Algorithms that change prices in real time, top-up apps inflate prices. Guide to the invisible fees that make kWh a luxury.
The image is almost dystopian: a row of silent sedans stopped under the shelter of an ultra-fast charging station in a rest area of the A1 towards Northern Europe. Drivers stare at the column display as the cents run faster than the kilometers loaded. What should have been a savings paradise is turning, for many, into a calculated drain. While the price of gasoline fluctuates around €1.85/litrecharging an electric car at the nodes HPC (High Power Charging) can today reach peaks of €0.95/kWh. The mathematics is merciless: to travel 100 km, an electric car charged at the rapid charging stations now costs between 13 and 15 eurosagainst the 11-12 euros of a modern efficient heat engine.
The illusion of democratic recharge
The energy market for mobility has undergone a genetic mutation. If until 2024 the competitive advantage of electric vehicles was a dogma, 2026 has crystallized a brutal segmentation between those who “can” and those who “must”. As reported by the last one International Energy Agency (IEA) Global EV Outlook 2025the total cost of ownership (TCO) remains favorable only for those who have access to home charging. For everyone else, the road is uphill.
The phenomenon is fueled by a mix of technical and speculative factors. International newspapers such as Bloomberg And Financial Times have highlighted how charging networks have stopped being “courtesy services” to become high-yield financial assets. The charging point operators (CPO) find themselves having to manage enormous fixed costs: the connection to the high voltage grid, the management commissions and, above all, the dynamic pricing that react in real time to wholesale market fluctuations.
The invisible profit of algorithms
It’s not just a question of energy costs. The real “trap” lies in the pricing architecture. According to an analysis by ChargeUp Europeprices at charging stations are influenced not only by the cost of kWh, but by heavy “grid fees” and network charges that vary drastically between member states. But who really benefits?
The new asymmetries of the energy market
The great beneficiaries of this new era are the providers of electric mobility services (eMSP) that control roaming platforms. Every time a user uses an app to charge at a non-proprietary station, brokerage commissions are triggered which inflate the final price. The report “Electric vehicle recharging prices” of theEAFO (European Alternative Fuels Observatory) highlights how subscription contracts are becoming the only way to mitigate costs, trapping the user in closed ecosystems similar to those of mobile telephony in the 2000s.
While the organization Transport & Environment (T&E) continues to maintain that electric remains the winning choice in the long term – especially in a context of global oil instability linked to conflicts in the Middle East – the reality of “full” motorways tells a different story. Those who don’t have a garage or a company charging point find themselves paying a speed premium that cancels out any environmental savings.
The circle closes where it began: under those bright shelters. The electric car, created to free us from dependence on oil, risks delivering us to a new form of dependence, this time algorithmic and tariff-based. Saving is no longer the right of the electric driver, but a privilege of those who have the physical space to produce their own energy. For others, kWh has become the new barrel: expensive, opaque and damn indispensable.
