Charging station with or without a subscription
If you are going to drive an EV and want to charge it easily at your home, you will need a charging station. Most charging stations you can equip with a subscription to settle the electricity costs. What is the most convenient option for you if you charge a company car at home, for example?
Although more and more private individuals are opting for an EV as that car type comes onto the market in increasing numbers (including second-hand) and prices fall, business users are an important target group for this car type. They obviously have different requirements from private individuals, which are taken into account when choosing a charging station. For business drivers who lease a car, it is important that the charging process is handled automatically and administratively, so that they can pass on the electricity they have at home, used for charging the leased car, to their employer. And preferably, of course, in such a way that they have little to worry about.
Insight into the charging process
If you opt for a charging station with service subscription, you get insight into the charging process. Such a smart charge point offers even more possibilities, such as charging using your own solar energy, charging at specific times (so you can charge during off-peak hours) and automatic updates. You can also monitor the charging behaviour of different users, useful if, for example, friends or family members use your charging station to top up their EVs. And this brings another advantage of subscription-based chargers into the picture. It is then possible to allow your guests to charge their EVs. They sign up with their own charging card, where you can set a charging rate per kWh. Another advantage of a subscription-based charger is that the installation process is often taken out of your hands, and if there is a problem, you can rely on a breakdown service that is often available 24/7. Which is handy to avoid being unable to go to work the next morning because of a problem with the charger. You don't have to pay for things like call-out charges and special evening rates for the mechanic.
The majority of EVs are lease cars, as I said, and the costs of recharging are practically always covered by the employer. Then it is convenient if you do not have to declare these costs manually. If you opt for a charging station with subscription, the settlement takes place via a charging card for which the employer has taken out the subscription. With the same charge card, you can also charge at work, at a public charge point or at fast chargers along the motorway.
Rather not be tied to subscription costs
For private individuals, on the other hand, such a subscription is not always necessary. They often already have enough subscriptions, like Netflix for example. They prefer to just pay the one-off purchase price of a charger and not be stuck with subscription fees. They then do not have access to automatic processing of charging transactions. But since they cannot pass on power costs anyway, this is often not a neck-and-neck issue. And for people who still want to understand the amount of power used to charge their car, installing a dedicated kWh meter is an effective solution. And most chargers keep track of consumption, which you can read on the charging station itself or via an online platform or app. If some of your business mileage is done with your private car, you can use this data to report the consumption to get these costs reimbursed. And if consumption does not need to be charged at all, it is best to choose a charging station without a subscription anyway.
