Owners of electric cars who use the Electric Circuit’s fast charging stations will face new rates as of Tuesday.
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Popularity forces Hydro-Québec, which manages the Electric Circuit, to change strategy to free up the charging stations more quickly.
To do this, as soon as the battery charge level reaches 90%, the tariff will be doubled. On a 50 or 100 kW station, the rate will go from $15.27 to $30.54 per hour. For example, for a Volkswagen ID.4 model with a battery capacity of 82 kWh, it will cost $23.52 for a recharge from 10% to 90%. While for a recharge up to 100%, the cost will increase to $29.12.
“The reason is that the vast majority of electric vehicles will slow down the charging speed a lot at the end, so it’s unproductive time that is spent on the terminals and we want to prevent that from happening. We want people to make way for others,” explained Jonathan Côté, head of media relations at Hydro-Québec, which is responsible for the network.
A news well received by the owners of electric vehicles met Monday by TVA News.
“It’s a good thing, they won’t stay parked for too long, it will give others the chance to use the terminal,” said an owner of a Ford Mustang Mach-E, very close to a electrical circuit terminal.
To charge your vehicle in an installation of 50 kW or more, there will no longer be a single rate as of February 1, 2022. The cost will now be determined according to the power of the charging station and the power used by the vehicle.
“The modification of the prices for the fast terminals was done to have greater coherence, greater equity between the different people who recharge. Fast terminals are charged per minute. So the more powerful the terminal, the shorter the time required. In the end, the goal is for the cost of energy to come back more or less the same,” added Mr. Côté.
