A difficult journey highlights issues with UK public charging infrastructure.

[andrew26k]

Beggars belief that you think you can drive around for free and complain when the free chargers are not available ? Internet connection would have been available everywhere given the locations you described so there are literally hundreds of charging options albeit paid for options.

Yeah, you are right, honeymoon period is over. But what we have now is substandard network of providers that don’t give a shit, and charge you extortionate rates for the “privilege” of using electric car. Can you imagine that esso, shell, Tesco, Asda etc use their own apps and In order for you to fill up with petrol you need to almost provide a piss sample every time you use the petrol station!!!!!????

 

[Dougal62]

Firstly, sorry this is a bit of a long one.

I would like to start by saying I love driving EV’s (I’m on my third one now) and would not go back to fossils. This is my experience on Sunday of driving to London and back and the problems I encountered. (You can skip to my thoughts at the end if you don’t want to read through my waffle )

I was taking my daughter to Heathrow, and I planned to park at Hounslow West Underground Station, because it was free and a 20 minute bus ride to Terminal 5. The BetterRoutePlanner plan worked perfectly and we arrived with 25% remaining after starting with 100%. When we were parking I noticed there were some Source London charging posts in the car park but wasn’t sure if they were contactless, membership app, RFID, etc, and didn’t have time to investigate. 5 minutes later, the night bus came and took us to Heathrow. Brilliant! If all journeys could be that easy.

At Heathrow, I waited for the bus to take me back to Hounslow West, and I could taste the diesel exhaust from all the coaches and buses idling at the stops. The sooner all public transport is electric, the better. So, I got back to the car park and set off to get my first charge. I’d chosen Pod-Point because I happen to have the app (the only one I’ve got) and I’m a tight git and Lidl have the cheapest 50kW CCS network.

So, I drove 4 miles to Lidl at Hayes and just got there as a woman plugged in her Kona. I could see on the charger display that the state of charge was low, so she was going to be there for quite a while, which she confirmed. Not to worry, I thought that might happen, although, at 08:00 on a Sunday morning, I thought I might have a better chance.

I drove 5 miles back to Lidl in Feltham and it was deserted, brilliant! By this time I had 15% charge left and didn’t really want to go any lower in case of any unexpected problems. I plugged in the CCS charger and the screen said the charger wasn’t working. I gave the charger a couple of expletives and decided to plug in the Type 2 AC to get a bit of charge back while I had a hot drink from my flask.

At 17% I drove 6 miles to Lidl at Uxbridge, where there was an e-tron already charging. Fortunately, the driver said he was only doing a splash and dash and would be 10 minutes. Result! (compared to my previous attempts anyway). Whilst I was charging, a taxi driver turned up in a Kia e-niro and we had a chat. He said that because of the clean air zone, they wanted to charge him £35 (not sure what time period that was for), so he sold his fossil car and bought an EV. The problem was that he didn’t have off street parking and the council hadn’t installed any more chargers.

I was going to charge to 75%, but stopped at 68% as there was someone waiting. I then drove 35 miles to Lidl at Reading for a final top up for the journey home. There was an electric Mini plugged into the 50kW and on the screen I could see it was at 99% with no one in the car. How selfish is that? 7KW, fair enough as they take hours to charge, but a 50kW which takes tens of minutes?

So, I drove 8 miles to MOTO Services on the M4 Westbound. They have 2 Gridserve Electric Highway units, one is CCS and Chademo, and the other 2 CCS, one of which was not being used. I plugged in and found out why it wasn’t being used . . . it wouldn’t initiate the charge. So once again, I had to wait for someone to finish so I could charge (about 15 minutes).

My thoughts on this are:

Although there were a number of locations within a five mile radius, they only had 1 charger at those locations. When Tesla install chargers, they install multiple stalls at one location.

The government want to promote the change to EV’s, but are not promoting the infrastructure to support those EV’s.

Although there is standardisation of connectors (sort of), CCS being the current leader, connection protocols, and electrical regulations for the installation of chargers, network providers have free rein to operate those chargers as they see fit. Their is no standardisation of their user interfaces, and rely on you having a phone with you if you have any issues. I have to admit that I was more concerned with finding a working charger than I was with talking to a support centre ( a simple “out-of-order” button to press would be an easier solution). Petrol and diesel pumps are the same all over the UK, regardless of which company is running them, and you don’t need, RFID’s or apps to use them.

I enjoy driving EV’s and found it all a bit of an adventure. If I were a “petrol head” or an ordinary commuter, my journey would not have encouraged me to buy an EV.

