Charge Your Car (CYC), one of the UK’s most popular electric vehicle charge point networks, is to introduce a connection fee on each successful charge across its England and Wales tarrif-free public charge points. A £1 connection fee will be implemented from the 1st May 2017, the company stated in an email sent to their 30,000+ userbase. The main reason for the change is to help keep their 24-hour telephone support line, improve the network and software, as well as, “recognise that more of the burden of the cost of operating the network is needing to be met by the driver rather than the site owner.” The charge will be applied as per other CYC charges, per month.
The Charge Your Car network was bought by Luton based Chargemaster in January 2017, when the company stated they did not envisage adopting Chargemaster’s Polar network tarrif system or admin fees.
The currently free charge points on the CYC network are advertised as, “If you are a Charge Your Car member and charge at a charge point without a tariff, free means free,” so it now seems that this is no longer the case. However, Scottish CYC tarrif-free charge points should continue to remain free from the connection fee, for the meantime.
The full email sent to members is shown below.
Dear EV Driver,
We will shortly be adjusting our pricing to more accurately reflect the value users get from the Charge Your Car (CYC) network. This will allow us to continue providing excellent customer service and make significant improvements to our network and software.
From 1st May 2017, Charge Your Car will apply a £1 connection fee to successful charges on all public charge points in England and Wales that do not have a tariff applied to them. This will be invoiced monthly along with any tariffed charge sessions outstanding on your account.
Due to the rapidly growing industry, we have decided to introduce the connection fee so we can continue to improve the service that our drivers have come to expect from us. The level of activity across CYC operated free to use charge points has increased three-fold over the last year, with our network now connecting over 30,000 EV drivers to charge points, and the fee will ensure we can continue to operate the 24-hour customer telephone line, support the growing demand on the network, and continue to develop and maintain online resources for our customers. The connection fee will also recognise that more of the burden of the cost of operating the network is needing to be met by the driver rather than the site owner. CYC in parallel to introduction of this connection charge is reducing its network tariffs to site hosts on next renewal. Please see the updated Terms and Conditions on our website that will come into effect on May 1st.
To find out whether a charge point incurs the connection fee, please visit our live map at www.chargeyourcar.org.uk/map or use the CYC app.
For further details on these changes to our billing, please visit our FAQs page and click on ‘Help’ then ‘Billing Queries’. Thank you for being a valued member of CYC. If you require further support, please e-mail us at [email protected].Kind Regards,
The Charge Your Car Team
