In our small town we have 24 22 kW chargers - 12 in each of the two main car parks. When they were put in a year or so ago there were many complaints about the loss of 12 parking spaces and lots of people saying they would never be used. Last Thursday I was walking through one of the car parks and found 9 of them simultaneously in use. (I thought at first that one of them was ICEd by a Range Rover but it turned out to be some sort of EV and it was charging too.) It won't be long before we need more.
Yesterday, I went to my local supermarket which has a massive amount of 4 chargers... NONE of them were in use. In fact it is one of God's own created rare events when I go shopping and even 1 is in use. EV. Nope, not for me thanks. And I don't seem to be alone in that thought
11 years ago when I got my first EV there were like 20 type2 chargers in my city (The Hague, Netherlands), now there are 4692. It really moved from an oddity for pioneers to a normal thing that many people use.
A year ago, I worked for a large, household name company. They had around 50 chargers for staff to use. One, yes one, actually worked! OK, it was the end of the pandemic, but still. I was the only person who raised the issue and worked the problem to get them all fixed. They needed upgrades. They needed new charge cards. They need repairs. But we got there. Eventually. You are welcome 49 other staff members who used the now working chargers. What I don't get is why so few actually even bother to report problems. That is surely the start of the process is making public/work-place chargers work properly?
A publically-accessible reporting point would be a good starting point, with regular spot-checks and reviews of the work being done. Sort of a ZAP-MAP with accountability. Or give Zap- Map some powers to get things done.
I work at a University - they installed a single charger (two 3.6kw sockets 🙄) in our car park in the second half of 2020, and proudly trumpeted this fact on their Sustainability website. It was November 2021 before they worked, and even now they are still marked as disabled spaces...
The infrastructure in this country is awful. To have to plan every journey longer than 100 miles is ridiculous. Especially when so much is down to luck and chance. I will be going back to ICE when my lease ends. To have so few chargers around that charge so much and are frequently unreliable is abysmal.
I’ve just had a day of this. Drive for Amazon part time in my leaf. Too many 50kw chargers and big battery cars on them for over an hour. Mid shift with 12 miles left I found a solitary charger available at kfc. Just ridiculous. There’s more and faster ones at mcDonalds than there are at motorway services. I’m tempted to go back on everything I believe in and get a diesel again. I won’t but it’s so tempting.
Wise choice to go back to diesel. There is never going to be enough working charges. The cost runs to tens of billions of pounds and National grid will take decades to upgrade the infrastructure ,probaly even longer, if we are forced to install useless heat pumps
Currently 8 22KW chargers and 4 7KW chargers are either awaiting connection or awaiting commisioning spread across council carparks near me, they have been waiting since early July last year. A local Lidls has been built and has had a working 50KW CCS & Chademo connection and a 22KW CCS connection in the time it's taken for these council chargers to be installed, connected and activated.
accross the road from my house is a small group of shops with a costa coffee, and a harvester pub. In the carpark, there are two brand new and unused rapid chargers (speed unknown), they are under canvas covers. The project to start the installation started in late 2019 before the first covid lock down. As of today, the parking spaces are fully painted, the site looks ready to go, but the chargers are still covered over canvas covers, and the parking bays have bollards in front of them.
In Canada there is a gas station (petrol station) chain, PetroCan, that has installed a coast to coast chain of 150kW rapid chargers. When they were installed they were fantastic, head and shoulders above everyone else. Initially free and then very competitive for the first couple of years. And then they started breaking, and they just never got repaired, or they would say they were repaired and they still wouldn’t work. The two locations we used to stop at have each have one station down and they have been down for two years. The remaining station never goes above 45kW. And to top it off they’ve doubled the price!
My wife drives to most schools in our county as part of her work. The 2 newest schools have level 2 chargers in the staff parking lot. After we bought our PHEV she asked about using the chargers. In both cases the principals were very excited that someone was finally going to use the chargers, but neither of them could get the things to work. A year and a half later, the cables have been cut off at one school and my wife doesn't currently go to the other. The infrastructure was there to reduce our gas consumption, but it was never used, and may never be used.
Had a similar issue with new chargers at a new housing estate they worked for the fist 20ish times I visited my friends house but the lockdowns caused the office block they were next to to close and then they got powered down by the charge company buy when I needed to use them after lockdown the company said the have not been used in years and would need a hands on to get them working again. I had just enough charger to make it to the airport on my way home to get a charge, but I had to sit with the old car for 2 hours for it to get enough to get me home.
Part of the problem is that councils would rather promote the use of walking, cycling and public transport. The private motorist is at the bottom of their priority list.
MFG installed a bank of chargers on the A299. They were out of use for months. When I asked in the petrol station it appeared no one asked the farmers permission to run the power cables across his land. It took months before they were working. Glad to say they are now active.
I've only had my EV for a few months but so far I've found that the bigger charging brands are the one to use - eg Instavolt, Fastned and Gridserve. They're costly but so far I've found the networks reliable. Local authorities are the last people we should expect to provide chargers - not their core business and they are not competent to do so.
And when it is the local authority, is usually in a Pay car park or they're just occupied by council vehicles or staff, plugged in all night and finished charge.
A government change is needed. The Australian Government in charge now has changed the game from the anti EV stance of the previous government, and this is what the UK needs
If you ask any charging network provider, they will tell you that BY FAR the biggest obstacle is the permitting process. There is massive opposition (led by the fossil industry) out there for EVs and chargers. The politicians are bought out and delay it as long as they can or finally get voted out.
@@colinmacdonald5732 unless you've been under a rock, the scale of corruption under the criminally corrupt government that has been in place for the past 13 years, should be clear. Follow the money.
Simply put, ANY politician blocking this kind of stuff needs immediate barring from public office; removal of any/all pension rights and the threat of jail. Gotta focus their `minds` somehow. GET IT DONE or get out, that's my mantra... Guvingment have declared the objective and timescale, so it CANNOT be allowed to be tolerated any longer.
@@Umski or as this video says, bureaucracy stops them being connected but the charging company gets the blame. What is the business sense of paying money to install a charger and deliberately not earning money from it?
@@watcher24601 the cynic in me suggests it’s a show of “willing” on the part of BP but the reality is that they profit more from selling petrol and diesel so why fast track third parties selling electricity on their patch? ICE customers then see that the EV charging infra in their favoured stations is non-existent and stick with what they have…when customers ask staff they say ‘coming soon’ or ‘no demand’ or ‘prices for petrol will go up if we turn those on so we haven’t’ 🙄
No, money to buy them! No infrastructure in the world would make the cost of EVs palatable, for me personally. Even if have a charger that follows me everywhere, the cost is just outrageous!
I think a big part of these delays is that the local DNO often has to literally SUE some NiMBY to obtain the wayleave to run the needed power. Those lawsuits can literally take years. As an example, I point to 4x 150kW Shell Recharge rapids on the A55 at Ewloe. Originally installed in the summer of 2020, they STILL have no power due to one such ongoing lawsuit.
The public chargers in my council are still free to use. There is one rapid charger in my town and the council have refused to repair it, instead they have removed it from the network. Despite a few months prior they sent out a survey to ask ev drivers what problems they were experiencing and what type of charging infrastructure would they like.
The switch to EVs is a massive transport infrastructure change with no connected strategy - simple as that. We should have never started HS2 and spent the money on EV charging infrastructure
10 years ago, yes 10 years. I asked my local council about putting some destination chargers in the car parks on Hayling Island seafront. The reply was of course 'we are looking into it'. There are still no chargers installed.
Good rant! 👍 This is why I avoid Local Authority locations and concentrate on commercial sites such as those used by providers such as Gridserve, Osprey, Ionity and, increasingly, Instavolt. As you say, that doesn't avoid buck-passing entirely. There is another fundamental problem at the moment. Petrol/Diesel fuel stops have a massive daily throughput which encourages other retail opportunities but, despite the increasing sales of EV's, the daily throughput is much, much smaller and slower. As a result, the additional retails opportunities are massively reduced. But keep ranting!! 😅
When I visited in Sweden a few days ago one petrol station had a "temporary" charger. It's a movable unit with battery storage and 4 Kempower dispensers capable to share out 300kW of power load balanced. The 300kWh battery storage means it only needs at a minimum a 43kW grid connection. All packaged in a unit that is the same size as a 20feet container which means regulatory it is much easier to get approval to put down a "temporary" structure which is basically a container in your car park and hook up a relatively small grid connection to it. Not sure if the approval process is as easy in the UK for "temporary" chargers. As long as you have the right to use the land they can sit there for basically as long as you want to, its a container after all, but they can also be removed in a matter of hours and transported somewhere else should you wish. So current sites that has a measly 50kW charger now can very easily be upgraded to 4 HPCs without needing any larger grid connection. I hope this comes to the UK soon as we really need more HPCs everywhere.
I started in 2016 and called dozens of Swiss agencies about the charging infrastructure. They all made promises of having a massive rollout in 3 months, then 6 months, then by 2020, and now it's for 2030. I had the documents for the IEA and the OECD about having one million chargers in Germany and France for 2015. They had about 12,000 chargers, and most of them slow chargers. I bought 2 vehicles for a metal construction company and they had to renounce at using them since the network was so piss poor. Geneva installed their first rapid charger in 2018, and installed it in a parking garage in the airport. One rapid charger. We've had several chargers installed for a year before they were hooked up in my town. This is a criminal issue.
