Is it coincidence or just plain bad luck that the ESB announced price hikes – of up to 6c per kWh – for its public electric car charging points just as the Government was rolling out its ICE2EV scrappage grant?

The ESB’s prices are now as much as 73c per kWh for the fastest chargers, depending on whether you’re paying via the ESB e-Cars app, you have a monthly subscription, or you’re just tapping your contactless card.

We’re always told, when it comes to motoring costs – from insurance to fuel – to shop around for the best prices. That is, of course, our power as consumers. However, does shopping around for EV charging make much of a difference?

Can you truly shop around in the manner you can with petrol or diesel? Given the scarcity of public chargers as you move away from metropolitan Dublin, there’s no easy answer to that second question – because when you need a public charge, you generally really need it.

As a counterpoint, many in-car satellite navigation systems can now help you choose charging points on your route with the lowest possible price, but that requires a level of pre-planning on your part and, depending on your destination, there may not be much in the way of choice.

ESB e-Cars’ charging prices are now rising to 60c per kWh for chargers up to and including 50kW power output. For chargers between 50kWh and 350kWh, that cost is now going to be 72c per kWh.

That’s the pay-as-you-go rate. If you sign up for an ESB e-Cars membership, at €4.79 per month, then the rates are slightly lower – 55c up to 50kW power, and 67c for higher-power chargers.

If you’re paying with a contactless tap-and-go card – which is supposed to be the EU standard for EV chargers – the rates are 61c per kWh up to 50kW power, and 73c per kWh above that.

In those instances therefore, the bestselling Volkswagen ID.4 with its 77kWh battery will cost between €38 and €39 for a 10-80 per cent charge-up.

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What about other providers?

Applegreen, the fuel forecourt operator, charges 68c per kWh for its fast chargers, which run at up to 180kW power. At that price, our notional ID.4 would cost €36 to charge.

Blink Charging currently costs 65c per kWh at any of its charging points, which are mostly slower chargers, and that would cost €35 to charge the VW.

Circle K chargers cost between 52c per kWh and 57c per kWh depending on the power of the charger, which makes them among the most affordable. The cost of charging our average VW would be between €28 and €30.

EZO, which used to be known as EasyGo, charged as little as 51c per kWh for its “slow” chargers of up to 22kW power, but its fast chargers, up to 200kWh, can cost as much as 76c per kWh. At that rate, the VW would cost €40 to charge, and there’s a one-off 24c “access fee” on top of that.

E-Power’s high-speed chargers, which run at up to 180kW, cost 73c per kWh, with an access charge of 24c, so that’s €39 for an average charge, plus the 24c access.

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Ionity’s prices vary wildly depending on whether or not you have a subscription. If you’re using tap-and-go, then Ionity charges 81c per kWh for its high-speed 350kW chargers, meaning a 10-80 per cent charge can cost you an average of €43.

That falls to 77c per kWh if you pay via the Ionity app (€41 for a 10-80 per cent charge), or you can take out a monthly subscription costing either €5.99 per month, or €11.99 per month. That reduces your per kWh rate to either 58c or 46c respectively, reducing your charging cost for the VW ID.4 to €24 if you’re paying the most expensive monthly subscription.

What about Tesla? For Tesla Supercharger locations open to non-Tesla drivers, costs vary from 57c per kWh up to 64c per kWh depending on whether you’re charging at peak or offpeak times. You’ll have to set up an account via the Tesla app to be able to use the Supercharger network.

How do Ireland’s public EV charging costs compare with the rest of Europe? In a word, badly. Not only do we have one of the sparsest networks across Europe (we have circa 95 chargers per 100,000 people compared with the Netherlands’ 820, according to statranker.org), we’re also among the more expensive.

Up to the beginning of March this year, according to charging provider Eleport, Ireland had average EV public charging costs of 68c per kWh. That compares with France on 52c per kWh, Spain on 47c per kWh, and Denmark on 49c per kWh. The only countries with higher average public EV charging prices, according to Eleport’s survey, were Italy (71c per kWh) and both Belgium and the Netherlands on 69c per kWh.