The Slovenian Government is part of the international gospel of electric mobility, and we, the taxpayers, are helping in a big way by financing the purchases of expensive electric vehicles that cost up to 45,000 euros. The government is so heavily subsidising electric vehicles that even companies are benefiting from incentives. But the basis of electromobility is in the word electricity. Electric cars need to be charged, and here – as in all things where the electricity grid is at stake – we are extremely uncompetitive. We charge electric cars at almost the highest cost in the European Union.
The web portal Visual Capitalist has recently published a graph showing the average cost of a 25-minute fast charge of an electric car per 100 km at a public charging station in different European countries. The data comes from the European Alternative Fuels Observatory (EAFO), from the year 2024. To account for differences between electric cars, the Tesla Model 3 was used as the dataset. Price information was obtained from public DC fast charging stations. The European Alternative Fuels Observatory then calculated the average price per country.
Norway and Slovenia are the most expensive
In most of Europe, charging costs range between 0 euros and 5 euros per 100 km. The cheaper stand-out countries are Iceland (2.9 euros), Portugal (3.2 euros) and Finland (4.6 euros). In Slovenia, however, 100 kilometres of electric mobility is staggeringly expensive – if you want to drive 100 kilometres, you’ll have to pay 17 euros for charging.
The media outlet Euronews reports that Iceland’s abundant renewable energy sources are driving down the cost of charging electric vehicles. The portal highlights Norway and Slovenia with charging costs between 17 and 19 euros per 100 km, pointing out that these figures are also a reflection of the country’s electricity sources, energy prices and taxes. In Norway, for example, prices are 25 percent higher than the EU average. In general, countries with a higher share of renewable energy sources have lower prices, while countries with expensive energy imports (such as Germany) have higher prices.
The green transition is only happening on paper
The figures are not surprising. Charging infrastructure in Slovenia is in a very poor state, and private providers who have built public charging stations are having to adapt to high electricity prices (which are among the highest in the European Union, and will surely be even higher with the new way of charging electricity that is coming in the following months). So, what does this say about Slovenia’s green transition? That it is built on words, promises and virtue-signalling.
We are already financing the Green Deal, but what are we getting out of it?
We are already paying huge levies on every electricity bill and on every litre of fuel for the so-called Green Transition, and specifically for the transition to electric mobility. Meanwhile, there is no talk of a public network of electric charging points.
Most of the money from the funds that go into the transition to electric mobility goes into subsidising expensive SUVs for the rich, not into the necessary things such as upgrading the grid and setting up charging stations, which is a prerequisite for electric mobility in the first place.
Electricity is deliberately getting more expensive every day
What’s more, the state is doing everything in its power to make electricity as expensive as possible, by forcing renewables where they are not appropriate, and by sabotaging the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant 6 project (TEŠ6) and the project for building the second reactor of the Krško Nuclear Power Plant. As long as things remain as they are today, only the rich will drive electric cars – at the expense of those who are afraid to use the washing machine during the day because of the high tariffs brought about by the new grid charges.
I. K.
