Do you pay to charge your car at a charging station?

The new trend is using chargeable cars due to their effectiveness in causing less pollution and for their convenience. Using an electric vehicle gives you multiple advantages over those using gas because a gas vehicle has fewer moving parts than a gasoline-powered car meaning that it requires less maintenance than a regular car.

Just like gas stations put fuel in your car, there are multiple car charging stations to help you charge your vehicle whenever you need it to power up. Different gas stations will have varied prices of fuel per liter. The same applies to charging stations. They charge according to the charger level you are using and the demand for charging ports when you’re changing.

During rush hours, when everyone needs a charging port to recharge their cars, that’s when the price goes up per kilowatt. The level of chargers you’re using also determines how much it will cost to charge your vehicle entirely. When at a public charging station, you can either use a level 1 or level 2 charger. The level 2 charger is always cheaper than the level 3 charger, but it takes much longer to charge your car at a level 2 charger fully.

When using public charging stations, you will always need to pay money not unless it is a promotion or an offer and they are offering to do it for free. You might find offers here and there to charge your car for free or even in the first few months of purchasing your vehicle, but that’s it. You can’t always expect to find a free charging station for the entire time you own your vehicle. Even when charging at your house, you will have a higher electricity bill to compensate for the car charges.

You could come across a free EV charging station, but those are fewer compared to the ones you’ve got to pay. Most charging stations will charge by the kilowatt-hour (kWh) when it comes to the charging rate.

Compared to charging your car at home, it is more expensive to charge it in public charging stations. At home, it would averagely cost twelve cents per kWh. It is less likely to find a charging station that would cost less than that.

The cost of charging your car in public places goes by what the owner chooses to charge and not whatever label they’ve put on top of the charger.

You might find that from new car dealers or some grocery places like whole foods to get free charging. The issue with these offers is that they tend not to last for long. The car dealers will end up closing the gates to prevent visitors from coming in, plus their locations are always in the most inconvenient places. It would take much more to go to their charging points than pay to charge elsewhere.

Grocery stores offering free charging always provide this for a limited amount of time, which is quite reasonable because of how much it will cost them.

As much as you might get these free charging perks here and there, don’t expect to get free charging forever; that’s quite impossible.