Yes! Free public charging for these EVs!
The electric revolution is great. No gas station visits, no harmful emissions — just charge it up and go. But there’s the rub — charging. Someday soon, charging stations will be as common as today’s gas stations. But we’re not there yet, and charging your new EV can be an issue. If you live in a house, you can install a charging station. Charge up at night and drive all day. Great for the daily commute. But if you live in a high-density dwelling, you may not have access to a charger. While some new apartment buildings are being built with charging stations available, the overwhelming number are not. An important consideration when going electric.
But even if you have a home charger — the most convenient and cheapest way to charge — you’ll occasionally end up at a public charger, if only for longer trips. A recent J.D. Power survey found that plug-in owners’ overall satisfaction with public charging stations was much higher when the charging was free. The gap was greatest for DC fast charging, which can be two or three times more expensive than charging at home.
The big dog in partnering with automakers for the use of public DC fast-charging stations is Electrify America — a Volkswagen subsidiary funded as part of its diesel emissions settlement. It is the second largest network of DC fast chargers in the U.S. after Tesla’s proprietary Supercharger network for owners, according to the federal Alternative Fuels Data Center, and it has emphasized stations on major travel corridors.
Charging offers from automakers vary a lot, from a few charges to get you started to years of juice, and the limits might be dollars, kilowatt-hours or minutes. They can vary even among different EVs from the same automaker. However, none of the offers are promised to be available forever — early buyers of Teslas, for example, got free charging on its network but don’t anymore.
Here are the free charging perks currently offered for new electric cars, SUVs and trucks on sale now or soon to hit the market:
2022 Audi E-Tron GT
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for three years for Audi’s Porsche-Taycan-based E-Tron GT — much more than for other E-Tron models.
2022 Audi E-Tron and Q4 E-Tron
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: 250 kWh of charging for use within two years.
2022 BMW i4 Gran Coupe and iX
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for up to 30 minutes per charging session for two years.
2022 Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV
- Charging Network: EVgo
- Charging Offer: A $500 credit for juice at EVgo stations and up to $1,250 toward the installation of a home charging station by a Qmerit electrician.
2021-22 Ford Mustang Mach-E and 2022 F-150 Lightning
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: 250 kWh of charging for use within two years.
2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for 30 minutes per charging session for two years.
2022 Hyundai Kona Electric and 2021 Ioniq Electric
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: 250 kWh of charging for use within three years of purchase, which Hyundai says is about 1,000 miles of driving for both models. (The Ioniq Electric has been discontinued after the 2021 model year.)
2022 Kia EV6
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: 1,000 kWh of free charging, usable over three years. Kia says the credit is worth about 4,000 miles of driving for the most efficient variant.
2022 Lucid Air
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for three years for buyers who place their reservation for an Air by June 30, 2022.
2022 Mazda MX-30
- Charging Network: ChargePoint
- Charging Offer: A $500 credit for juice at ChargePoint charging stations or to use toward buying a ChargePoint Home Flex charger.
2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS, 2022 EQB and 2023 EQE
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for 30 minutes per charging session for two years. Electrify America is one of the networks that is part of the Mercedes me Charge network.
2023 Nissan Ariya
- Charging Network: EVgo
- Charging Offer: The first 10,000 Ariya reservations (for delivery later this year) that were made by Jan. 31, 2022, will be eligible for a free two-year EVgo network membership and a $500 credit for juice at EVgo stations, which Nissan estimates could buy as much as 5,000 miles of driving.
2022 Nissan Leaf
- Charging Network: EVgo
- Charging Offer: A $250 credit for use at EVgo charging stations within one year of purchase.
2021-22 Polestar 2
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for 30 minutes per charging session for two years.
2022 Porsche Taycan and Taycan Cross Turismo
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Three years of unlimited DC fast charging for 30 minutes per charging session or for 60 minutes per session with slower AC charging.
2022 Rivian R1T and R1S
- Charging Network: Rivian is building two proprietary charging networks. A Rivian Adventure Network of DC fast chargers will be available only for Rivian owners and will include more than 3,500 DC chargers (initially 200 kilowatts) at about 600 sites on major travel corridors. Separately, Rivian says that a Waypoints network of Level 2 (11.5 kW) chargers will be public and will include more than 10,000 chargers. Both networks are expected by the end of 2023.
- Charging Offer: Details are still being worked out. A Rivian Membership subscription’s bundle of benefits includes, under the current “beta” terms and conditions, unlimited free charging at Rivian chargers. Rivian buyers will get free trial membership for a year, after which there will be a still-to-be-determined charge.
2023 Toyota bZ4X
- Charging Network: EVgo
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for one year.
2022 Volkswagen ID.4
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: Unlimited DC fast charging for 30 minutes per charging session for three years.
2022 Volvo C40 Recharge and XC40 Recharge
- Charging Network: Electrify America
- Charging Offer: 250 kWh worth of charging for up to three years. Buyers also get a free one-year subscription to Electrify America Pass Plus that gets discounted charging on the network.
