EV revolution.”
RAC spokesman Simon Williams added: ‘Nobody should be penalized just because they don’t have their own parking space.’
Industry figures also warned that the unfair distribution of public charging points across the country was deterring many people from going green.
Andrew Brem, Uber’s boss in the UK, said the concentration of charging points in the wealthiest areas of the country is a “social embarrassment” affecting poorer drivers.
Official figures show that almost a third of the country’s charging points are in London, with Westminster alone having more than Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham combined.
Brem called the apparent focus on the richest areas of the capital a “disgrace”.