Going to a public place to fill up your car with fuel is very normal, but when that filling up is going to take more than 5 mins with electric cars. Yes, sadly that is going to be the future. Mostly public charging stations will be the way to go. Maybe there will be new communities coming up to keep all the waiting EV owners occupied and more grocery shops at petrol pumps so people can do shopping while their car gets charged.
However, the first thing is to find a charger. To make the lives of EV owners in the UAE easy, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority announced in 2015 that it will be installing 100 EV Green Chargers and since then this number has increased to 325 chargers across Dubai. If you haven’t signed in to DEWA’s Green Initiative then it will cost you 29 Fils per kW to charge your electric car. IF you have, then it's completely free for you. You can find all the DEWA charging stations by opening their map by clicking on these blue words.
One thing to keep in mind is the charger available at public stations. If your car’s battery is fully drained, then it might take 10 hours to reach just 80% charge if it's got a big battery. The DEWA stations have Level 2 chargers installed which allow for a shorter recharge time. DEWA has installed four types of chargers across the UAE - Ultrafast Charger (150 kW DC with type 2 Socket), Fast Charger (43 kW AC with Type 2 Socket, 50 kW DC ChadeMO and Combo CCS Sockets), Public Charger (2 x 22 kW AC, with double Type 2 Socket) and Wall-Box (22 kW AC, with single Type 2 Socket).
Once a person registers the electric vehicle with Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), DEWA will create an EV account through DEWA website, Smart App or through IVR at DEWA Customer Care Centre and issue a card which the customer can recharge.
With Amazon Alexa coming in most cars these days, DEWA became the first government entity to add its virtual employee to Alexa named Rammas. Rammas will be your AI assistant and you can ask it questions like consumption details, bill balance and the general queries related to the DEWA charging stations. And there’s more good news in terms of charging stations in the UAE as sometime in 2022, the fastest charging point currently on the market - Terra 360 - will become available for public use. Things are looking really good for EV buyers in the UAE.
But if you don’t find public chargers convenient and would like to install one at your own home, then do read our guide on charging your vehicle at home.
