We’re now six months into our electric car adventure. We do the vast majority of our charging at home – indeed, between September and December, we didn’t need to use a public charger once. But when we do need to use one, there can be multiple ways to pay. This blog post compares the three main ways: phone apps, RFID cards, and card payments.
Phone apps
Years ago, someone I knew had bought the then-new mark one Nissan Leaf. We’re probably talking ten years ago here, so back then public charging infrastructure was a long way behind what it is now. On the whole, he was really happy with his electric car, but he said his biggest gripe was the need to have a range of different apps to use with public chargers. I suppose it’s the same problem with parking apps.
Whilst many public chargers, especially the rapid ones, will accept other forms of payment, for some, using an app is the only option. On my phone, I have seven apps for paying for charging, although some are apps like Zapmap and Octopus Electroverse (which I compared here) which are primarily designed to help you find charging points. It just so happens that they also allow you to pay for your charging at many of them too. Indeed, I could probably yeet some of the brand-specific apps from my phone, as Zapmap and Electroverse support them directly.
That being said, some charging networks like Gridserve say that you will always get their best charging rate with their app, so it may be cheaper than other payment methods. Others, like Instavolt, offer sign-up incentives for using their app. For example, if you sign up with my referral code, dUmpH (charming), we’ll both get a £5 free credit the first time you charge 10 kWh using the app.
There are chargers I have encountered which would only work with an app. A good example is when we went to Portmeirion, where the chargers only worked with the Monta app. I now use Monta with my home charger thankfully so this app gets to stay. But having to download an app, which can be around a hundred megabytes, on a weak mobile data connection when you’re stood in the rain somewhere, isn’t a great experience.
A key advantage of using apps over the other methods is that you can usually track the progress of your charge on your phone – especially at rapid chargers. This is handy if you’re using the time your card needs to charge for other things, like having lunch at a motorway service station. Some even use the Live Tiles feature of iOS to show the status on your phone’s lock screen.
RFID cards
Another option is to use a Radio-frequency identification card, or RFID card. This is a credit-card sized card that you can order from a variety of providers. When you get to a charger, you can usually just tap the card on the chargepoint, and it’ll bill your chosen provider for your charge.
These are accepted by just about all rapid chargers, but also some slower ones. I recently used a charger on the Blink network, which accepted payment either by RFID card or app, but not by card payment.
Zapmap, Electroverse and some others will offer to send you an RFID card by post – and in the case of Electroverse, you won’t need to pay for it. You should only need one RFID card too; I’ve yet to find any chargers that would accept an RFID card from one company but not another. When I use my Electroverse card, I can also track my charge in the Electroverse app.
Overall, I find that RFID cards are more convenient than using apps, but I have found some chargers to be fussy about them. As in, they work fine when you use a payment card, but not with an RFID card.
Payment cards
Every rapid charger that I have encountered will also happily take a credit or debit card as payment. This works in a similar way to self-service pumps at petrol stations – your card is pre-authorised with a certain amount before you start, and then the actual amount is billed at the end.
Some slower AC chargers also now take payment cards, which is handy. Almost everyone has some form of payment card on them, or a phone that can make payments, and so it’s the most convenient option for most people. No apps to download or a special RFID card to send off for – you just pay for charging in the same way that you would pay for fuel.
As for the downsides? Generally you can’t track your charge on your phone, in the way you can with the apps. Some chargers may also charge a higher unit rate for using payment cards, rather than their own app. And some chargers only take contactless cards; whilst I doubt that’s an issue for many, you may need to use Apple Pay or Google Pay if you need to charge up beyond your contactless limit, or if you have made too many previous contactless payments in succession.
So what do I use?
Obviously there are some chargers where you don’t get a choice of method – they will only accept one payment method and you have to go with that. However, when I do have a choice, I tend to go for an app (if I have it) or my RFID card. I appreciate being able to check in the progress of the charge using my phone, and sometimes using an app is cheaper. I suppose if I was in a rush, then I would probably just use my debit card if that was the option though.
@neilturner I recently tried out option 4,— just plug the charger in and start charging. Sadly my car is too unpopular for Electroverse Plug & Charge support, but amazingly it “just works” with Osprey.