After the increase in oil prices, many new energy vehicle owners have found that the cost of public charging piles has also quietly increased. The low-priced electricity of 50 cents per kilowatt hour that was once everywhere is becoming less and less. The cost advantage of electric vehicles is being continuously compressed.According to actual measurements by Beijing car owners, a full charge cost about 50 yuan and could travel more than 400 kilometers.Nowadays, electricity prices have risen by nearly 0.5 yuan per kilowatt hour during peak hours. A full charge costs more than 80 yuan, and the single cost has increased by more than 30 yuan. Many car owners lament that the money-saving advantage of trams can no longer be maintained.
This round of price increases is not a nationwide increase, but there are obvious regional differences, with prices rising and falling at different sites.
The prices of charging piles in most residential areas and shopping malls in Shanghai are relatively stable. Some online ride-hailing drivers have not experienced significant increases. The unit prices at some sites have even dropped slightly after adding discounts.
However, many car owners have reported that it is increasingly difficult to find low-priced charging piles at 0.5 yuan/kWh at night. Low-tier cities are also clearly differentiated, and charging costs are mainly affected by region, time period and operator pricing strategy.
On one side, car owners are complaining about rising costs, while on the other side, charging pile operators are struggling to make profits. A certain fourth-tier city charging station operator invested 900,000 yuan in building the station in 2020, and its net profit that year reached 500,000 yuan.
As competition in the industry intensifies, service fees have been reduced from 0.3 yuan/degree to 0.05 yuan/degree, and the idle rate of stations has increased significantly. Now the annual revenue is only 80,000 yuan, and the annual profit is only 60,000 yuan.
The core reasons for fluctuations in electricity prices are policy adjustments and rising costs. Starting from March 1, 2026, public charging piles will cancel the fixed peak and valley electricity prices, fully implement market-based dynamic pricing, and there will no longer be fixed low-price periods.
At the same time, industrial and commercial electricity prices, site rentals, equipment depreciation and operation and maintenance costs have increased, and vicious competition in the industry has driven down service fees. Most operators can only maintain operations by raising electricity prices.
High-speed charging stations are even trapped in a vicious cycle of “idle-price increase-queuing-rebuilding stations”.
At present, the market shares of Telaidian and Xingxing Charging are 18.88% and 15.37% respectively. The full-cycle operating cost of the leading operator is about 0.4 yuan/kWh, and the service fee must be higher than this price to break even.
For car owners, electricity prices at home charging piles are stable, while using public charging piles requires traveling during off-peak hours and comparing prices.
For the industry, balancing operator profits and car owners' vehicle costs and improving the efficiency of charging pile usage have become key issues that need to be solved urgently.
