IONITY pricing 2021 edition - a newsflash
Those of you who bought a Jaguar I-Pace back in 2018, a Model 3 in 2019: the lucky ones. In those days anyone could head out to any IONITY fast charger (there weren’t even half as many stations as today though) and pay a flat fee of eight(!) euros to charge as long as you want.
The new normal
IONITY never made it to the 400 promised stations. Count as of today stands at 345. Construction works are ongoing at 42 locations. What would happen after that was unclear. The website (and mission statement) seems to have changed: there is no goal after 400.
Old Mercedes (NL) text with IONITY promises.
The huge differences around Europe
In many countries, IONITY is just another (big) player on the High Power Charging market. With one exception.
France. There is no competition to speak of. BUT! That will change. Total & Allego are hard at work.
Fastned will join, if all lights go green in time, you should be able to go for some Fastned sheltered electrons in November!
Daily life with an EV
Even if you drive, 300 to 400km per day, that could easily be done without the use of any fast charging ever. 70.000 kilometers a year. No fast charging. Important to think about. Could be done on local solar energy if charging happens at work and the office is full of panels. It’s all in the game.
Traveling with an EV
Now, this is my territory. Covering ridiculous mileage in a day? Where do I sign up! Here IONITY comes into play, especially if your plan was to head down to Spain, Italy, and so on. You might (want to) juice up at IONITY all day long. Depending on your route, you might not have much choice(!)
Last year I drove the Mercedes EQC from Amsterdam to Madrid. It got me access to a year of Mercedes powered IONITY charging at €0,29/kWh. I recently found out the hard way the “IONITY bundle” (one year “free”) ran out. No email, no notification by the Mercedes Me app. Nothing. Just a bill at €0,79/kWh for several sessions (with a BMW, will you believe it…) I had to email the Mercedes Me helpdesk to find out what was going on.
I tried to look for the IONITY bundle on the Mercedes website, but didn’t find it. If you do, you know where to find me! Anyway, it probably costs around €150,- per year, it’s what most other (IONITY) car companies also try to sell their customers. It made me wonder from the very beginning. What are you paying for?
Why is it a yearly bundle?
Who is selling this (dealerships)?
Is anyone actually (buying it)?
Making the customer pay for the network
It feels to me as if the clients of Mercedes, Audi, Porsche, BMW and all the others are actually paying for (the construction & maintenance of) these IONITY chargers. If you use them or not, depends (mainly) on your traveling opportunities. In a year without much travel for most people, my Mercedes IONITY bundle ran out without notice.
Gone was the luxurious Mercedes charging experience, suddenly it would be way smarter to visit “the competition” (which is one of the reasons why I’m not very understanding of the current yearly fee).
When you make the customer pay
Upon entering 2020, there was a company promise of delivering 400 charging points at the end of that year. Even if all construction sites turn into running charging locations, that doesn’t make 400 and clients are paying “full price” for the experience anyway. Don’t get me wrong; I understand the costs of building (and maintaining!) this network. Yet, in The Netherlands, the reliability has been underwhelming to say the least. Especially if you factor in price for “random visitors”.
A new pricing miracle from Italy
Yesterday morning was special, I received this email evway sent out! From now on, anyone can pay €0,39/kWh at IONITY!
But, yes there is a but. Just like most drivers of a BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, Porsche and so on, will have to shell out a yearly fee to maintain the network, evway asks €199,- a year for the service.
Now, it really depends on your travel rhythm if this is something for you or not. Every country has different charging networks (in Germany the biggest is EnBW, in The Netherlands it’s Fastned) and they all have their own pricing schemes. Won’t even get into the complexity of Great Britain, where driving an EV can be virtually free thanks to “Octopus”. (GL50 1SH is a zip code you can use to show tariffs).
The French example
In France, the hardcore nerds love EV’s. They drive their Kona up to IONITY, and receive a horrible aftermath when using their Chargemap badge for example (witnessed it many times).
I recently watched this informative Energica video where the guy shows how a practically useless charging session nearly left the rider bankrupt. Now, should he have checked out my IONITY page before ever using that badge at IONITY: yes. But not everybody knows my blog…YET!
Scroll to 8:20 to see what he paid for some fast charging!
A virtual road trip
For example, we’ll hop in the new Citroën ë-C4 and head down to Spain.
As you can see in this example, ABRP expects us to charge around 180kWh one way, on IONITY (some sessions are planned elsewhere). If we take the simple route and we accept this and double it for a return trip, that makes 360kWh spent at IONITY.
Now, if you really just take any badge (or the new IONITY app) then this would set you back 360x0,79 = €284 euros. If you sign up for the evway “easy” deal, as shown below… it would change to 360x0,59 = €212 euros + 69 yearly = 281 euros! Of course I don’t have to tell you the “easy” deal will work for pretty much anyone that likes to travel with their EV. Easy does it.
[UPDATE: as Frank rightfully commented below. France has a “pay per minute” ruling by law. It’s very vehicle and SoC (State of Charge) % dependent how long you will actually be charging at IONITY. Take this into account when doing your own calculations.]
BUT! Are you heavy traveler like myself? Super save would make the NL to Spain return trip cost at IONITY drop down to: 360x0,39 = €140 euros! (of course you have to add the yearly cost of 199,- still).
Total with the “super save” deal would be €339,- but: imagine you are IN Spain, and think,…. hmm shall we head out to Madrid? You know what will happen: suddenly you charge at 350kW IONITY chargers for the price of 50kW charging around Spain… Yes, it’s all in the game people. This isn’t over yet!