Electrify America EV Fast Charge Pricing Is About To Get Much More Confusing

The price structure for electric vehicle charging is already a bit of a confusing mess, not only for people who are unfamiliar with charging EVs, but seasoned EV owners as well. Unlike gas station pumps, which all more or less function using the same principles, every charging station — be it one from Electrify America or a Tesla Supercharger — operates in a different way. 

Electrify America is one of the largest charging networks in the United States, and used a somewhat perplexing multi-tier pricing structure for its chargers. Now, according to an email to Electrify America customers, it isn't going to get any easier to parse.

Starting on August 17 of this year, the charging price will now vary per station. Previously, charging prices varied per state. Once the upcoming changes take place, Electrify America is urging customers to verify the price shown on the app with the charging price at the station. While verifying prices is certainly a good practice to adopt, it does introduce doubt into the equation where it previously didn't exist.

Additionally, the email states that the company will be reinstating idle fees. In EV-charging nomenclature, "idle fees" refer to the fees incurred when your car sits at a charging point for too long after it has already completed charging. 

Those fees currently vary by state, but expect somewhere around $0.40 per minute (after a 10-minute grace period), according to Electrify America. For comparison, Tesla's supercharger network charges a $0.50 fee per minute when your car is done charging. However, when the charging station has all spots occupied, that price jumps to $1.00 per minute.

That's certainly not ideal, but Tesla's Supercharger system is one of the more popular options over Electrify America, and has even attracted the attention of several major automakers like Mercedes-Benz and Ford who are opting to equip future cars with Supercharger-compatible hardware. 

Electrify America has recently adopted Tesla's charging hardware as well. Upcoming price changes to the Electrify America charging infrastructure that make it harder for the average driver and customer to plan and budget for charging their EV certainly isn't doing the company any favors.