Electrify America switches to station-specific pricing, reintroduces idle fees
Electrify America is changing things up yet again after raising its charging rates earlier this year. Instead of pricing set the same nationwide, EA said in an email to users (including us) that it’s going to transition to station-specific prices. You know, like how every gas station sets its prices across the country.
In addition to station-specific pricing, EA will also start charging idle fees again to folks who sit at charging stations after their vehicle has already reached 100%.
Both of these changes are slated to take effect on August 17 this year, so we’ll be able to see the results almost immediately. Electrify America didn’t detail or provide a range of prices we might see via station-specific pricing, but you’ll be able to go into your EA app and see for yourself once the switch is flipped on the changes. As of today, Electrify America charges either a set rate per kWh or based on the amount of time spent plugged in — this varies state by state. The rate per kWh in applicable states is $0.48/kWh. Meanwhile, in states that go by time, EA charges different rates to folks on a per-minute basis depending on their charge speed. It’s unclear as of now what prices might change to, but expect markets with higher electricity prices to have more expensive charging than before, and markets with cheap electricity to maybe even be lower than the current rates (we can hope).
Just like before, you’ll be able to lower your costs by becoming a Pass+ member, and Electrify America says you’ll continue to save approximately 25% on all your charging by paying the monthly fee. That said, Electrify America tells us the membership fee is going up from $4/month to $7/month, so you’ll need to do some math and decide whether it’s worth the extra coin for your use case.
As for the idle fees, we asked, and Electrify America will start hitting charger hogs with a $0.40 fee per minute of extra time spent on the charger after their car hits 100%, excepting the 10-minute grace period. As far as we’re concerned, that’s the best news of the day, and it will ensure folks hop off the fast charger to let someone else in as soon as possible.
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