Amsterdam, DShell recently announced that from 21 December 2023, they are adding a “blocking fee” to their roaming tariffs for all charge points on the Road network. This will only apply to Road and one other EV management solution in their roaming network.
This “blocking fee” is activated after 240 minutes (4 hours) of charging and costs €0.05 per minute, with a maximum of €12 per charging session. Drivers can still charge their EVs after 240 minutes, but will then pay the “blocking fee” on top of their regular charging costs.
We believe that this move is unfair and has negative consequences for all EV drivers, and for the industry as a whole as it isn’t a fair pricing model and potentially makes charging more expensive.
In a normal situation, blocking fees are additional costs that can be set by the charge point owner (CPO) and are applied when the electric vehicle is fully charged, but still occupies the charging point, blocking it for other drivers. Blocking fees are an important tool to discourage charge point “hogging”, and therefore free up charge point availability.
The “blocking fee” set by Shell is therefore not a real blocking fee, but merely a way for them to increase their price for charging on our network. In the E-Flux by Road network, CPOs get to set their own idle fees, and drivers pay that exact tariff, which is the fairest solution for both parties.
We’ve been in conversations with Shell about this topic for some time, and we’re concerned about the negative impact this new fee structure has on EV drivers and charge point owners. We will continue our talks with Shell to urge them to directly use the actual tariffs set by the charge point owner. This is ultimately the fairest way for charge point owners and EV drivers to transact with each other.
If your company uses Shell Recharge cards to charge at an E-Flux by Road charge point, we believe it is in your best interest to switch to an E-Flux by Road charge card. From a cost perspective, at E-Flux-managed charge points, there are no roaming or transaction fees if you use an E-Flux charge card. Another provider’s charge card will always include roaming fees, and in Shell’s case, additional new “blocking fees”, making it more expensive. Using the E-Flux by Road card also allows CPOs to set specific driver access and tariffs.
When drivers use the E-Flux card to charge on our roaming network, our transaction fees per charging session are lower than Shell Recharge’s (€0,32 vs €0,35). For drivers who use their card 10 times or more per month, our Orange subscription has a better monthly cost too(€3,32 p/m vs up to €7 p/m). If your company requires multi-fuel cards, we advise you to use our partner MKB Brandstof’s card. As they are part of the Road ecosystem, they don’t charge any transaction or roaming fees for charging at an E-Flux by Road charge point.
We hope Shell will resolve these issues in the interest of fairness and growth for the EV industry. Please contact us in case you have any questions. We will update you if anything changes.
