The Price Jungle
What public charging actually costs — published tariff anchors, the ad-hoc premium, and what the competition authority found.
Public charging tariffs in Germany spanned roughly €0.29 to €0.89 per kilowatt-hour in mid-2026, depending on operator, contract, AC or DC, and roaming — against household electricity at about €0.30–0.35.
The gap between paying ad hoc and holding a contract is the widest split: an ADAC survey of motorway fast charging in May 2025 found ad-hoc charging up to 62% more expensive than the same operator's contract tariff.
The Bundeskartellamt's sector inquiry (final report October 2024) found competition in charging electricity often does not function properly — but also that price differences do not prove systematic nationwide overpricing, since low utilisation can justify high prices. It rejected price caps as counterproductive.
A snapshot of published tariffs, dated at the source; the BNetzA collects no tariff data, so this is a cited range, not a settled figure.