Thrapston service was renovated about 2 years ago with shiny new shell chargers, yet to be connected. Also nearby on the A1 near Wittering there is a Genie point that hasn't worked properly for around 18 months.
Genie Point have two failed on my regular route (Haslemere and Petersfield). In fact about 40% of the ones on their map locally seem to be failed. The whole company may be in trouble.
Spot on presentation of the latest situation. There are bright spots and terrible examples as you have shown. We have had electric (100%) for our only car for over 3 years now and the situation is better than 3 years ago. I just hope we can continuing doing the very British thing of ‘muddling through’!
The closest charge site to myself has 2 old chargeplace Scotland "evolt" charge point. 2x 22kW and 2x 11kW connections available. Reasonably reliable so far. It's a council owned car park and to their credit, work started a year ago on 10 new charge points including 4 rapids. Works seem to have concluded within a few weeks, but now a year later they still haven't been commissioned. These are the only charge points in Annan.
I always take the 'can't afford it excuse' with a pinch of salt. I live in the Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, the 3rd smallest Borough in London with a population of 185,000 and the 5th lowest council tax in the country and yet the council have managed along with partners to install nearly 3000 charging points across the borough. It can be done if there is a will and commitment to make it happen.
It can be done with that council because it's a wealthy one. The lower the council tax, the wealthier the council. Also I would expect most of those councillors can more than afford buying a couple of EVs, so they have a personal gain for installing chargers
@@RavzzG Hardly a wealthy council, they can't afford the money to repair Hammersmith Bridge which is a main arterial route from South to North London. Bridge has now been out of action for 3 years and at least another 3 years until it can take cars again. By the looks of it it's going to have to be private money with a toll installed
A council in London with thousands of tourists and commuters daily to charge for electricity - that's not even close to a normal council area. It's also very important to take into account that 2,200 of those 2,800 total are lamp-post charging points, which usually only deliver 3kwh, so are useless for a quick charge in the same way people use petrol stations.
Hi EVM. I live in the ‘wonderful’ borough of Bexley. At least 3 car parks have had a bank of 6 chargers put in. I do not know what speed they are, maybe 7kw. They were installed months ago, and still not commissioned. No signage on or near them. Just grey boxes looking unhappy. Thanks for all you both do. Extremely informative. Like breathing, don’t give up! Tony Nisbet
4:24 You mentioned "I think there's an example Tesla installing something that never got up and running" That'll be the Fleet Southbound Services on the M3. In place and "Ready" in August 2017. The last post on the Tesla Owners Club Forum from January 2023 referenced the ongoing landowner still dispute preventing the power cable being installed. .
I noticed these in Fort William this week while I was sat at the superchargers. There was a third one next to them, uncovered, i'm not sure if that was working or if the cover had blown off.
Its the bt openreach problem. Doesnt matter who your isp is if you have a problem suddenly youre waiting on them and bt openreach to decide whose problem it is. Monopolies are bad but when its new public infrastructure theres really a lot to be said for a proper joined up national programme to get it up and functional.
Well done on your activism. We have some a bank of 6 new chargers in a new car park in the local park, no problem with them, but the car park isn’t open yet. Have seen some recent hi-vis activity, so hopefully not long. Our local council is pretty good at installing DC & AC chargers in its public car parks and my two local Shell forecourts have just had multiple new 150kW chargers installed. It’s a mixed picture, but the charging infrastructure is coming
As far as I can tell by reading comments online, the Gridserve charge points at the M1 Leicester Forest North & Southbound are still awaiting 'enough power'... On a much smaller scale, 2 teathered 'fast' charge points at The Mason's Arms in Rotherham, South Yorkshire - installed about 4 months ago... now covered over and not in use. 😕
Recently I wrote to the Leicester City Council complaining that in a city the size of Leicester it is disgusting that there is only one 50kW charger within the city boundary. This is at Morrisons supermarket, which recently wasn't working. So there are no rapid chargers on council land at all. Michael Black
It’s like Pi$$ing against the wind. In Ireland today they announced that EVs have outsold Diesel cars for the first quarter, I’m not sure whether to rejoice in this or fear for our future due to lack of infrastructure.
This is why the only really viable long distance electric car is still a Tesla… I know, I’ve done 37,000 miles over the last year in my standard range. Keep up the good work!
Tesla may not solve the council problem, but the stupid finger pointing of three different companies goes away. Then people wonder why most working chargers around are Tesla's.
My local town (Andover, Test Valley Hampshire) has to be commended for it's many 22kwh units in most public car parks in the town. Only a few local rapid's (3x perhaps) but local EV drivers without home callboxes are brilliantly served.
I see you were up my way again. The council are blaming Tesla for not allowing them access to "their" electric supply in order to connect those new chargers. The fun thing was that up till last October the chargers were left uncovered, so the council were managing to lose parking fees for 6 spaces in a very busy car park over the summer peak tourist season!
I will presume that there isn't sufficient power for a row of Superchargers as well as a batch of new chargers from another company. If I was Tesla and had agreed a power supply deal I wouldn't be happy if another charging company came along that may compromise our capacity. The Council shouldn't have agreed new chargers until the infrastructure was upgraded.
Here in Sheffield the council installed rapid chargers in several locations around the city. The nearest to me are in a rough area, I certainly wouldn't want to charge there at night. The council then sold them off to a private company and shortly after all the charge cables and connectors were cut off and stolen on 5 rapid chargers. That was inf February, last year, I reported the theft to the company, as yet they haven't been repaired and probably never will be. Incompitant council sticking the chargers in an area I could have told them this would happen.
In Sweden, the problem is totally opposite. The regulatory body gives a grant for building in rural areas, and the grants for this year must lead to a fast charge at the latest at December 31st. Sometimes, the electrical network has longer lead times and can only deliver by next year, so the charge operator can only say "Sorry, can't do that", and then they must apply for the grant next year instead.
Here in Corbridge, Northumberland, (a frequently visited large village) 2 public chargers were installed two years ago in the main street. For much of that time they sat there sadly with their little Connected Kerb hoods on them. Earlier this year, the footpath adjacent to them was dug up, presumably to install the cables. Unsurprisingly, nothing has happened since, and the little hoods on the top are looking very sad. There are no other public chargers in the village as far as I'm aware. Surprising? Not at all.
In Telford where I live is a Shell fuel station that has installed a couple of ev charging bays. It’s taken over a year to complete and now it is complete but not in service.
The public charging infrastructure is not there now and never will be. For the millions of people who cannot charge at home an EV is expensive, inconvenient and totally impractical.
Well it will be one day, chargers on every street for people to charge overnight, most people have access to home charging and if they don’t then they probably can’t afford an EV anyway
In my W Mids town there are already 11 public charging hubs, all with more than 1 charger, ranging from AC to 150kW DC, with another 6 charger hub imminent. Anyone who needs a public charge is spoilt for choice. To say the infrastructure isn’t there now (it already is) and never will be (it already is and more are being commissioned every day) is factually incorrect
In the town where I live in the North of England there are hundreds of terraced houses. Almost every house has a car parked outside every night. If only a quarter of these cars need a charge every night, where can they do it? There are only two public chargers in town in a supermarket car park with limited parking controlled byANPR cameras and which is closed every night by barriers thirty minutes after the shop closes. Several small towns and villages in this area have no public chargers at all. For the millions of people who cannot charge at home, running an EV is is impractical to the point of being impossible even if they can afford one in the first place.
@@johnpedelty3866 so what you meant was “public charging provision in my locality is poor”. That is wildly different to saying there will never be good infrastructure. There are already good solutions for terraced streets, from lamp post chargers, pop-up chargers and ducts to allow charging cables to cross the pavement safely. As I say, my local forecourts have already installed new high power charging hubs, there is nothing preventing the same happening where you live and in all the towns around you. Villages have parish councils, there is nothing stopping them working to get chargers installed. As EVM said, often the charging operators will do it for free if they can get agreement to use a site. This is a leadership issue, not a practicality issue
@@elliottquinton2084 Not true I’m afraid. Friends of ours live in a very nice 5 bed house in a city but it’s terraced with just on-street parking. They would love (and can definitely afford) an EV but won’t get one currently due to the poor infrastructure. Affordability has nothing to do with it for them.
When we are talking about public money with regard to increasing/maintaining chargers etc… do you think that the drastic reduction in government revenue by not receiving VED for EV’s has anything to do with it? Also, the reduction in fuel duty collected from the pumps? As I’ve said before I am an EV driver for the last 3 years, and not paying any VED/fuel duty is brilliant from a personal/business point of view, but the vast reduction in public money income surely plays a part in councils not being able to afford to install/maintain chargers. The money has to come from somewhere and, in a time where we have public health workers etc… on strike demanding more money from the public pot, where does it come from? As EV drivers we, surely, cannot expect public money to pay for everything when we are not contributing ourselves with regard to our vehicles?
Osprey installed some in Crewe that were covered up for 6 months plus - not sure on the reason but they're now active and work brilliantly. As for knackered units - Geniepoint have one of 3 rapids in Shrewsbury and it's been out of use since December... With various "awaiting spares/being replaced by a new unit soon" excuses being laid out on twitter depending on the day of the week... Either way it's frustrating to have a town with 80k people and just two working Instavolt 50's online...
