Charging Update Q3 2026

With the summer holidays in full swing, those fast charging spots have to keep turning over. Nothing more frustrating than sitting there watching all those occupied charging stalls while the driver of their owners are enjoying a five course-3 hour lunch, yes here's looking at you France.

To make sure people move their vehicle as soon as the charging speed starts dropping to a trickle, for most vehicles around 80%, there are several solutions. There is the expensive but quite effective method of putting charging attendants in play. Actual people who have the difficult task of making sure everyone gets served based on their arrival time and providing friendly but firm reminders that 80% is more than enough to get moving again. Some providers are turning to a less expensive method, what the Dutch call kleeftarief (literally sticking tarif). When the charger detects that you are overstaying your welcome a much higher tarif kicks in, no longer based on the number of kwh you are charging, but on the time you are occupying the space. They can be as high as €1 per minute. New long-distance EV drivers are often caught out by them, but once the invoices start coming in they are super effective.

Ionity has decided that there might be a more commercial solution to the problem. They are introducing a fast-lane reward of a 5 kwh bonus on the next session to those drivers who are civil enough to unplug their vehicles before it reaches 80% during the peak charging times (between 9h and 17h). On longer trips, and on the condition you stick to the Ionity network, this can quickly turn into a €10-20 saving. The nocturnal drivers amongst us should not feel cheated, as the company will award the same 5 kwh to those who recharge between 22h and 6h in the morning.

One of the most irritating things about going electric is the charging process. And I don't mean the mess with charge cards, but all the plugging and unplugging every time you take the car. For those who only go to fast-charging stations the whole experience is similar to filling up a combustion car, especially since the distance between refills is increasing with every new vehicle. For drivers who charge at home, especially the plugin hybrid crowd, life was so much better with their good old petrol or diesel. Just park and walk.

Well, in China quite a number of players are putting the massive advancements in robotics to good work. Xiaomi for example has unveiled a robotic arm with an aggressive launch date at the end of 2026. The whole system focuses on "lazy" charging. You just arrive home, park and the robot will do the rest. In the video above you can see the arm automatically plugging into the vehicle, with which it naturally will have to communicate to open the charge port. Once the needed charge is reached, it will unhook and move away. You can even activate and steer everything from your phone.

Wait, what? You still have to park? I know, that's too much work as well. Players like Aito are going one step further. Just arrive at your destination and the autonomous parking functions of your car will take over, including the actual parking.

Tesla is slowly but surely leaving behind its position as one of the cheapest fast charging networks out there. Where the American company used to be quite competitive, even for non-subscribers of their platform, they have been adapting them quite aggressively. Even to a point where they are by far the most expensive player on the market in some locations, like near the Charles-de-Gaulle airport near Paris.

Chances are the company just has a large advance on their competitors in the pricing game. The biggest differences in price are reserved for certain hours of the day, which differ per charging station. Take the example of CDG in France: during the day you pay €0.68 where it drops to only €0.28 after 23:00 in the evening. With all those years of data to fall back on they know perfectly well what the price sensitivity is per location.

One thing the company isn't changing and should be applauded for is their practice to make charging free in those area's where natural disaster strikes. Several stations in France and Spain in the regions with fires will allow drivers to replenish their batter completely free of charge.