And this is my point. I don’t have to join some scheme of Shell or Esso to buy their petrol. Why do we need to do it to buy electricity? Why can’t it be advertised and sold at a charging machine at ‘x’ pence per kWh and paid for with a credit card?
Shell EV chargers cost 39p/kWh, you can pay with credit or debit card. If you use the Shell Recharge card it may cost less, I think it was 35p/kWh when I used one. There is no monthly fee for this card.
BP EV chargers cost 30p/kWh debit/credit card, 25p/kWh app, 15p/kWh membership card… for a 50kW rapid, it costs more for their new 150kW ultra-rapid chargers.
So yes you can use the same credit card method as with the petrol, but you may get it cheaper with their loyalty cards or membership schemes.
The membership schemes started because no-one knew if any of these chargers would be needed so it was a way to guage how many & how often they’d be used before rolling more of them out. Now we are moving towards contactless credit & debit cards, e.g. Instavolt chargers, although shockingly I have an RFID card that works for those too, ChargePoint I think it is, it costs the same on the instavolt chargers but can get you a small discount on the Ionity chargers, etc.