Paying at the charging station is made unnecessarily difficult for customers

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The expansion of electromobility has so far been quite successful and is still in full swing. If it weren’t for an essential problem: There is still a lack of charging stations – and especially fast chargers that can fill the batteries with electricity with 150 kW and more. If the expansion is not accelerated, there will probably be waiting times for drivers of e-cars at the charging stations next summer. But there is another problem. And that is the complicated way of paying for the refueling process.

As drivers, we are used to refueling and paying at the gas station. And payment is made easy. You fill up, go in and pay in cash or with a card. Complete. This is not possible with charging stations. Here you have to sign a contract with one of the numerous providers beforehand, then download their app in order to pay on site at the column or to activate it with the app. You can’t pay for the electricity in cash, which is also due to the fact that the charging stations also like to be in the middle of the landscape.

Intransparent Prices and payment hurdles

The whole refilling process is therefore significantly more complicated than with the combustion engine and the question is why the industry does not offer the driver a little simplified. Not even the prices are shown transparently, which causes understandable trouble . The federal government, which is still in office, has also thought of this and has laid it down in the new charging station ordinance. This means that new charging stations will also have to offer readers for credit or debit cards in the future. The aim is to create the possibility that people can charge their car who do not have or do not want to use a smartphone.

It is not surprising that the auto industry and energy associations are up against this. Who else needs a card terminal in the future? In addition, according to statements from the lobby associations, the installation of a reader will make the expansion of the charging infrastructure more expensive and slower. On the one hand this is understandable, on the other hand it is ultimately just an argument on one’s own behalf. In addition to the energy industry, manufacturers also earn money from the new offers. Because these are, at least partially, involved in the provider Ionity. This, in turn, is behind the charge cards offered by the manufacturers. So now they not only cash in when the car is sold, but also when it is charged.

Of course, manufacturers and the energy industry are keen to keep customers in a closed ecosystem. Anyone who is a customer of company A should stay there and not have the choice to pay with their own bank card. The argument that the cost of expansion could increase with the addition of card terminals is correct, but it should only make up a fraction of the total cost. With a fast charging station, these are between 30,000 and 50,000 euros. To forego the small investment in a terminal is very brief, especially in European terms.

E-cars: Refueling has to be easy

Because it is not just the customers who cannot or do not want to afford a smartphone that rely on a reader. Tourists from other European countries are also often faced with the problem of how to pay at the charging stations. Should they sign a contract with a German provider beforehand? Sure, there are Europe-wide agreements, but already in Germany the market is completely fragmented and not all providers are part of a roaming agreement.

The dispute between the federal government, which is supported by the ADAC and the banks, and the auto and energy industries is a symbol of the messed up expansion of the charging infrastructure. Instead of making charging a car as easy as possible, digital hurdles are being set up just so that the company’s own business model of keeping customers in an ecosystem is not weakened. It is incomprehensible why people make life so difficult for each other.

Of course, digital means of payment are the future. In parts of other European countries, people are already being looked at when they want to pay with cash. The enduring love of the Germans for their cash cannot be understood. But a bank card is a digital means of payment and should be treated that way. Card terminals belong in charging stations if only because they increase accessibility and give people the choice of how to pay for their electricity for the car. It is part of a free market that people are allowed this freedom.

Don Dahlmann has been a journalist for over 25 years and in the automotive industry for over ten years. Every Monday you read his column “Torque”, which takes a critical look at the mobility industry.