Dale Vince Increases His Prices

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
http://ift.tt/16C5B6P

By Paul Homewood

h/t Bloke down the Pub

Not content with receiving huge subsidies from the taxpayer, electric car drivers are now moaning about paying a proper cost for their electricity:

Reckoned to be Britain’s wealthiest hippy, Dale Vince can be pretty pleased with his £100m fortune.

Some of his customers appear less happy. For Mr Vince’s company is accused of hiking up prices at electric car charging points while at the same time ploughing millions of pounds into his football club.

On Monday, Ecotricity, which has the monopoly on motorway service station electric charging points, will introduce a new pricing scheme for electric vehicles.

Critics claim the new charges will make it as expensive to charge up an electric car as put petrol in a conventional, fuel-efficient vehicle.

They even complain that Mr Vince would be better advised diverting the money spent by Ecotricity on his football club to reduce the cost of his rapid charging points.

The company, which sells green electricity to tens of thousands of households, has the near monopoly on rapid car-charging points at motorway service stations through another subsidiary company Electric Highway, which also made a near £1m loss, according to its 2016 accounts.

Ecotricity’s pricing change also exposes the bewildering array of different costs for charging up an electric car.

While petrol or diesel is charged by the litre, a variety of companies running electric charging points deploy myriad pricing structures. Dozens of different tariffs exist, prompting the Department for Transport to launch a review in an attempt to simplify the system for consumers.

Ecotricity, which used to offer free charging to encourage the take up of electric cars, will change to its new tariff from tomorrow. Motorists will have to pay £3 connection fee and then a further 17 pence for every unit of electricity used (kWh). Previously the company charged a flat fee of £6 for 30 minutes of charge.

Ecotricity insists the price change will benefit customers but Zap-Map, a website which offers a consumer guide to charging points, has estimated that for a Nissan Leaf, the cost of charging it for 30 minutes will rise from £6 to £7.08.

Motorists have complained at the pricing change. One posted on the Zap-Map website: “He [Dale Vince] has now kicked his loyal customers in the teeth with a ridiculous price rise to £7.25 for the same amount of energy.

“He obviously wants to put all his limited resources into Green Gas and his football team.”

The RAC Foundation, the motoring think tank, estimates it will cost about 9p a mile to run a Nissan Leaf, about the same as the cost of an efficient petrol driven car. Zap-Map’s own analysis suggests it will still be cheaper to run an electric vehicle than an equivalent petrol or diesel driven car.

http://ift.tt/2sD9MgZ

According to the report:

FairFuelUK, a group that rails against the “fleecing of drivers at the pumps and sockets”, said: “The already murky world of pump pricing is not helped by opportunistic and confusing charging prices for electric cars.

“The new, humble, consensus-driven Government needs to recognise that cleaner emissions should be linked with lower vehicle running costs, and definitely not Ecotricity’s aspirations to reach the Premier League.”

Why?