The local BP petrol station at Four Marks GU34 5GZ has installed 2 Pulse 150 chargers. Took ages to be commissioned then worked for maybe a week and now been off line for around a month. It makes no sense as a business to spend the cost of an install and then not maximise the revenue by ensuring the chargers are working!
Depending on the grid network in the area this could involve bigger LV or more likely HV cables in the area. It could involve new substations or possibly new primary substations (the bigger ones). These are not just available off the shelf and are built to order. Larger substations can have a wait of years from order to delivery. Then you need permits from the council and dig teams to put in a base and lay cables. Before this legals need to happen to either buy land for the substation or get easements over or under it. Getting the substation to site may take specialist transport and/or cranes to get them in place. Teams need to be arranged to connect all the cables into the substation. A wait of years can be quite fast working.
Great video - thanks. I bought a Zoe ZE40 in 2017. I had it three years. At the time I turned up at chargers fairly confident I'd be the only car there. I went back to petrol in 2017 (basically I was bored with the Zoe and wanted a convertible).The other point is that charging was cheap or free three years ago - this is no longer the case. Even then I had to plan longer journeys carefully - I enjoy this but most people don't.
Been EV-ing for six months now. Ventured out on some long journeys but got stuck in Baildon, Shipley, West Yorkshire on a snowy day. Could not get the charger to work (after several attempts to reverse up a 1 in 3 slope in the council run car park!) When we rang the service provider, they knew plug B was not working but blamed the council for not having a service contract in place for the charging point. Totally ridiculous! Yes, EVcom is needed urgently
Several attempts to reverse up a slope is ridiculous too - I’m guessing you’re one of these who run summer tyres for 12 months of the year and then moan when you can’t get grip in winter. Hint, use winter tyres in winter or all seasons all year - it’s not always someone else’s fault.
@@chrisp3330 when have people ran winter tyres in England? Besides, I live in an apartment and would not have a place to keep four spare wheels. Which also means a can not charge my car at home which is why it’s important these chargers need to be working…which most certainly wasn’t my fault
@trick700 People in England have been using winter tyres for years - don’t forget, summer rubber isn’t as effective under 7 degrees C and so winter tyres are more common now than what you think. I’ve been running them for over 15 years on my main car and use all seasons on second car. Some dealers will actually store your winters for you if they have space, some won’t, you’ll have to ask. All seasons, however, for the majority of UK drivers are the best solution. And, no, it definitely isn’t your fault that chargers aren’t working.
really? 30kwh? it may not be gridserve's fault but that place is terrible in terms of speed and was exactly the site I thought of when thinking about an inadequate grid connection. I assume the apology signs are still up.
Not installed but not commissioned in Australia. However delays of weeks and often months for repairs of offline DC rapid chargers (excluding Tesla) is very common.
It doesn't matter how good Ev cars are, if the public charging network continues to be inadequate, expensive and unreliable, battery powered cars can never achieve a mass market in the UK.
A brand new out of town shopping area was built in Berwick (Loaning Meadows). The shops have been open and trading for about 9 months but the Osprey chargers which are in all the planning application documents are nothing but ducting and empty spaces.
I’ve had an EV for 8 months now. It’s been a 95% positive experience - the car itself is fantastic but the 5% bad is all down to bad public charging experiences. Luckily we home charge but the few trips we’ve done where we needed public charging have been variable to say the least. A couple of times all good - contactless chargers working, available and simple to use. Other times all sorts of issues - apps not working, need an RFID card, poor locations, contactless broken etc. etc. The problem is there are no standards (outside Tesla) - it’s a Wild West out there currently and it’s pushing us towards a Tesla next time (when they are cheaper!). We just need all chargers to be contactless and work the same way just like petrol stations do.
That’s an excellent point your making, I looked into ev ownership a couple of years ago, did some research on what car to own, range capabilities, home charger etc then found out that here in Wales (I live in North Wales) we had then only 4% of the UK’s chargers. It’s pretty much a given that not all of that 4% would be in working order, so ended my ev interest.
I recently asked my MP and then local councillors about installing chargers in my village to encourage adoption of EVs. There is a fair percentage of horses without driveways locally. There is a suitable location to site chargers in the village. My MP and councillors disagreed on if they had even applied for the government LEVI funding scheme. So it's hard to see it progressing much further. I had asked for their charging strategy. They said that they didn't have one but are working on it. Local elections are coming up so probably nothing happening for a while! I'm recently back from the Netherlands where on street parking for houses in towns was common and there were several chargers incorporated into this parking. They were mostly occupied which was very refreshing to see. It's absolutely possible if those in charge pull their finger out.
I understand that we are lucky here in Norway. Here we only have a few municipalities now without fast chargers. There are chargers at relatively short distances along all major roads
Richmond North Yorkshire, sunaks constuency. Two and a half years ago asked council when we would get chargers. 10 planned for, 4 in the town car park and 6 around the dales. Still waiting for them in 2023. Emailed the council again and never even got a reply.
I would think the company that installs the chargers collects the money from charging and should be responsible for repair. Council should not be in the middle of it?
Leicester Forest East northbound had new Gridserve units installed nearly a year ago - still covered over and the southbound units have now also been covered. Northampton southbound tripped when my car was charging on it (sounded like a power surge in the services as a load of alarms went off, then I got a “charge finished” notification) last May - still covered over now even though I told Gridserve on the day it happened.
Love these type of videos. A couple of examples for you, we have a Shell garage, Maresfield E. Sussex. Installed in weeks, took months to commission it and has spent more time not working then working in years it has been in. Months ago a BP garage in Lewes installed a new charger, I assume a 150kW unit, it still has barriers around it. The worse so far and they must have good reason for the delay, but Gridserve gained permission to install one of their large charging rest areas in Uckfield, E Sussex, this would also include a solar farm to help power it looking at the plans. As it was to be situated off of an existing roundabout they cut back all the hedgerows and bushes to make a start on this.. That was well over a year ago, now the hedge is back to where it started. Even though i probably will never use it as it will be a mile up from me and i charge at home, it is at a point where the A22, A272 & A26 all converge and other then 2 Instavolt charge points in town this area badly needs this to be built as the Shell and BP SINGLE chargepoints cannot be relied on
In Porthcawl, South Wales, a 50kW charger has sat behind some temporary fences for over a year. This is in a council car park and has Wesh government branding. No sign of it being commissioned. A new supermarket is being built nearby and I wonder if it's chargers will work first.
They need to put a limit on the time it takes to process things. Figure out what are the bottlenecks and make sure people have that lined up before the process even starts. That way you won’t end up with half built crap deteriorating because some final piece of paper wasn’t properly filled out.
The last time I was in Scotland, about 3 years ago, finding Chargeplace Scotland chargers that worked was an absolute nightmare. Used one just before crossing over into Skye, and 2 days later it was faulty on my return journey. The same story throughout my journey - that government-backed organisation seemed incapable of keeping chargers working.
There's another piece of the jigsaw that's not mentioned. Car park time restrictions! A lot of places where the chargers have been installed have maximum parking limits so if there is a queue forming for slow preforming rapid(s) then EV owners face the possibility of parking fines. I had this issue at Penrith a couple of weeks ago. More EV"s about but number of reliable rapid chargers not keeping up with demand
Exactly - and for this reason, if I can't complete the whole journey from home charging, I'll take the diesel instead. Costs about the same, so why risk the time and inconvenience of relying on public charging infrastructure?
I've had a much needed rapid charge in Skipton, so thank you EVM - much appreciated! Set of rapids at BP Soham (Cambridgeshire) have been installed for about 18 - 24 months.. still no sign of commissioning? I guess even BP have to bow to the grid / council ?
On our peninsula the village hall has 2 chargers, mostly out of action. The hall is constantly battling to try and get engineers to come and fix the things. It has got to the point were the hall is seriously thinking of having the chargers removed. It is embarrassing when someone in an EV turns up relying on getting some charge only to discover that the only chargers within 20 miles are out of action. Until there are major changes I wouldn't even consider going electric. Since I don't think there are any second hand affordable hybrids yet (I will be looking for one when I go car hunting) I think I will be sticking fossils in my transport for a long time yet! I like the idea of a plug in hybrid since most of my local trundles would be do-able without using the infernal combustion engine and I would still be able to cover a decent distance when required.
That's the beauty of Tesla chargers. You can tell before you leave whether it's working, how busy it is, whether any of the chargers are broken, etc. I've tried using other brand chargers, and nobody knows where they are or whether they're working. I went to one museum and three of four chargers are broken, but nobody cares, and they weren't even marked as broken. You just plugged in and nothing happened. I went to another at a hotel and nobody knew where the charger was; it turns out it was listed as being at the billing address, but it was actually half a mile away, and nobody at the hotel knew where it was. You can't just assert that something will happen. You have to make it profitable.
I followed the same path as you are planning with my previous car. A lot of people frown at hybrids but as long as you get a plug in hybrid with an electric only range that covers most of your shorter usage and you can charge at home then it works great. It's also a really good gateway to full EV as you quickly realise the benefits of using the EV side over the ICE. I've recently switched to full EV as a result of owning a PHEV for a few years.
