GridCars launches subscription service for EV owners with home-charging systems

Luis

Luis

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New R299-per-month service pays electric car owners to charge at home

GridCars has announced the launch of a subscription service for EV owners with home-charging systems, allowing them to earn public-charging tokens for each kilowatt-hour charged at home.

In a LinkedIn post, GridCars director Winstone Jordaan said that customers who register in August 2026 will pay no more than R99 per month for their first six months, starting in September 2026.
 
This sounds pretty interesting. So you charge at home on solar for free, building up public charging credits and then when solar is bad or you're away from home, you charge for free from public chargers. I guess it depends on whether you'd need to use enough public charging cost per month to justify the subscription costs.
 
1am7h30n3 said:
This sounds pretty interesting. So you charge at home on solar for free, building up public charging credits and then when solar is bad or you're away from home, you charge for free from public chargers. I guess it depends on whether you'd need to use enough public charging cost per month to justify the subscription costs.
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I am confused, how does this benefit Gridcars? You charge for free at home and they give you credits to use at one of their public stations? Why would they do this? Am I missing something ?
 
marine1 said:
I am confused, how does this benefit Gridcars? You charge for free at home and they give you credits to use at one of their public stations? Why would they do this? Am I missing something ?
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I think their trying to incentivise a change in mindset, where you rather use your own power for charging unless you really need a top-up, thus freeing up their chargers for those emergency top-ups. This would also help with PHEVs clogging their network and rather have them charging at home.

Here's a little something to stay away unless you really need to.
 
marine1 said:
I am confused, how does this benefit Gridcars? You charge for free at home and they give you credits to use at one of their public stations? Why would they do this? Am I missing something ?
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Why GridCars Is Doing This​

  • Ecosystem Lock-in: Most EV drivers do over 80% of their charging at home. By giving you public credits, GridCars ensures that whenever you do need public charging, you choose a GridCars or partner station over competitors.
  • Predictable Recurring Revenue: Moving customers from sporadic pay-as-you-go charging to a R299/month subscription guarantees steady revenue, regardless of how often you use public chargers.
  • Data & Grid Integration (Telemetry): By requiring an OCPP-connected smart charger, GridCars gets real-time data on residential charging habits and power consumption. In the long term, this grid data is valuable for demand management and virtual power plant (VPP) initiatives.
  • Hardware Ecosystem Control: Limiting eligibility to approved smart chargers and MID meters gives GridCars control over hardware standardisation in the South African market.

What’s the Catch?​

1. The Break-Even Math (The Biggest Catch)​

At the regular price of R299 per month, you earn R1 per kWh charged at home.

  • You must charge at least 299 kWh at home every month just to break even on the subscription fee.
  • Assuming an average EV energy consumption of ~18 kWh / 100 km, 299 kWh represents roughly 1,650 km of home-charged driving per month.
  • If you drive less than ~1,650 km/month: You are losing money on the subscription.
  • During the R99 promo: Break-even is 99 kWh (~550 km/month), which is easy for most daily drivers, but that rate only lasts 6 months.
  • Public AC charging in South Africa generally costs around R3.00–R5.00+ per kWh, while DC fast charging runs significantly higher.
  • Earning R1 credit per home-charged kWh means it takes 4 to 8 home-charged kWh to pay for 1 public-charged kWh
 
marine1 said:
I am confused, how does this benefit Gridcars? You charge for free at home and they give you credits to use at one of their public stations? Why would they do this? Am I missing something ?
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No you don't, you still pay for your charging at home, but you earn a bit of a discount for public charging.

They probably are doing this so they can get some recurring revenue and to get people to get more used to public charging.
 
konfab said:
No you don't, you still pay for your charging at home, but you earn a bit of a discount for public charging.

They probably are doing this so they can get some recurring revenue and to get people to get more used to public charging.
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Unless that is you have some PV on the roof and a battery to discharge at night.
But your point regarding the ongoing revenue stands. It’s important as it helps them with financing. Signing up 10,000 people each paying a flat rate of 299 guaranteed a month generates almost R3m revenue a month. Then they can go to a bank and get a loan say for R300m with the secured monthly income and expand their network with fast chargers. All for the low low price of R2-4/kWh cost on their side should someone actually want to use a charger.
 
marine1 said:
I am confused, how does this benefit Gridcars? You charge for free at home and they give you credits to use at one of their public stations? Why would they do this? Am I missing something ?
Click to expand...
My guess is that they are hoping that people pay R300 per month for the subscription but that they on average use less than R300 per month in accumulated credits. Kind of like a gym membership where their favorite client is the one that pays but doesn't come.

I think this only makes sense if you are putting in helleva lot of km on that EV every month all throughout the day.

Sounds good on the surface but for the majority of people this will be a net loss.
 
Adhvik said:

Why GridCars Is Doing This​

  • Ecosystem Lock-in: Most EV drivers do over 80% of their charging at home. By giving you public credits, GridCars ensures that whenever you do need public charging, you choose a GridCars or partner station over competitors.
  • Predictable Recurring Revenue: Moving customers from sporadic pay-as-you-go charging to a R299/month subscription guarantees steady revenue, regardless of how often you use public chargers.
  • Data & Grid Integration (Telemetry): By requiring an OCPP-connected smart charger, GridCars gets real-time data on residential charging habits and power consumption. In the long term, this grid data is valuable for demand management and virtual power plant (VPP) initiatives.
  • Hardware Ecosystem Control: Limiting eligibility to approved smart chargers and MID meters gives GridCars control over hardware standardisation in the South African market.

What’s the Catch?​

1. The Break-Even Math (The Biggest Catch)​

At the regular price of R299 per month, you earn R1 per kWh charged at home.

  • You must charge at least 299 kWh at home every month just to break even on the subscription fee.
  • Assuming an average EV energy consumption of ~18 kWh / 100 km, 299 kWh represents roughly 1,650 km of home-charged driving per month.
  • If you drive less than ~1,650 km/month: You are losing money on the subscription.
  • During the R99 promo: Break-even is 99 kWh (~550 km/month), which is easy for most daily drivers, but that rate only lasts 6 months.
  • Public AC charging in South Africa generally costs around R3.00–R5.00+ per kWh, while DC fast charging runs significantly higher.
  • Earning R1 credit per home-charged kWh means it takes 4 to 8 home-charged kWh to pay for 1 public-charged kWh
Click to expand...

So by and large going off those numbers, this isn't really a great deal for the end user.

Just seems to be financial and data upsides for Gridcars really.
 
This seems a bit mental. Are they trying to get you to install a charger on their network at your home???
Is it just the subscription they are after.

It doesn't make any sense!
 
richjdavies said:
This seems a bit mental. Are they trying to get you to install a charger on their network at your home???
Is it just the subscription they are after.

It doesn't make any sense!
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It does for them.

They get complete charging data, and a predictable long running income from the user that would outweigh what they would make from the user otherwise... Win win for them.
 
This is brilliant! I now have no reason to NOT buy an EV with my own solar system. Goodbye petrol forever!
 
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