Charging & costs
An EV without your own wallbox: what public charging costs a year
If you rent, you do not simply put a wallbox on your parking space. The property decides that. The question behind it is not a technical one but a calculation: what does an electric car cost if you charge it exclusively in public? At 12’000 kilometres a year it is CHF 1’631 at the fast charger instead of CHF 555 at home, so CHF 1’076 more. Against a petrol car of the same size, CHF 115 are still left over.
The calculation, in one table
Four assumptions go into it, and they are the ones the «Total cost» tab calculates with: 12’000 kilometres a year, 18 kWh consumption per 100 kilometres, 6,8 litres for the petrol car, unleaded 95 at CHF 2.14. That makes 2’160 kWh or 816 litres a year. Between the rows only the price per kWh differs.
| Where you charge | centimes/kWh | per year |
|---|---|---|
| at home, household tariff | 25,68 | CHF 555 |
| public, alternating current (median) | 50,0 | CHF 1’080 |
| public, direct current (median) | 75,5 | CHF 1’631 |
| petrol car, for comparison | — | CHF 1’746 |
The household tariff is the official Swiss figure for tariff year 2026, profile H5 («house with an electric car»). The two public prices are medians across the networks Swisscharge lists on its roaming card: 7 with alternating current, 8 with direct current. They are not weighted by usage. Nobody in Switzerland publishes how much is charged at which plugs.
The margin over the petrol car is thin
CHF 115 a year is 6,6 per cent. Charging exclusively at the fast charger therefore costs neither more nor noticeably less than petrol; the energy advantage of the electric car is practically used up in that case. The tipping point is at 80,8 centimes per kWh. Above that the electricity costs more than the fuel.
And the networks are far apart. The cheapest direct-current network on the same card asks 65,0 centimes and comes to CHF 1’404 a year, CHF 342 below the petrol car. The most expensive asks 119,0 centimes and comes to CHF 2’570, CHF 824 above it. On alternating current the range runs from 37,0 to 86,0 centimes.
Against the petrol car it is about CHF 115 a year. Between the cheapest and the most expensive fast-charging network it is about CHF 1’166.
What you pay depends on the card
The same plug costs two different amounts with two different charging cards. The table above takes the roaming prices of a single card; the operators’ own apps can be below that, and we have evidence for this only for the five networks one insurance card carries. Three items come on top that sit in no price per kWh:
- Session fee. Some cards charge an amount per session, regardless of the quantity. On small charges that shifts the price per kWh markedly.
- Idle fee. Several networks charge per minute on top from 61 or 91 minutes. Anyone parked overnight at a public plug pays it.
- Monthly fee. A charging subscription pays off from a certain quantity, and that quantity depends on the tariff you would otherwise pay. There is no general threshold; we therefore name none.
The prices are copied down and dated, not retrieved. There is no open series of Swiss charging tariffs, and several operators do not publish their prices at all. GOFAST writes on its own site that the price differs from station to station and is shown in the app.
Whether there is a plug nearby at all
In August 2026 the Swiss Federal Office of Energy counted 19’620 public charging plugs at 18’874 charging stations across 8’827 locations; 4’645 plugs deliver more than 100 kilowatts. The three figures are often thrown together, yet they measure different things, and «charging point» is none of them.
From an individual charging location, the nearest fast charger from 42 kilowatts is 0,7 kilometres away at the median and under 4,6 kilometres for nine out of ten locations; there are around 1’300 such locations. The measurement runs from existing locations and not across the area: a valley without any charger does not appear in the calculation at all. For your own address only a look at the map answers it.
The household socket as a substitute
If you have a parking space with a socket but no wallbox, you are working with 2,3 kilowatts. In eight hours 18,4 kWh add up, enough for around 102 kilometres. For 12’000 kilometres a year that takes around 117 charging nights.
Arithmetically that works out, technically it is the exception: the circuit of an ordinary socket is not built for continuous load, and the charging brick usually limits to 8 to 10 amperes. For regular use, a permanently installed charging point belongs there, connected by a licensed firm.
What we do not know
- How often a Swiss charger is used. The SFOE series knows the stock and not the charging sessions. Whether a free plug is there in the evening is not stated by any figure on this page.
- What the operators’ apps cost. The roaming prices of one card are documented; we do not check the direct tariffs across the board.
- What charging at work costs. Some employers give it away, others bill it. We know of no Swiss survey on this.
- How many rental properties have a charging option. There is no Swiss statistic on this that we could verify.
What this means for a purchase
- Without your own connection the energy advantage remains, but barely. CHF 115 a year against the petrol car is no reason to switch. Anyone switching for other reasons loses nothing on the electricity.
- The charging card decides more than the model. Between the cheapest and the most expensive direct-current network there are CHF 1’166 a year.
- Where you can charge slowly, you pay around half. At work or overnight in a car park it is CHF 1’080 instead of CHF 1’631.
- Ask the management before you calculate. The guides for rental and condominium property were produced jointly by Swiss eMobility, HEV and SVIT. wattradar does not advise on this and arranges no installation.
Sources: Swiss Federal Office of Energy, «Key figures about the charging infrastructure for electrical vehicles», as of August 2026, and «Charging stations for electric cars» via geo.admin.ch. Household tariff: ElCom tariff data 2026 via LINDAS, profile H5. Charging prices: Swisscharge, «Charging Prices at Swisscharge», as of January 2026, retrieved on 11.09.2026. Fuel: TCS, average fuel prices, unleaded 95 at CHF 2.14 of 19.09.2026. Guides for properties: built2charge by Swiss eMobility, HEV and SVIT.
Transparency: the annual amounts are calculated and not surveyed, so consumption times price without charging losses. They contain the energy alone: session fees, idle fees, monthly fees and parking fees are not in them, and they run in both directions. The public prices are medians across the networks of a single roaming card and are not weighted by usage; a weighted figure would require charging sessions that nobody publishes. The assumptions on kilometres and consumption are the same as in the «Total cost» tab and are read from there at every build. Every figure in this article is recalculated at every npm test and searched for in the text, in all four languages.