Something similar happens where I live. The main reason is that installing the chargers is subsidise by the government but the local administrators have to take care of maintenance and the electricity so we have them wasting space on the street and not operative
We installed 200 public chargers last year for partners, the big hold up for us was the energy providers on giving us the information on the power for the sites. Power is the big issue. In Northampton we can only have 250kva for the next 5 years if the site does not have power already! In the UK there is currently about 25000 charging points and we need 250000 to have a real infrastructure in the next 10 years. Your point of no clear strategy is a big factor! Its a mess. Councils move very slowly so nearly all our projects are private ones as we can get a fast charger installed in a few months free where some of our council projects have been 2 years and still not moved to installation! Your last point about out of service is spot on. Many projects are badly managed and SLA for fixing is sometimes not even considered and in some cased may not even have an SLA and that is sooooo bad for everyone. Bad realtime data is also another big issue. I could go on and on. It will get better but at the moment the focus is on the land grab to get as many chargers in place that the running of them is not always considered.
Chargers at Fort William now appear to be online. While there on Saturday could start all bar one with my Charge Place Scotland RFID card. Terms were exorbitant though
You will aware that 3G is being turned off this year, in other countries lots of older public chargers went offline and were left to rot away. Some of the older smart meters will also stop communicating especially SMET1.
There are some BP Pulse chargers at the petrol station at Reading West services which have now been pending commissioning for 2+ years. In that time Ecotricity have sold the electric highway and Gridserve have installed 12x350kw chargers. I don't know if they were blocked by the grid connection limits or the old Ecotricity monopoly contract with Moto but either way I'll be surprised if they ever get commissioned now.
I used Gridserve on the east at Reading today. Saw signage on the BP station that they had new chargers. Swung by on the way out and, indeed, four new 150Kw chargers operational. Maybe the west will follow soon.
Evening, I live in Torbay, Devon And have a Citroen Ami . I find the lack of public charger around my area is a nightmare . Torbay council have no chargers in there car parks at all ! I have contacted my MP who has been informed by the council that they are planning to have electric chargers in a few years time . I feel for the holiday makers who come down to Torbay and cannot charger there cars … 😮
When I visit family there is one charger in the (rural) town which serves half the county. Everyone is blaming the network, but it took 6 months for the council to authorise the repair in which time the mobile network changed resulting in connection issues. Spoke to the engineer, it was his priority to fix but had to go through a process of cheapest solution first.
The Government is treating this 2030/2035 EV issue as if everything can wait until Dec 31st 2029 or 2034 and then, as if pulling a big kerjunka power lever, we all just start using EV's. They wanted to get us using EV's, now they've pulled all of the incentives - Discount on cars, discount on chargers, discount on car tax, free charging, free parking and they've also stopped on pressure (if there ever was any) on councils to install chargers. To be fair, some of it may be to do with an issue you highlighted inadvertently - You said there are 7kw, 22kw and 50kw, and then went on to say that they are now insufficient - We should be looking at 150 - 300amp chargers. Quite right, but are they holding on because they dont want to install obsolete chargers before this all gets into full swing - why have your motor siitting there for an hour and they earn £20 when you could be there for 10 minutes and earn £20? or spend 50k on a charger no-one is going to want to use - I wouldnt stop at a smaller than 50kw charger, and i would prefer a 100kw so i"d head there. Legislation and control is needed like you say "Ofcharge", which is a fitting name at the moment
Good video pointing out charger issues. The biggest barriers in just my opinion are listed below 1. Price of Ev,s Most ev will cots you a min of £10,000 more than there petrol versions & in some cases even as much as £30,000 more , then add in the extra interest you pay on just that extra cost & most people will be paying at least £15,000 more just to drive an Ev. NOTE Ev.s at the moment are losing there value on par or just a little worst than petrol cars 2. Price of electricity As we all know electric has sky rocketed , Yes you can get cheap night rate charging for 4 or 6 hours but you then have to pay more for your electric during the other 18 to 20 hours of that day. Plus something most people don't realise is that you lose so many kw during the transfer & charge process eg lets say you have a 100 kw usable battery & it was on 0% , if you put in 100kw of electric it would only take that battery to around 85% charge & the rest would be lost in the transfer / charge process but you will pay for the whole 100 kw , same when you rapid charge. NOTE You can still save money owning an Ev if its a company car or you get free charging from somewhere. But unless you do around 15,000 a year & you can charge it for free , you will never recoupe just the extra you paid in interest on the finance / pcp. 3. Cost overall a. Dealers charging for a yearly service , when it isn't needed & voiding your Warrenty if you don't have it serviced / inspected b. Insurence why are electric cars so expensive to insure over there petrol versions , they get stolen less , they have less accidents. c. Install charger costs , Why do electricians charge so much to install an ev charger as its just like wiring an external socket 3 wires , apart from the extra cost for the armoured cable. Its £50 to £100 to have an external socket fitted , So why do most ev installers charge £500 min to install a charger , the armoured cable only costs around £80 extra. NOTE All these little things add up 4. New Ev owners My first ev had a realistic range of about 50 miles , you had to plan your routes & have at least two back up plans when doing any distance traveling. You had to drive it like an Ev , Thats the thing a lot of the new Ev owners don't know how to drive Ev.s or just don't care. For instance I helped a guy at Tesco the other day he had just arrived in the uk that morning at Heathrow & they gave him a Mercedes EQC as a rental car. He said when he left Heathrow it showed 246 miles of range & was 100% charged. He pulled up at Tesco in a panic on 0% & had only covered 123 miles from Heathrow airport. When I saw him he was on the phone to the rental car company saying there was a problem with the car. They informed him ev are not good on the motorway lol & there was nothing wrong with the car. I had to show him the app he needed , as the card reader wasn't working on the charger. You see most people don't want to drive slower or drive without the heater on or aircon , They want to jump into there Ev & drive it like a petrol car , But the trouble is if you do that you will kill the range & it will cost you a lot more to own. Also gone are the days of Ev owners only charging to 80% for the sake of other ev owners needing the charger & protecting the battery. 99% of people charge to 100% & don't care if there is a queue waiting. 5. Personal opinion Car manufactures , Ev installers , insurance company , Charger companies all need to stop taking the Mickey Eg Make servicing an option , Lower the prices eg Mg why is the electric zs double the cost of its petrol twin or Mercedes EQC Why is the ev version £25,000 more than the ice twin. Ev installers installing a socket is exactly the same as installing an ev charger , you have to connect it to the consumer unit run a cable & mount & connect the socket , exactly the same for an Ev charger apart from the cable is armoured & thicker. So just charge extra for the parts & don't double / triple the fitting cost. Charger companies I know you need to male money & I know rapid chargers are expensive but not the 7kw or 22kw chargers so why charge anything from 44p per kw up to 69p per kw for a fast charger. Plus remember your costomers tax money subsidies you. Make money but stop being greedy with you ac charging prices. Insurence companies come on less get stolen & less get into accident stop charging stupid prices.I can insure a M4 Comp £120 cheaper than my I pace. Make Ev more cost effective to everyone , like they were two years ago
And we want to replace the 40 million cars in the uk to evs? It’s an impossible target and the land alone needed for chargers will be in the couple of thousand acres. Madness!
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The overseeing authority would be called Incharge 😂
Discharge would seem more apt.
Take a patent out on that name!
In our small town we have 24 22 kW chargers - 12 in each of the two main car parks. When they were put in a year or so ago there were many complaints about the loss of 12 parking spaces and lots of people saying they would never be used.
Last Thursday I was walking through one of the car parks and found 9 of them simultaneously in use. (I thought at first that one of them was ICEd by a Range Rover but it turned out to be some sort of EV and it was charging too.)
It won't be long before we need more.
Yesterday, I went to my local supermarket which has a massive amount of 4 chargers...
NONE of them were in use. In fact it is one of God's own created rare events when I go shopping and even 1 is in use. EV. Nope, not for me thanks. And I don't seem to be alone in that thought
11 years ago when I got my first EV there were like 20 type2 chargers in my city (The Hague, Netherlands), now there are 4692. It really moved from an oddity for pioneers to a normal thing that many people use.
The Dutch don't mess about.We like meetings in the UK about meetings.That is why it takes forever to get anything done.
A year ago, I worked for a large, household name company. They had around 50 chargers for staff to use. One, yes one, actually worked! OK, it was the end of the pandemic, but still. I was the only person who raised the issue and worked the problem to get them all fixed. They needed upgrades. They needed new charge cards. They need repairs. But we got there. Eventually. You are welcome 49 other staff members who used the now working chargers. What I don't get is why so few actually even bother to report problems. That is surely the start of the process is making public/work-place chargers work properly?
A publically-accessible reporting point would be a good starting point, with regular spot-checks and reviews of the work being done. Sort of a ZAP-MAP with accountability. Or give Zap- Map some powers to get things done.
I work at a University - they installed a single charger (two 3.6kw sockets 🙄) in our car park in the second half of 2020, and proudly trumpeted this fact on their Sustainability website. It was November 2021 before they worked, and even now they are still marked as disabled spaces...
The infrastructure in this country is awful. To have to plan every journey longer than 100 miles is ridiculous. Especially when so much is down to luck and chance. I will be going back to ICE when my lease ends. To have so few chargers around that charge so much and are frequently unreliable is abysmal.
