Our customers report Total Cost of Ownership for EV chargers is a crucial factor when making purchase decisions.

This means they’re not choosing the cheapest unit price.

So to help you answer the question How can I get the lowest Total Cost of Ownership for my EV charge points? here’s five easy ways you can maximise it with Stark Charge.  

First, let’s quickly answer the question…

What is total cost of ownership?

Total cost of ownership is an assessment which aims to maximise value across the lifetime of your purchase. It considers the long-term economic implications for purchase decisions, not just the initial unit cost price. 

For EV chargers Total Cost of Ownership tends to include these areas:

1. Recognise EV chargers as another utility.

The most important thing that businesses need to include in their Total Cost of Ownership assessments for EV chargers is the increased electricity costs and how they’re going to measure them.

We’ve all known for decades that if you can’t measure something then you can’t act on it. And EV chargers are no different.

Businesses must realise that:

• When you install EV chargers, you’re creating new points of electricity consumption
• You need the same ability to monitor them as you’re used to with your regular building utilities

Take a look at how EV chargers impacted energy consumption at our HQ Sentinel House, Horley:

Our USP is that we are the only EV charge point provider in the UK who can protect your energy analytics.

This translates to a serious competitive advantage for our customers.

• We turn EV charger consumption into half-hourly data
• Meaning businesses get real value from their chargers to continue targeting energy waste and saving costs

You need to protect the value that your energy management and efficiency projects bring to your business when you install EV chargers.

We provide our Half Hourly data as standard with our EV charging solutions because we know how vital it is to saving energy costs for businesses.

2. Remove the risk of new EV chargers not being managed properly

Having new kit to manage is never easy – someone must be responsible for them to get the most value from them.

We recognised that and provided a fully managed service to handle all the Charge Point Operation platform:

• Our expert team handles the setup, training and implementation and the ongoing management of all the new systems.
• When you have new EV drivers to add or want to change the prices you charge, a simple email to our team solves it.

This removes the risk of employees not having the time to dedicate to managing EV chargers.

3. Make sure EV chargers are chosen for the quality and accuracy of data

To provide accurate data, we rely on accurate meters.
And It’s no different for EV chargers.

We install MID-approved chargers, so we know they’re on par with utility meter standards for data accuracy.

Having charge point assets which are sufficiently tested to provide quality data enhances the Total Cost of Ownership, because you know you’re getting a quality product which performs to the standard you need.

4. Reduce operational costs by using a single Charge Point Operator

Another easy way to maximise your Total Cost of Ownership is having a single CPO for all your chargers.

You risk damaging the Total Cost of Ownership by having multiple EV providers by being unable to monitor performance, utilisation and other service level expectations.

We’ve seen companies install EV chargers in a piecemeal approach, resulting in unclear records of what they have installed and who is responsible for them.

Using Stark as the sole Charge Point Operator means we’re basically a free asset management system for all your EV chargers.

That’s why we promote EV adoption – where we can take on your existing EV chargers as well as install new ones.

Just like we do with our customers’ main utility meters.

5. Maximise performance with responsive maintenance

You can easily improve your Total Cost of Ownership for EV chargers by ensuring that you get the best support and maintenance to reduce downtime of assets.

We’ve seen customers report poor aftercare and lack of maintenance for their EV chargers from other providers.

We don’t accept this.
We transfer our 40 years plus of metering expertise over to our charge point service:

• Nationwide in-house EV engineers for site visits
• 24/7/365 UK-based help centre for EV drivers to use
• Access to our team of EV charging experts
• Dedicated Account Manager

So, whether it’s queries, strategy support, remote fixes or on-site maintenance we’ve got it covered.