Welcome to Singapore, we have multiple EV charging systems and apps to use public chargers and each service has different experiences and quality of service. I have written a post that have a look at a compiled list of service providers we have in Singapore
I would say that one of the worst would be BlueSG and Charge+, in this post I’ll list my 2 experiences using the Charge+ service. It is good that they are pretty much everywhere but the way they charge users are not the best idea and an annoyance if you ask me.
Charging Infrastructure
There is a few things to look out for in this category. In Singapore, they have a relatively good quantity of chargers located conveniently in carparks and private estates and with a relatively strong support from the government, they are largely well publicized. Now as the title of this post imply, they are also one of the most annoying EV charging service providers in Singapore which I’ll explain more below.
Ease of Use
Their app is very easy to use but there is something funky going on with their terms of service and this is where it hits a brick wall. You are required to top up into their E-wallet to be able to use their service. Now this is different from the Shell Recharge E-wallet system where it is optional to top up, Charge+ require you to top up $25 to be able to use this service.
At first I thought, that’s alright. I’ll top up once and use it till its run out before topping up again the next time, after which I went ahead to top up this Charge+ Credits wallet and did my first charge. The annoyance doesn’t end there. When I used this service a 2nd time, it prompted me that I will not be allowed to start charging and the reason is because I had lesser than $25 worth of credits. This is ridiculous! Effectively, Charge+ is having a $25 deposit held with each user that would like to use this service. This was a BIG annoyance. I’ll try to prevent everyone to avoid this charging provider! The only user I would recommend using this company is if you have this service provider right in your estate and it is more convenient to use.
Now as you can see in the picture on the right, I have $40 worth of credits. This is the minimum you would need to start charging because effectively you are not allowed to have lesser than $25 in the account and ON TOP OF THAT, you could only top up in $25 intervals. This made me really annoyed because if every service provider does this, effectively every app would cost be $40 as a deposit to use the service. I would recommend Charge+ to think twice when having such a payment structure on their app because I would be cancelling this account as soon as possible and I’ll do a post about the process of getting back this money. We’ll see how easy it is to get money back from them.
Conclusion
EV charging service providers seem to be finding new methods to keep your money, avoid them! If you can, use SP utilities to get your charging done. They are so far the most affordable and reasonable service in Singapore, they are obviously the best because they seem to be willing to invest in better chargers that make sense for the use case here in Singapore. With that being said I do realise that it is almost impossible to avoid this charger if you stay near one, do note that this credits will be gone if the company closes so do not top up too much if you dont need to.
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