I’ve just had a day of this. Drive for Amazon part time in my leaf. Too many 50kw chargers and big battery cars on them for over an hour. Mid shift with 12 miles left I found a solitary charger available at kfc. Just ridiculous. There’s more and faster ones at mcDonalds than there are at motorway services. I’m tempted to go back on everything I believe in and get a diesel again. I won’t but it’s so tempting.
Wise choice to go back to diesel. There is never going to be enough working charges. The cost runs to tens of billions of pounds and National grid will take decades to upgrade the infrastructure ,probaly even longer, if we are forced to install useless heat pumps
Currently 8 22KW chargers and 4 7KW chargers are either awaiting connection or awaiting commisioning spread across council carparks near me, they have been waiting since early July last year. A local Lidls has been built and has had a working 50KW CCS & Chademo connection and a 22KW CCS connection in the time it's taken for these council chargers to be installed, connected and activated.
accross the road from my house is a small group of shops with a costa coffee, and a harvester pub. In the carpark, there are two brand new and unused rapid chargers (speed unknown), they are under canvas covers. The project to start the installation started in late 2019 before the first covid lock down. As of today, the parking spaces are fully painted, the site looks ready to go, but the chargers are still covered over canvas covers, and the parking bays have bollards in front of them.
The "slow repairs" section is how you mention Geniepoint without mentioning Geniepoint
In Canada there is a gas station (petrol station) chain, PetroCan, that has installed a coast to coast chain of 150kW rapid chargers. When they were installed they were fantastic, head and shoulders above everyone else. Initially free and then very competitive for the first couple of years. And then they started breaking, and they just never got repaired, or they would say they were repaired and they still wouldn’t work. The two locations we used to stop at have each have one station down and they have been down for two years. The remaining station never goes above 45kW. And to top it off they’ve doubled the price!
Wanna bet they were given subsidies to install them?
My wife drives to most schools in our county as part of her work. The 2 newest schools have level 2 chargers in the staff parking lot. After we bought our PHEV she asked about using the chargers. In both cases the principals were very excited that someone was finally going to use the chargers, but neither of them could get the things to work. A year and a half later, the cables have been cut off at one school and my wife doesn't currently go to the other. The infrastructure was there to reduce our gas consumption, but it was never used, and may never be used.
They’re nothing but a glorified light switch.
What was causing the issue? Authentication and payment? It’s a school car park - a fairly secure area.
Get the Physics teacher involved! 😂
Had a similar issue with new chargers at a new housing estate they worked for the fist 20ish times I visited my friends house but the lockdowns caused the office block they were next to to close and then they got powered down by the charge company buy when I needed to use them after lockdown the company said the have not been used in years and would need a hands on to get them working again. I had just enough charger to make it to the airport on my way home to get a charge, but I had to sit with the old car for 2 hours for it to get enough to get me home.
Get rid of it before it becomes a real headache...
Part of the problem is that councils would rather promote the use of walking, cycling and public transport. The private motorist is at the bottom of their priority list.
A combustion car takes minutes to fill up ... a major issue is charge time for EV not just the number of chargers
MFG installed a bank of chargers on the A299. They were out of use for months. When I asked in the petrol station it appeared no one asked the farmers permission to run the power cables across his land. It took months before they were working. Glad to say they are now active.
Similar thing near me - two MFG sites, but in the case here, its issues with the DNO.
I've only had my EV for a few months but so far I've found that the bigger charging brands are the one to use - eg Instavolt, Fastned and Gridserve. They're costly but so far I've found the networks reliable. Local authorities are the last people we should expect to provide chargers - not their core business and they are not competent to do so.
And when it is the local authority, is usually in a Pay car park or they're just occupied by council vehicles or staff, plugged in all night and finished charge.
As someone interested in EVs but not yet fully fledged I found this video insightful and full of common sense. Well done.
A government change is needed. The Australian Government in charge now has changed the game from the anti EV stance of the previous government, and this is what the UK needs
2023 year is the year it comes off the rails. Brilliant EVs being sold in huge amounts into a country with ageing, shit infrastructure.
If you ask any charging network provider, they will tell you that BY FAR the biggest obstacle is the permitting process. There is massive opposition (led by the fossil industry) out there for EVs and chargers. The politicians are bought out and delay it as long as they can or finally get voted out.
Seriously? You mean there's a goon with a baseball bat, sent from BP HQ to stop 20KW being hooked up to your supermarket fast charger?
@@colinmacdonald5732 unless you've been under a rock, the scale of corruption under the criminally corrupt government that has been in place for the past 13 years, should be clear.
Follow the money.
@@colinmacdonald5732 Big oil use envelopes full of “carrots” - they don’t need sticks.
Simply put, ANY politician blocking this kind of stuff needs immediate barring from public office; removal of any/all pension rights and the threat of jail.
Gotta focus their `minds` somehow. GET IT DONE or get out, that's my mantra... Guvingment have declared the objective and timescale, so it CANNOT be allowed to be tolerated any longer.
@@simonevans8979 Just start Ministers salary at £0 and pay for results (independently audited of course).
Currently got two BP pulse chargers that have been coned off in Basingstoke for what seems like forever. No rush to get them up and running it seems.
Token gesture at BP it seems - stick them in and then put a cover over them that says ‘coming soon’ 🙄
@@Umski or as this video says, bureaucracy stops them being connected but the charging company gets the blame. What is the business sense of paying money to install a charger and deliberately not earning money from it?
@@watcher24601 the cynic in me suggests it’s a show of “willing” on the part of BP but the reality is that they profit more from selling petrol and diesel so why fast track third parties selling electricity on their patch? ICE customers then see that the EV charging infra in their favoured stations is non-existent and stick with what they have…when customers ask staff they say ‘coming soon’ or ‘no demand’ or ‘prices for petrol will go up if we turn those on so we haven’t’ 🙄
No, money to buy them! No infrastructure in the world would make the cost of EVs palatable, for me personally. Even if have a charger that follows me everywhere, the cost is just outrageous!
I think a big part of these delays is that the local DNO often has to literally SUE some NiMBY to obtain the wayleave to run the needed power. Those lawsuits can literally take years.
As an example, I point to 4x 150kW Shell Recharge rapids on the A55 at Ewloe. Originally installed in the summer of 2020, they STILL have no power due to one such ongoing lawsuit.
The public chargers in my council are still free to use. There is one rapid charger in my town and the council have refused to repair it, instead they have removed it from the network. Despite a few months prior they sent out a survey to ask ev drivers what problems they were experiencing and what type of charging infrastructure would they like.
The switch to EVs is a massive transport infrastructure change with no connected strategy - simple as that.
We should have never started HS2 and spent the money on EV charging infrastructure
You could give a free EV to every household in the country for whats been spent on HS2.
10 years ago, yes 10 years. I asked my local council about putting some destination chargers in the car parks on Hayling Island seafront. The reply was of course 'we are looking into it'. There are still no chargers installed.
BP & Shell, as fossil fuel companies I wonder if they are providing a poorly supported charging network to delay the implementation of EV’s ?
Fully agree mate just got an EV for work . Concerned that when there are more and more EVs on the road the infrastructure will be maxed out
Good rant! 👍 This is why I avoid Local Authority locations and concentrate on commercial sites such as those used by providers such as Gridserve, Osprey, Ionity and, increasingly, Instavolt. As you say, that doesn't avoid buck-passing entirely. There is another fundamental problem at the moment. Petrol/Diesel fuel stops have a massive daily throughput which encourages other retail opportunities but, despite the increasing sales of EV's, the daily throughput is much, much smaller and slower. As a result, the additional retails opportunities are massively reduced. But keep ranting!! 😅
When I visited in Sweden a few days ago one petrol station had a "temporary" charger. It's a movable unit with battery storage and 4 Kempower dispensers capable to share out 300kW of power load balanced. The 300kWh battery storage means it only needs at a minimum a 43kW grid connection. All packaged in a unit that is the same size as a 20feet container which means regulatory it is much easier to get approval to put down a "temporary" structure which is basically a container in your car park and hook up a relatively small grid connection to it. Not sure if the approval process is as easy in the UK for "temporary" chargers. As long as you have the right to use the land they can sit there for basically as long as you want to, its a container after all, but they can also be removed in a matter of hours and transported somewhere else should you wish. So current sites that has a measly 50kW charger now can very easily be upgraded to 4 HPCs without needing any larger grid connection. I hope this comes to the UK soon as we really need more HPCs everywhere.
I started in 2016 and called dozens of Swiss agencies about the charging infrastructure. They all made promises of having a massive rollout in 3 months, then 6 months, then by 2020, and now it's for 2030. I had the documents for the IEA and the OECD about having one million chargers in Germany and France for 2015. They had about 12,000 chargers, and most of them slow chargers.
I bought 2 vehicles for a metal construction company and they had to renounce at using them since the network was so piss poor. Geneva installed their first rapid charger in 2018, and installed it in a parking garage in the airport. One rapid charger.
We've had several chargers installed for a year before they were hooked up in my town.
This is a criminal issue.
Thrapston service was renovated about 2 years ago with shiny new shell chargers, yet to be connected. Also nearby on the A1 near Wittering there is a Genie point that hasn't worked properly for around 18 months.
Genie Point have two failed on my regular route (Haslemere and Petersfield). In fact about 40% of the ones on their map locally seem to be failed. The whole company may be in trouble.
