Customers will have to pay for electricity at Lidl in the future.
Dusseldorf For many years, retailers have been luring customers in by offering them the ability to charge their electric cars for free. In particular, the retailers Aldi and Lidl offered an increasingly dense network of electric charging stations in the parking lots of their discounters.
But charging for free is now a thing of the past almost everywhere. After Aldi had already introduced fees for this, Lidl is now announcing that it will charge money for the charging current from September 12th.
Each kilowatt hour at the regular charging points (AC) with a charging capacity of up to 43 kilowatts will then cost EUR 0.29 per kilowatt hour. At the fast charging points (DC) with a charging capacity of up to 149 kilowatts, it is 0.48 euros per kilowatt hour. At individual locations, 150 kilowatts or more can be charged for 0.65 euros, the parent company Schwarz Group said.
These prices also apply to the Lidl sister company Kaufland. At the end of June, the Handelsblatt reported on the Schwarz Group’s plans to charge electric cars. The company justifies the introduction of the fee by saying that “the convenient integration of e-car charging in everyday life for customers will remain in the long term and the expansion and maintenance of e-charging stations will continue to be guaranteed in the future”.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Lidl had already taken the first step towards a fee. Since March, the charging stations can only be used via the Lidl Plus customer card system app. Customers can now also pay directly via this app.
Aldi has been charging for charging since June
Industry experts had previously emphasized that a large-scale offering of charging stations in retail will not be possible for free in the long term. “One thing is certain, electricity cannot be given away in the long run, that’s not a business model,” said Jan-Oliver Heidrich, Managing Director of EHA, the central energy service provider of the Rewe Group, to the Handelsblatt.
Lidl and Kaufland are following the example of their rival Aldi. Aldi Süd has been charging 29 cents per kilowatt hour at 22-kilowatt charging stations since the beginning of June. At the quick charging stations, which make up around ten percent of the columns, it costs 39 cents. Previously, customers could shop there free of charge.
This means that there are only a few retailers who offer their customers the service for free. Only the furniture retailer Ikea still offers nationwide free charging of e-cars in Germany, without having taken steps to make it compulsory to pay. There are around 220 charging stations at Ikea stores. Customers can use these during opening hours.
Almost all other retailers, on the other hand, charge for electricity from the charging station. Many of them work together with the energy company EnBW, which provides the charging stations and sets the prices. EnBW cooperates with Rewe, dm and the hardware store chains Hagebau and Bauhaus.
>> Read here: Charging subsidiary of BMW, Mercedes and BP wants to make charging as easy as Tesla
The demand for charging stations in retail is high. The Schwarz Group announced that in 2020, an average of four electric cars a day would have charged their batteries at a Lidl e-charging station, and nine cars at Kaufland.
In 2021, this number has already doubled in both retail divisions. On peak days, the trading company recorded an average of around 15 charging processes per charging station at Lidl and over 20 at Kaufland.
With over 1,300 charging points, Kaufland and Lidl offer the most extensive retail network in Germany. And both chains have big expansion plans. At Kaufland, a further 380 charging points could be added by the end of the year. By March 2023, charging stations could be available at a third of the 700 branches. Lidl wants to expand its network to almost 3,000 charging points by the end of the year, and every third branch would also be equipped with charging stations by March 2023.
More: Hyundai overtakes Tesla – electric cars as company cars are experiencing a boom