The British multinational Shell has introduced a new charging structure. The company will charge blocking fees for drivers who leave their EV at a public charging station for more than four hours, even if the battery is not yet fully charged.

The measure only applies to Bluecorner, EV Box, and Road charging points for now, but others may follow. Shell is introducing the measure to improve the availability of public charge points because charge card providers are charging high fees to Shell Recharge.

€0,05 per minute

For these blocking charges, Shell will charge €0,05 per minute after four hours, with a maximum of 12 euros per charging session.

After four hours, you can still charge your EV, but you will then pay blocking charges on top of the regular charge. The blocking charge also applies at night.

Passing on costs

You do not pay blocking charges at the Shell Recharge charging points, only so at the partners above in the roaming network. “If we were to absorb these costs in the standard tariff, it would become unnecessarily high,” Shell states.

“We do not think this is fair to drivers who charge at other charge point providers. That is why we only introduce blocking charges for these specific charge point providers.”

Charging station hogs have been a problem for some time. At specific public charging points in cities, there are, therefore, rotation charges. You must pay extra when your car is fully charged and stays at the pole.