Spot on presentation of the latest situation. There are bright spots and terrible examples as you have shown. We have had electric (100%) for our only car for over 3 years now and the situation is better than 3 years ago. I just hope we can continuing doing the very British thing of ‘muddling through’!
The closest charge site to myself has 2 old chargeplace Scotland "evolt" charge point. 2x 22kW and 2x 11kW connections available. Reasonably reliable so far. It's a council owned car park and to their credit, work started a year ago on 10 new charge points including 4 rapids. Works seem to have concluded within a few weeks, but now a year later they still haven't been commissioned. These are the only charge points in Annan.
I always take the 'can't afford it excuse' with a pinch of salt. I live in the Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, the 3rd smallest Borough in London with a population of 185,000 and the 5th lowest council tax in the country and yet the council have managed along with partners to install nearly 3000 charging points across the borough. It can be done if there is a will and commitment to make it happen.
It can be done with that council because it's a wealthy one. The lower the council tax, the wealthier the council.
Also I would expect most of those councillors can more than afford buying a couple of EVs, so they have a personal gain for installing chargers
@@RavzzG Hardly a wealthy council, they can't afford the money to repair Hammersmith Bridge which is a main arterial route from South to North London. Bridge has now been out of action for 3 years and at least another 3 years until it can take cars again. By the looks of it it's going to have to be private money with a toll installed
A council in London with thousands of tourists and commuters daily to charge for electricity - that's not even close to a normal council area. It's also very important to take into account that 2,200 of those 2,800 total are lamp-post charging points, which usually only deliver 3kwh, so are useless for a quick charge in the same way people use petrol stations.
@Tim Eades surely main arterial routes are managed by TfL?
@@gchecosse You'd think tfl would at least chip in considering the number of bus routes affected.
Hi EVM.
I live in the ‘wonderful’ borough of Bexley. At least 3 car parks have had a bank of 6 chargers put in. I do not know what speed they are, maybe 7kw. They were installed months ago, and still not commissioned. No signage on or near them. Just grey boxes looking unhappy.
Thanks for all you both do. Extremely informative.
Like breathing, don’t give up!
Tony Nisbet
4:24
You mentioned "I think there's an example Tesla installing something that never got up and running"
That'll be the Fleet Southbound Services on the M3.
In place and "Ready" in August 2017.
The last post on the Tesla Owners Club Forum from January 2023 referenced the ongoing landowner still dispute preventing the power cable being installed.
.
I noticed these in Fort William this week while I was sat at the superchargers. There was a third one next to them, uncovered, i'm not sure if that was working or if the cover had blown off.
Its the bt openreach problem. Doesnt matter who your isp is if you have a problem suddenly youre waiting on them and bt openreach to decide whose problem it is.
Monopolies are bad but when its new public infrastructure theres really a lot to be said for a proper joined up national programme to get it up and functional.
Well done on your activism. We have some a bank of 6 new chargers in a new car park in the local park, no problem with them, but the car park isn’t open yet. Have seen some recent hi-vis activity, so hopefully not long. Our local council is pretty good at installing DC & AC chargers in its public car parks and my two local Shell forecourts have just had multiple new 150kW chargers installed. It’s a mixed picture, but the charging infrastructure is coming
As far as I can tell by reading comments online, the Gridserve charge points at the M1 Leicester Forest North & Southbound are still awaiting 'enough power'...
On a much smaller scale, 2 teathered 'fast' charge points at The Mason's Arms in Rotherham, South Yorkshire - installed about 4 months ago... now covered over and not in use. 😕
Recently I wrote to the Leicester City Council complaining that in a city the size of Leicester it is disgusting that there is only one 50kW charger within the city boundary. This is at Morrisons supermarket, which recently wasn't working. So there are no rapid chargers on council land at all.
Michael Black
It’s like Pi$$ing against the wind. In Ireland today they announced that EVs have outsold Diesel cars for the first quarter, I’m not sure whether to rejoice in this or fear for our future due to lack of infrastructure.
That's amazing, that you for the charge points in Skipton!
This is why the only really viable long distance electric car is still a Tesla… I know, I’ve done 37,000 miles over the last year in my standard range. Keep up the good work!
Tesla may not solve the council problem, but the stupid finger pointing of three different companies goes away. Then people wonder why most working chargers around are Tesla's.
My local town (Andover, Test Valley Hampshire) has to be commended for it's many 22kwh units in most public car parks in the town. Only a few local rapid's (3x perhaps) but local EV drivers without home callboxes are brilliantly served.
My local Lidl had EV chargers installed when it was refurbished, 6 months later they're still 'coming soon'
I see you were up my way again. The council are blaming Tesla for not allowing them access to "their" electric supply in order to connect those new chargers. The fun thing was that up till last October the chargers were left uncovered, so the council were managing to lose parking fees for 6 spaces in a very busy car park over the summer peak tourist season!
I will presume that there isn't sufficient power for a row of Superchargers as well as a batch of new chargers from another company. If I was Tesla and had agreed a power supply deal I wouldn't be happy if another charging company came along that may compromise our capacity. The Council shouldn't have agreed new chargers until the infrastructure was upgraded.
Well Done Andy your council needs you.
You are so right that someone should be in charge of it all.
The old adage of 'Fail to plan, plan to fail. Government, both local and central are good at stopping things happening because it's easier to say no.
Here in Sheffield the council installed rapid chargers in several locations around the city. The nearest to me are in a rough area, I certainly wouldn't want to charge there at night. The council then sold them off to a private company and shortly after all the charge cables and connectors were cut off and stolen on 5 rapid chargers. That was inf February, last year, I reported the theft to the company, as yet they haven't been repaired and probably never will be. Incompitant council sticking the chargers in an area I could have told them this would happen.
In Sweden, the problem is totally opposite. The regulatory body gives a grant for building in rural areas, and the grants for this year must lead to a fast charge at the latest at December 31st. Sometimes, the electrical network has longer lead times and can only deliver by next year, so the charge operator can only say "Sorry, can't do that", and then they must apply for the grant next year instead.
Here in Corbridge, Northumberland, (a frequently visited large village) 2 public chargers were installed two years ago in the main street. For much of that time they sat there sadly with their little Connected Kerb hoods on them. Earlier this year, the footpath adjacent to them was dug up, presumably to install the cables. Unsurprisingly, nothing has happened since, and the little hoods on the top are looking very sad. There are no other public chargers in the village as far as I'm aware. Surprising? Not at all.
In Telford where I live is a Shell fuel station that has installed a couple of ev charging bays. It’s taken over a year to complete and now it is complete but not in service.
The public charging infrastructure is not there now and never will be. For the millions of people who cannot charge at home an EV is expensive, inconvenient and totally impractical.
Well it will be one day, chargers on every street for people to charge overnight, most people have access to home charging and if they don’t then they probably can’t afford an EV anyway
In my W Mids town there are already 11 public charging hubs, all with more than 1 charger, ranging from AC to 150kW DC, with another 6 charger hub imminent. Anyone who needs a public charge is spoilt for choice. To say the infrastructure isn’t there now (it already is) and never will be (it already is and more are being commissioned every day) is factually incorrect
In the town where I live in the North of England there are hundreds of terraced houses. Almost every house has a car parked outside every night. If only a quarter of these cars need a charge every night, where can they do it? There are only two public chargers in town in a supermarket car park with limited parking controlled byANPR cameras and which is closed every night by barriers thirty minutes after the shop closes. Several small towns and villages in this area have no public chargers at all. For the millions of people who cannot charge at home, running an EV is is impractical to the point of being impossible even if they can afford one in the first place.
@@johnpedelty3866 so what you meant was “public charging provision in my locality is poor”. That is wildly different to saying there will never be good infrastructure. There are already good solutions for terraced streets, from lamp post chargers, pop-up chargers and ducts to allow charging cables to cross the pavement safely. As I say, my local forecourts have already installed new high power charging hubs, there is nothing preventing the same happening where you live and in all the towns around you. Villages have parish councils, there is nothing stopping them working to get chargers installed. As EVM said, often the charging operators will do it for free if they can get agreement to use a site. This is a leadership issue, not a practicality issue
@@elliottquinton2084 Not true I’m afraid. Friends of ours live in a very nice 5 bed house in a city but it’s terraced with just on-street parking. They would love (and can definitely afford) an EV but won’t get one currently due to the poor infrastructure. Affordability has nothing to do with it for them.
When we are talking about public money with regard to increasing/maintaining chargers etc… do you think that the drastic reduction in government revenue by not receiving VED for EV’s has anything to do with it? Also, the reduction in fuel duty collected from the pumps? As I’ve said before I am an EV driver for the last 3 years, and not paying any VED/fuel duty is brilliant from a personal/business point of view, but the vast reduction in public money income surely plays a part in councils not being able to afford to install/maintain chargers. The money has to come from somewhere and, in a time where we have public health workers etc… on strike demanding more money from the public pot, where does it come from? As EV drivers we, surely, cannot expect public money to pay for everything when we are not contributing ourselves with regard to our vehicles?
Osprey installed some in Crewe that were covered up for 6 months plus - not sure on the reason but they're now active and work brilliantly.
As for knackered units - Geniepoint have one of 3 rapids in Shrewsbury and it's been out of use since December... With various "awaiting spares/being replaced by a new unit soon" excuses being laid out on twitter depending on the day of the week...
