Stellos Playbook · EV Charging

EV Charging Integration: How Parking Operators Can Profit from the Transition

Let me tell you about the moment EV charging stops being a tenant request and starts being a line on the P&L. For most parking operators, it has not happened yet. Switzerland reached 25 percent of new car sales being electric in 2024. The cars are already in the garages. The revenue model, for most operators, is still not there.

Stellos operates parking technology across Switzerland and Germany, trusted by teams at Google, Swisscom, Implenia, Wincasa, CWS and Sony.

The three revenue models and what decides between them

There are three ways a parking operator makes money from EV charging, and the right one depends on who your users are and how long they stay. The first is a session fee: a flat charge per parking session that includes electricity up to a defined cap, simple to communicate and easy to enforce. The second is energy pass-through: you charge the user at cost plus a margin per kWh, which scales with consumption and rewards operators who can access cheap grid electricity. The third is a subscription: a monthly fee for a reserved charging spot, which suits commuter garages with predictable daily users.

In practice, most commercial garages use a hybrid: session fee for short-stay visitors, subscription for monthly parkers, and energy pass-through for high-utilisation overnight users. The decision is not philosophical. It is a spreadsheet that multiplies average dwell time by average consumption by your margin per kWh.

AC versus DC: the economics that actually decide your hardware

AC charging at 7 to 22 kW costs CHF 1'500 to CHF 3'500 per unit installed, depending on cabling distance from the panel. It delivers full charge overnight to any current EV, which covers the majority of long-stay and commuter use cases perfectly. A 22 kW AC charger in a commuter garage running at 70 percent utilisation over 250 working days generates CHF 8'500 to 14'000 in annual session revenue at Swiss rates.

DC fast charging at 50 to 150 kW costs CHF 25'000 to CHF 80'000 per unit, plus civil work and often a grid connection upgrade. It is justified where dwell time is short, typically under 90 minutes, and where the user base is willing to pay a premium for speed. The revenue per session is higher, but the installation cost payback period at typical utilisation in a commercial garage is 8 to 14 years. The business case for DC charging in standard parking garages is thin unless your location has exceptional passing trade or serves motorway-adjacent use cases. Put AC in first, meter utilisation for 12 months, and let demand tell you whether DC is justified.

Smart grid integration and why load management changes the calculation

The single biggest operational cost in a multi-charger installation is demand charges: grid operators bill commercial customers based on their peak draw in a 15-minute window, and a garage where 20 cars all start charging at 08:05 Monday morning can produce a demand spike that raises the electricity bill for the entire month. Load management software, which is what the Stellos platform does for EV charging, staggers charging sessions across spots so the aggregate draw stays within a contracted ceiling. The effect on the electricity bill at a 30-spot EV installation can be CHF 12'000 to 20'000 per year.

Smart charging also enables time-of-use pricing, where users pay less to charge at 02:00 than at 18:00, shifting demand to cheap overnight grid hours. For operators with dynamic electricity contracts, the margin on that overnight energy can be 40 to 60 percent higher than peak-hour margin. Swiss grid operators (the Verteilnetzbetreiber) require a grid connection agreement for installations above 11 kW. Factor that timeline, typically 4 to 12 weeks, into your project schedule.

The 5-year asset premium story

Here is the financial case that often closes the board discussion. EV-ready parking spots command a 15 to 20 percent premium on monthly contracts compared with non-EV spots in the same garage, according to 2025 lease data across Stellos-managed properties in Switzerland and Germany. That premium is durable: it reflects a real scarcity, because the supply of EV-ready commercial parking is still well below demand, particularly in dense urban locations.

The NOI uplift from converting 20 spots in a 100-spot garage to EV-ready, assuming the 15 percent contract premium plus charging session revenue, typically ranges from CHF 25'000 to 45'000 per year at Swiss market rates. At a commercial cap rate of 4.5 to 5.5 percent, that NOI gain represents CHF 450'000 to 1'000'000 in additional asset value. The charger hardware and civil work to achieve it costs CHF 80'000 to 150'000 for 20 AC units including cabling. The multiple on investment, in asset value terms, is 3 to 10 times the installation cost. The nDSG-compliant data collected from charging session logs also feeds your ESG reporting and tenant transparency requirements under Swiss data protection law.