How to charge your electric car for free

There’s a saying that nothing ever comes for free, and that’s probably true.

It’s certainly the case if you drive a conventional combustion-engined vehicle as you’re bound to the petroleum industry and service station retailers to keep moving.

The notion of free fuel sounds like a supermarket incentive that you pay for somewhere else and, unless you have an oil well and petrol refinery of your own in your backyard, it’s simply impossible.

But driving an electric car is a whole different kettle of fish, and in many ways you can drastically reduce – or even extinguish completely – the cost to refill its battery.

Free fuel is totally feasible with EVs. But how?

First of all, electricity is available just about everywhere: at home, work, the shops, your dealership and a growing network of public charging stations. So you can essentially recharge a battery-powered vehicle wherever there is a power point.

Now, that doesn’t mean it is always free. But some major shopping centres, hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations offer no-cost electric vehicle charging as an incentive to attract early adopters and meet corporate sustainability targets.

We also know of a number of local councils around Australia that have installed public electric vehicle charging stations but are yet to charge you for topping up your EV.

So, a little research about the EV charging infrastructure in your local region and along any routes and destinations you plan to visit could pay off – literally.

If you work for a progressive company and drive an EV, negotiate a deal as part of your working conditions, benefits or salary to charge your electric car while it is parked at the office.

Considering the vehicle is likely to remain stationary for at least eight hours a day (if you’re not on the road), it should be enough time to fully replenish the battery.

Even if you have an EV with a large-capacity battery, the cost to fill it up once a week is between $35 and $50 which shouldn’t be difficult to negotiate, whether that’s equivalent to an hour of overtime or taking on an additional responsibility.

If you’re charging at home, the most obvious way to get free fuel is to install solar panels and charge the vehicle during daylight hours.

A 5kWh solar system will cost approximately $5000 to install (after any government rebate incentive is applied) and generates an average daily output of around 19.4kWh, enough to provide between 100-200km of driving range (depending on the vehicle).

If you live in (or plan to buy) an apartment, newer buildings offer electric vehicle charging infrastructure as part of the tenancy.

As we said, nothing ever comes for free, and there is some cost to all of the above options – but not every one of them hits your hip pocket as much, or in the same way, as paying for petrol.

But electric cars do actually generate free fuel while they’re driving through regenerative braking.

This is a process where the electric motor is reversed when the vehicle is decelerating and feeds electricity back into the battery pack, allowing you to extend the driving range of the vehicle by altering your driving habits, slowing down earlier when coming to a halt and backing off the accelerator when travelling down hills.

So, yes, there is such a thing as free fuel, and plenty of other ways to reduce the cost of getting around town, if you drive an electric car.