Every single time I go from driving an EV to driving a petrol car I am struck by old fashioned and smelly old cars are compared to new ones. In this context an old car is any car that has a petrol engine rather than an electric motor.
I had to play musical cars just now, and put the winter tires into the petrol car, to get them swapped so that I can drive in winter safely. In the process I had to move two cars around so that the petrol car is in front.
After some trial and error I finally managed to get an electric car to charge at public charging points. The first success was at an evpass charging station where I was able to charge 13.1kW/h in an hour and 14 minutes using the app on my phone and a credit card for 8.48 CHF. The second time was with the TCS eCharge RFID tag that I ordered from the Touring Club Suisse for free. In that case I charged 11.1kW/h for 5.89 CHF.
With evpass the cost is 0.65 CHF per kW/h and with Swisscharge the price is 0.35 CHF per kW/h but with a 2 CHF connection fee for each charge, Without that connection charge Swisscharge would cost 3.89 CHF for 11.1kW/h and be competitive with evpasss. As things stand Swisscharge make you pay an extra 5.7 kW/h per charge.
According to perplexity “… the 0.35 CHF per kWh charger with a 2 CHF connection fee becomes more cost-effective after charging approximately 6.67 kWh. In practical terms, this means that if you plan to charge more than 6.67 kWh, the first charger is the better option despite its connection fee.”
It’s easy to drive a petrol car. You fill up, and 500-600 kilometres later you fill up. With Electric vehicles it is the same in theory. In practice it isn’t that simple. The EV charging market is fragmented and each company has a different app and possibly RFID tag. The result is that you can either be loyal and use just one app or you can have two or more apps on your phone.
I know that driving to the house where I charge the electric vehicle will take about 20 percent. I also know that driving to the shops will take less than one percent per drive. This means that if I had an electric car, and I had a plug at home, rather than a climb up the Jura, I would need to charge every week or two, rather than almost every time I drive the car.