After many years of free charging, Lidl is also introducing a payment obligation at its public charging stations for electric car owners. We also reported on this in previous days:
The details of the new world are revealed from the Lidl poster announcing the conditions of use, which is spreading in groups available on electric car social networking sites.
In the new system, it will no longer be possible to start charging from the Lidl eCharge application, instead electric car drivers can access the chargers from the Lidl Plus application, the Lidl website or via roaming. The bottom line is the pricing, and in this regard, Lidl made a big move, because
via the Lidl Plusz application – depending on the type of charging – you can charge 22 or 25% cheaper than via the website.
The top-up fee started with the Lidl Plus application: A149 HUF/kWh on charger C, HUF 179/kWh on a DC charger. Starting from the Lidl website: A199 HUF/kWh on charger C, HUF 229/kWh on a DC charger.
In other words, although Lidl admits that it will end the possibility of free charging (and thereby risks that some of the electric car drivers who have been charging for free will no longer choose the discount chain for their daily shopping), but at the same time it tries to sweeten the price (which can be painful for many electric car drivers ). With this, you can kill two birds with one stone: you collect the electricity fee from the electric car drivers, but you also encourage them to use the application, the application through which you can address them (sales, notifications, discount newspapers, coupons, etc. ), and thus encourages the electric car target audience to buy. With the dominance of smartphones, the digital world, digital devices and personalized notifications are much more able to address customers. And the discount chain won’t have such a difficult task, since the electric car driver starts using the application for charging, and from there it’s just an arm’s length to attract the chain to the nearest store.
It is important to mention that these prices are valid from September 5. The information also states that in the case of a top-up via the Lidl Plus application, the chain will block HUF 5,000 on the specified account number, and the top-up will stop automatically when the blocking amount is reached. Charging can be restarted after reaching the limit.
After Lidl’s move, those concerned can now only charge for free at the Penny Market. THE Pénzcentrum made just a few days ago a comprehensive overview of what strategy retail chains are pursuing towards electric car users. With the exception of Penny’s free top-up, Lidl’s prices presented above – primarily valid through the Lidl Plus app – are very competitive, offering one of the lowest prices compared to all other providers. If we compare it with the rates used in the parking lots of the other discount chain, Aldi, then Lidl’s prices just announced went below them (the price there is HUF 199 per kWh, and after a while E.On as a service provider also charges a minute fee). .
By the way, Aldi also has big plans in the field of filling stations, as Portfolio previously wrote about:
Cover image source: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
