site.btaElectric Vehicle Charging Costs Decrease, Station Suppliers Tell BTA

Charging an electric vehicle (EV) is becoming ever more affordable, and Bulgaria's national network of charging stations already covers the main roads, which facilitates longer trips. During Sofia Motor Show 2024, Europe's largest show of its kind this year, charging station suppliers active in Bulgaria told BTA that the cost of charging an EV depends on the type of station, the price of electricity and the technical characteristics of the vehicle. If it is done at home, particularly at night, when the electricity is cheaper, it can be very inexpensive, while prices at public stations are considerably higher.

Eldrive Bulgaria Executive Director Dimo Kolchev said the average cost of charging electricity per 100 km travelled is about BGN 15. "This is somewhat cheaper than petrol, but it should be noted that no one uses only the public charging network. Most people charge their vehicles at home or at work, where the costs are much lower. If you do it only at home at the nighttime price rate, the cost will be around BGN 2 for a run of 100 km," Kolchev explained.

His company has built over 200 charging stations this year, and the plan for next year is even more ambitious. The stations are scattered all over the country, with one-third of them located in Sofia, which corresponds to the proportion of EVs registered in the capital. Eldrive Bulgaria now runs a public network of 600 charging stations and 850 chargepoints. "Our goal is to have 2,000 stations two years from now," Kolchev said.

EVPoint sales expert Deyan Stoev said a mobile charging station would cost BGN 400 or more, and a stationary one can cost from BGN 700-750 to BGN 2,000-3,000, depending on its technical characteristics. EVPoint exports about 18,000 charging stations annually to various markets, including Peru, Singapore and the UK. In Bulgaria, it operates 400 public charging stations and has sold over 1,000 units for personal use.

The Gemamex company has reported a minor increase in building charging stations in 2024 compared with a year earlier, said its production director Veselin Benchev. He noted that the costs of station components have increased by between 5% and 10% this year. Founded in 1991, Gemamex is a national leader in manufacturing powerful charging stations for electric transport. It specializes in innovative fast-charging solutions for electric buses using supercapacitor technology, and for electric cars. Nineteen such stations service 48 electric buses of Sofia's public transport fleet.

Another company, GigaCharger, manufactures slow-charging AC stations where charging time varies between 2 and 4 hours or more. Its co-owner Delyan Dimitrov explained that the cost of using a slow-charging station is lower, because it needs a 7 kW network, whereas fast-charging requires between 60 kW and 300 kW. Fast-charging is more convenient for inter-city travel, Dimitrov said. GigaCharger also rents out charging stations for a monthly fee of BGN 35.

Electrip Bulgaria, the local subsidiary of Electrip Global, was the country's first operator of EV charging infrastructure to install a 400 kW station, which happened in June 2024 at a commercial outlet by the Maritsa Motorway in the direction of Istanbul. There, an EV battery can be charged from 10% to 80% in 12 to 15 minutes.