Either way it's frustrating to have a town with 80k people and just two working Instavolt 50's online...
The local BP petrol station at Four Marks GU34 5GZ has installed 2 Pulse 150 chargers. Took ages to be commissioned then worked for maybe a week and now been off line for around a month. It makes no sense as a business to spend the cost of an install and then not maximise the revenue by ensuring the chargers are working!
Depending on the grid network in the area this could involve bigger LV or more likely HV cables in the area. It could involve new substations or possibly new primary substations (the bigger ones). These are not just available off the shelf and are built to order. Larger substations can have a wait of years from order to delivery.
Then you need permits from the council and dig teams to put in a base and lay cables. Before this legals need to happen to either buy land for the substation or get easements over or under it.
Getting the substation to site may take specialist transport and/or cranes to get them in place.
Teams need to be arranged to connect all the cables into the substation.
A wait of years can be quite fast working.
Great video - thanks. I bought a Zoe ZE40 in 2017. I had it three years. At the time I turned up at chargers fairly confident I'd be the only car there. I went back to petrol in 2017 (basically I was bored with the Zoe and wanted a convertible).The other point is that charging was cheap or free three years ago - this is no longer the case. Even then I had to plan longer journeys carefully - I enjoy this but most people don't.
Been EV-ing for six months now. Ventured out on some long journeys but got stuck in Baildon, Shipley, West Yorkshire on a snowy day. Could not get the charger to work (after several attempts to reverse up a 1 in 3 slope in the council run car park!) When we rang the service provider, they knew plug B was not working but blamed the council for not having a service contract in place for the charging point. Totally ridiculous! Yes, EVcom is needed urgently
Several attempts to reverse up a slope is ridiculous too - I’m guessing you’re one of these who run summer tyres for 12 months of the year and then moan when you can’t get grip in winter. Hint, use winter tyres in winter or all seasons all year - it’s not always someone else’s fault.
@@chrisp3330 when have people ran winter tyres in England? Besides, I live in an apartment and would not have a place to keep four spare wheels. Which also means a can not charge my car at home which is why it’s important these chargers need to be working…which most certainly wasn’t my fault
@trick700 People in England have been using winter tyres for years - don’t forget, summer rubber isn’t as effective under 7 degrees C and so winter tyres are more common now than what you think. I’ve been running them for over 15 years on my main car and use all seasons on second car. Some dealers will actually store your winters for you if they have space, some won’t, you’ll have to ask. All seasons, however, for the majority of UK drivers are the best solution. And, no, it definitely isn’t your fault that chargers aren’t working.
Just used the new Ev service station at Cornwall services today. Very impressive
really? 30kwh? it may not be gridserve's fault but that place is terrible in terms of speed and was exactly the site I thought of when thinking about an inadequate grid connection. I assume the apology signs are still up.
The Genie Point at Morrisons in Goole has been broken since before Christmas. I’ve reported it to them umpteen times, yet still nowt.
Not installed but not commissioned in Australia. However delays of weeks and often months for repairs of offline DC rapid chargers (excluding Tesla) is very common.
It doesn't matter how good Ev cars are, if the public charging network continues to be inadequate, expensive and unreliable, battery powered cars can never achieve a mass market in the UK.
A brand new out of town shopping area was built in Berwick (Loaning Meadows). The shops have been open and trading for about 9 months but the Osprey chargers which are in all the planning application documents are nothing but ducting and empty spaces.
I’ve had an EV for 8 months now. It’s been a 95% positive experience - the car itself is fantastic but the 5% bad is all down to bad public charging experiences.
Luckily we home charge but the few trips we’ve done where we needed public charging have been variable to say the least. A couple of times all good - contactless chargers working, available and simple to use. Other times all sorts of issues - apps not working, need an RFID card, poor locations, contactless broken etc. etc.
The problem is there are no standards (outside Tesla) - it’s a Wild West out there currently and it’s pushing us towards a Tesla next time (when they are cheaper!). We just need all chargers to be contactless and work the same way just like petrol stations do.
Same A55 eastbound, Northop service area, 4 stations 2 years not yet commissioned.
That’s an excellent point your making, I looked into ev ownership a couple of years ago, did some research on what car to own, range capabilities, home charger etc then found out that here in Wales (I live in North Wales) we had then only 4% of the UK’s chargers. It’s pretty much a given that not all of that 4% would be in working order, so ended my ev interest.
North Wales is absolutely terrible for EV chargers, just like Cornwall. Two of the busiest areas of Britain during the summer season. It's bizarre
I recently asked my MP and then local councillors about installing chargers in my village to encourage adoption of EVs. There is a fair percentage of horses without driveways locally. There is a suitable location to site chargers in the village.
My MP and councillors disagreed on if they had even applied for the government LEVI funding scheme. So it's hard to see it progressing much further.
I had asked for their charging strategy. They said that they didn't have one but are working on it. Local elections are coming up so probably nothing happening for a while!
I'm recently back from the Netherlands where on street parking for houses in towns was common and there were several chargers incorporated into this parking. They were mostly occupied which was very refreshing to see. It's absolutely possible if those in charge pull their finger out.
I understand that we are lucky here in Norway. Here we only have a few municipalities now without fast chargers. There are chargers at relatively short distances along all major roads
Richmond North Yorkshire, sunaks constuency. Two and a half years ago asked council when we would get chargers. 10 planned for, 4 in the town car park and 6 around the dales. Still waiting for them in 2023. Emailed the council again and never even got a reply.
Shell installed chargers at Hayle on the A30 in Cornwall more than 2 years ago still not switched on
I would think the company that installs the chargers collects the money from charging and should be responsible for repair. Council should not be in the middle of it?
No different from a maintenance contract for a building or landlord.
@@ElectricVehicleMan Yeah they can be bad too. We can do better. Include performance clauses and remove the ambiguity.
Same here in Harlow Essex, 13 new points were installed last year, no sign of them going live!
Leicester Forest East northbound had new Gridserve units installed nearly a year ago - still covered over and the southbound units have now also been covered.
Northampton southbound tripped when my car was charging on it (sounded like a power surge in the services as a load of alarms went off, then I got a “charge finished” notification) last May - still covered over now even though I told Gridserve on the day it happened.
Love these type of videos.
A couple of examples for you, we have a Shell garage, Maresfield E. Sussex. Installed in weeks, took months to commission it and has spent more time not working then working in years it has been in. Months ago a BP garage in Lewes installed a new charger, I assume a 150kW unit, it still has barriers around it.
The worse so far and they must have good reason for the delay, but Gridserve gained permission to install one of their large charging rest areas in Uckfield, E Sussex, this would also include a solar farm to help power it looking at the plans. As it was to be situated off of an existing roundabout they cut back all the hedgerows and bushes to make a start on this.. That was well over a year ago, now the hedge is back to where it started. Even though i probably will never use it as it will be a mile up from me and i charge at home, it is at a point where the A22, A272 & A26 all converge and other then 2 Instavolt charge points in town this area badly needs this to be built as the Shell and BP SINGLE chargepoints cannot be relied on
In Porthcawl, South Wales, a 50kW charger has sat behind some temporary fences for over a year. This is in a council car park and has Wesh government branding. No sign of it being commissioned. A new supermarket is being built nearby and I wonder if it's chargers will work first.
Got several GeniePoint chargers around southend which are owned by the council, they’ve almost all been out of service for at least two years now.
👍👍👏👏 EVM 4 PM or the bear minimum, a long chat with the environment and transport ministers! 😂
They need to put a limit on the time it takes to process things. Figure out what are the bottlenecks and make sure people have that lined up before the process even starts. That way you won’t end up with half built crap deteriorating because some final piece of paper wasn’t properly filled out.
The last time I was in Scotland, about 3 years ago, finding Chargeplace Scotland chargers that worked was an absolute nightmare. Used one just before crossing over into Skye, and 2 days later it was faulty on my return journey. The same story throughout my journey - that government-backed organisation seemed incapable of keeping chargers working.
There's another piece of the jigsaw that's not mentioned. Car park time restrictions! A lot of places where the chargers have been installed have maximum parking limits so if there is a queue forming for slow preforming rapid(s) then EV owners face the possibility of parking fines. I had this issue at Penrith a couple of weeks ago. More EV"s about but number of reliable rapid chargers not keeping up with demand
Exactly - and for this reason, if I can't complete the whole journey from home charging, I'll take the diesel instead. Costs about the same, so why risk the time and inconvenience of relying on public charging infrastructure?
I've had a much needed rapid charge in Skipton, so thank you EVM - much appreciated! Set of rapids at BP Soham (Cambridgeshire) have been installed for about 18 - 24 months.. still no sign of commissioning? I guess even BP have to bow to the grid / council ?
On our peninsula the village hall has 2 chargers, mostly out of action. The hall is constantly battling to try and get engineers to come and fix the things. It has got to the point were the hall is seriously thinking of having the chargers removed. It is embarrassing when someone in an EV turns up relying on getting some charge only to discover that the only chargers within 20 miles are out of action. Until there are major changes I wouldn't even consider going electric. Since I don't think there are any second hand affordable hybrids yet (I will be looking for one when I go car hunting) I think I will be sticking fossils in my transport for a long time yet! I like the idea of a plug in hybrid since most of my local trundles would be do-able without using the infernal combustion engine and I would still be able to cover a decent distance when required.
