At the charging station for more than four hours? Then you will pay blocking costs

As of today, Shell Recharge will charge what it calls ‘blocking costs’. You pay blocking costs if you leave your electric car at a Road (e-Flux) or EVBox charging point in the Shell Recharge roaming network for more than four hours. Indeed: regardless of whether your battery is fully charged. The blocking costs are €0.05 per minute, with a maximum of €12 per time.

What if the battery is not yet full or at the desired level after four hours of charging? Then you pay extra. If you want to avoid these extra costs, you must start a new charging session. Do you charge your electric car in the evening? Then you have to leave at night if you want to avoid blocking costs. To avoid blocking costs, Shell Recharge advises not to charge at EVBox and Road charging points. “This way you can still access 90% of the charging network without paying blocking costs,” Shell said. Important detail: at charging points of other Shell partners and at the charging points of Shell Recharge itself, you do not pay any blocking costs. Shell Recharge also indicates that it does not intend to introduce blocking costs at Shell Recharge charging points.

According to Shell Recharge, the blocking costs are a measure to improve the availability of public charging points. In addition, Shell Recharge explains that Road and EVBox themselves pass on these blocking costs to Shell. ‘If we were to absorb these costs in the standard rate, it would become unnecessarily high. We don’t think that is fair for drivers who charge at other charging point providers. That is why we only introduce blocking costs for these specific charging point providers,” Shell Recharge said on its website.