Friday 17th December 2021
Planned upper limit
The price of Tesla’s charging stations is rising sharply
The use of the Tesla Supercharger will now cost more. The e-car pioneer is thus following the competition. The federal government wants to cap the prices against it.
Electricity on Tesla’s so-called superchargers in Germany has become significantly more expensive. The price has been increased from 40 to 45 cents per kilowatt hour, reports “Teslamag”. It has also risen in other European countries. In this country it has increased by a total of 36 percent since October last year.
In order to promote e-mobility, the old federal government had given the go-ahead for the tender for 1000 fast charging stations with several charging points, the so-called Germany network. An upper price limit of currently 44 cents per kilowatt hour is envisaged. So far, Tesla was the only provider that was below this price.
The providers protested against the upper price limit. Even the Federal Cartel Office thinks little of the idea. Such limits for charging tariffs are “not expedient,” it was said to justify. “Such regulation-like requirements distort competition and could displace existing or planned private offers and thus prevent rapid expansion.”
The Cartel Office has initiated an investigation into the infrastructure of charging stations – the immediate cause of this was complaints from consumers that indicated “structural competitive deficits in the area of the publicly accessible charging infrastructure”.
More competition required
The Bonn authority is also looking at the development of charging current prices. However, the previous investigations have shown that there is “no evidence” that charging prices in Germany are “systematically and nationwide excessive”. With an increasing expansion of the infrastructure and competition, “prices would also fall,” predicted the Cartel Office.
Overall, the authority of the Cartel Office President warned, however, more competition in the charging current. In the current phase of development, “open and non-discriminatory market access” is necessary. Public tenders for land, however, are still not happening enough, especially at the municipal level – in some cases the land is “completely or predominantly awarded to one and the same operator”, such as the municipal utility.
According to the plans of the traffic light coalition, a nationwide charging infrastructure for e-cars is to be built in Germany by 2030.