That's the beauty of Tesla chargers. You can tell before you leave whether it's working, how busy it is, whether any of the chargers are broken, etc. I've tried using other brand chargers, and nobody knows where they are or whether they're working. I went to one museum and three of four chargers are broken, but nobody cares, and they weren't even marked as broken. You just plugged in and nothing happened. I went to another at a hotel and nobody knew where the charger was; it turns out it was listed as being at the billing address, but it was actually half a mile away, and nobody at the hotel knew where it was.
You can't just assert that something will happen. You have to make it profitable.
I followed the same path as you are planning with my previous car. A lot of people frown at hybrids but as long as you get a plug in hybrid with an electric only range that covers most of your shorter usage and you can charge at home then it works great. It's also a really good gateway to full EV as you quickly realise the benefits of using the EV side over the ICE. I've recently switched to full EV as a result of owning a PHEV for a few years.
Something similar happens where I live. The main reason is that installing the chargers is subsidise by the government but the local administrators have to take care of maintenance and the electricity so we have them wasting space on the street and not operative
Skipton, cracking place. Lovely pub grub at The Royal Shepherd Inn.
When i fill up at the petrol station i have a cover from the weather over my head, when you charge up you get soaked,
well done. you must be happy with your life.
If lawyers get involved, it'll take an eternity. Weird thing is that millions were set aside for EV infrastructure in Eng & Wales - where'd that go?
We installed 200 public chargers last year for partners, the big hold up for us was the energy providers on giving us the information on the power for the sites. Power is the big issue. In Northampton we can only have 250kva for the next 5 years if the site does not have power already! In the UK there is currently about 25000 charging points and we need 250000 to have a real infrastructure in the next 10 years. Your point of no clear strategy is a big factor! Its a mess. Councils move very slowly so nearly all our projects are private ones as we can get a fast charger installed in a few months free where some of our council projects have been 2 years and still not moved to installation!
Your last point about out of service is spot on. Many projects are badly managed and SLA for fixing is sometimes not even considered and in some cased may not even have an SLA and that is sooooo bad for everyone. Bad realtime data is also another big issue. I could go on and on. It will get better but at the moment the focus is on the land grab to get as many chargers in place that the running of them is not always considered.
Chargers at Fort William now appear to be online. While there on Saturday could start all bar one with my Charge Place Scotland RFID card. Terms were exorbitant though
You will aware that 3G is being turned off this year, in other countries lots of older public chargers went offline and were left to rot away. Some of the older smart meters will also stop communicating especially SMET1.
My nearest DC charger had it’s cables cut (I presume maliciously) over a year ago now and still not been replaced.
There are some BP Pulse chargers at the petrol station at Reading West services which have now been pending commissioning for 2+ years. In that time Ecotricity have sold the electric highway and Gridserve have installed 12x350kw chargers. I don't know if they were blocked by the grid connection limits or the old Ecotricity monopoly contract with Moto but either way I'll be surprised if they ever get commissioned now.
Make that 4 (FOUR!!) YEARS. I took a photo of them in May 2019. They are on a BP petrol forecourt so I doubt there are "connection" issues.BP......
There is a shell Ev charger for 4 years saying (coming soon). Southwark bridge road. People use it a a parking space.
BP Pulse is the worst company I have ever dealt with - they have ZERO interest in what they are doing. It's a "pretend" business
Oh, I see those....
I used Gridserve on the east at Reading today. Saw signage on the BP station that they had new chargers. Swung by on the way out and, indeed, four new 150Kw chargers operational. Maybe the west will follow soon.
Evening, I live in Torbay, Devon
And have a Citroen Ami . I find the lack of public charger around my area is a nightmare . Torbay council have no chargers in there car parks at all ! I have contacted my MP who has been informed by the council that they are planning to have electric chargers in a few years time .
I feel for the holiday makers who come down to Torbay and cannot charger there cars …
😮
We don't. We do our homework and go somewhere else instead.
Same here…..no chargers, no visit!
When I visit family there is one charger in the (rural) town which serves half the county. Everyone is blaming the network, but it took 6 months for the council to authorise the repair in which time the mobile network changed resulting in connection issues. Spoke to the engineer, it was his priority to fix but had to go through a process of cheapest solution first.
What about those movable units? In Sweden some charging points are installed with a battery and they can be moved. Elywhere is one of the companies.
The Government is treating this 2030/2035 EV issue as if everything can wait until Dec 31st 2029 or 2034 and then, as if pulling a big kerjunka power lever, we all just start using EV's. They wanted to get us using EV's, now they've pulled all of the incentives - Discount on cars, discount on chargers, discount on car tax, free charging, free parking and they've also stopped on pressure (if there ever was any) on councils to install chargers. To be fair, some of it may be to do with an issue you highlighted inadvertently - You said there are 7kw, 22kw and 50kw, and then went on to say that they are now insufficient - We should be looking at 150 - 300amp chargers. Quite right, but are they holding on because they dont want to install obsolete chargers before this all gets into full swing - why have your motor siitting there for an hour and they earn £20 when you could be there for 10 minutes and earn £20? or spend 50k on a charger no-one is going to want to use - I wouldnt stop at a smaller than 50kw charger, and i would prefer a 100kw so i"d head there. Legislation and control is needed like you say "Ofcharge", which is a fitting name at the moment
The government tried the carrot, next they will be using the stick.
Good video pointing out charger issues.
The biggest barriers in just my opinion are listed below
1. Price of Ev,s
Most ev will cots you a min of £10,000 more than there petrol versions & in some cases even as much as £30,000 more , then add in the extra interest you pay on just that extra cost & most people will be paying at least £15,000 more just to drive an Ev.
NOTE Ev.s at the moment are losing there value on par or just a little worst than petrol cars
2. Price of electricity
As we all know electric has sky rocketed , Yes you can get cheap night rate charging for 4 or 6 hours but you then have to pay more for your electric during the other 18 to 20 hours of that day. Plus something most people don't realise is that you lose so many kw during the transfer & charge process eg lets say you have a 100 kw usable battery & it was on 0% , if you put in 100kw of electric it would only take that battery to around 85% charge & the rest would be lost in the transfer / charge process but you will pay for the whole 100 kw , same when you rapid charge.
NOTE You can still save money owning an Ev if its a company car or you get free charging from somewhere. But unless you do around 15,000 a year & you can charge it for free , you will never recoupe just the extra you paid in interest on the finance / pcp.
3. Cost overall
a. Dealers charging for a yearly service , when it isn't needed & voiding your Warrenty if you don't have it serviced / inspected
b. Insurence why are electric cars so expensive to insure over there petrol versions , they get stolen less , they have less accidents.
c. Install charger costs , Why do electricians charge so much to install an ev charger as its just like wiring an external socket 3 wires , apart from the extra cost for the armoured cable. Its £50 to £100 to have an external socket fitted , So why do most ev installers charge £500 min to install a charger , the armoured cable only costs around £80 extra.
NOTE All these little things add up
4. New Ev owners
My first ev had a realistic range of about 50 miles , you had to plan your routes & have at least two back up plans when doing any distance traveling.
You had to drive it like an Ev , Thats the thing a lot of the new Ev owners don't know how to drive Ev.s or just don't care.
For instance I helped a guy at Tesco the other day he had just arrived in the uk that morning at Heathrow & they gave him a Mercedes EQC as a rental car. He said when he left Heathrow it showed 246 miles of range & was 100% charged. He pulled up at Tesco in a panic on 0% & had only covered 123 miles from Heathrow airport. When I saw him he was on the phone to the rental car company saying there was a problem with the car. They informed him ev are not good on the motorway lol & there was nothing wrong with the car. I had to show him the app he needed , as the card reader wasn't working on the charger.
You see most people don't want to drive slower or drive without the heater on or aircon , They want to jump into there Ev & drive it like a petrol car , But the trouble is if you do that you will kill the range & it will cost you a lot more to own. Also gone are the days of Ev owners only charging to 80% for the sake of other ev owners needing the charger & protecting the battery. 99% of people charge to 100% & don't care if there is a queue waiting.
5. Personal opinion
Car manufactures , Ev installers , insurance company , Charger companies all need to stop taking the Mickey
Eg Make servicing an option , Lower the prices eg Mg why is the electric zs double the cost of its petrol twin or Mercedes EQC Why is the ev version £25,000 more than the ice twin. Ev installers installing a socket is exactly the same as installing an ev charger , you have to connect it to the consumer unit run a cable & mount & connect the socket , exactly the same for an Ev charger apart from the cable is armoured & thicker. So just charge extra for the parts & don't double / triple the fitting cost. Charger companies I know you need to male money & I know rapid chargers are expensive but not the 7kw or 22kw chargers so why charge anything from 44p per kw up to 69p per kw for a fast charger. Plus remember your costomers tax money subsidies you. Make money but stop being greedy with you ac charging prices. Insurence companies come on less get stolen & less get into accident stop charging stupid prices.I can insure a M4 Comp £120 cheaper than my I pace.
Make Ev more cost effective to everyone , like they were two years ago
And we want to replace the 40 million cars in the uk to evs? It’s an impossible target and the land alone needed for chargers will be in the couple of thousand acres. Madness!