I have not read your complete works as above but caught and agree with the epilogue. I have to say the situation in Scotland is similar with misleading official efficiency figures having our Transport Minister believing the government investment in the publicly funded network has been worth it. I've already written to my appropriate contacts (local MPs, etc and the Transport Minister). They are duty bound to respond and I've always had a very informative response even though it may not be what I want to hear. The main thing in doing this is to glean as much information as possible about government intentions for our benefits. I don't know if anyone saw a documentary that was televised several weeks ago regarding the state of Scotland's ev network but it pointed out the flaw in how faulty charge points are recorded and that showed that the government's representative was being fed a fault rate of around 2% overall whereas the simple real-time method of physically recording charge points not working when ev users go to use them was around 22% (if I remember correctly).
So we have a hurdle to overcome already when so called official figures are so blatantly wrong. There was some comfort taken when the Minister said on the program that she will look at the figures given to her officially and the ones recorded for the program and ask why the difference and should the official figures be calculated in a more efficient manner because they apparently presume all charge points to be working in a 24 hour period unless faults are picked up by the system or are reported(it was actually a bit more mathematical that this but...). We all know how fed up we get having to report a faulty charge point time and again when it should flag as broken on the network.
We have a long way to go to get a cohesive network that we can rely upon and that is also fairly distributed. In our part of the world it is up to local authorities to decide how many charge points they install on the ChargePlace Scotland network with the budget provided. When I looked at the comparison table it looked very odd and of course makes me wonder about the decision makers at all stages of the system.
I'll stop now. Suffice to say, I like charging at home. Such a pity that the government of the UK has allowed the power companies to get away with not providing a green drive tariff any more. The companies saying that they cannot guarantee the low price per unit due to the uncertainty in the energy market - HUH!!! I say it guarantees the government more money in their pockets because they can grab more tax from more profits made.
Only one way to stop this - I'm afraid a General Election where we insist part of the party policy focuses on getting our energy costs down to a fair level for green usage like our vehicles. It's obvious the current government does not have this as a priority and again you and I suffer for trying to do the right thing. We have lost all incentives to go green with this government. How on Earth they expect to meet targets of any kind beggars belief. It is sickening the mess we are leaving our future generations.
Sorry, got a bit engrossed there.

 

[Pwlcarz]

Over several years of having an EV I would say, for long trips:

Don't include any facility that has only 1 charger

Avoid supermarket dedicated chargers (e.g. Lidl)

Avoid the most unreliable networks (Used to be electric highway but now seems to be increasingly Polar). Mark them to avoid in ABRP.

Try to use Nav that includes real-time occupancy/functional status.

Favour facilities that have more than one charger company in the same place. A few do and watch for the Tesla opened chargers.

Favour chargers that take debit cards.

Over several years of having an EV I would say, for long trips:

Don't include any facility that has only 1 charger

Avoid supermarket dedicated chargers (e.g. Lidl)

Avoid the most unreliable networks (Used to be electric highway but now seems to be increasingly Polar). Mark them to avoid in ABRP.

Try to use Nav that includes real-time occupancy/functional status.

Favour facilities that have more than one charger company in the same place. A few do and watch for the Tesla opened chargers.

Favour chargers that take debit cards.

That's good advice, but quite frankly isn't it all a faff?
Why does it need to be so difficult?
If you are driving a petrol or diesel car, you NEVER have to think about all this, you just go to any filling station and fill up. Electric needs to be the same and providers need to stop buggering about and get their acts together, if necessary forced to by government legislation.

 

[Gadget Geek]

That's good advice, but quite frankly isn't it all a faff?
Why does it need to be so difficult?
If you are driving a petrol or diesel car, you NEVER have to think about all this, you just go to any filling station and fill up. Electric needs to be the same and providers need to stop buggering about and get their acts together, if necessary forced to by government legislation.

My thoughts exactly, which is why I made the journey the way I did to highlight the issues.

 

[Bodgerx]

That's good advice, but quite frankly isn't it all a faff?
Why does it need to be so difficult?
If you are driving a petrol or diesel car, you NEVER have to think about all this, you just go to any filling station and fill up. Electric needs to be the same and providers need to stop buggering about and get their acts together, if necessary forced to by government legislation.

Most of what I have suggested is possible to do automatically with ABRP, so as long as you plan a route with and select the options it isn't too bad.

You have to weigh the long trip inconveniences against the fact that day-to-day (for most people that charge from home) having an EV as actually much less hassle than a fossil car.

 

[DewiSant]

We need individual EV users, forums like this and other EV publication to start lobbying Parliament together to improve the infrastructure in the UK. There needs to be more control on pricing, fault diagnosis and rectification and a standardised payment format instead of having to download multiple apps.

 

[Elec Car Aust]

Over several years of having an EV I would say, for long trips:

Don't include any facility that has only 1 charger

Avoid supermarket dedicated chargers (e.g. Lidl)

Avoid the most unreliable networks (Used to be electric highway but now seems to be increasingly Polar). Mark them to avoid in ABRP.

Try to use Nav that includes real-time occupancy/functional status.

Favour facilities that have more than one charger company in the same place. A few do and watch for the Tesla opened chargers.

Favour chargers that take debit cards.

All great suggestions . Unfortunately for Australian drivers your last couple of points don't apply as we're not as progressed with charging infrastructure as you guys n girls in the UK.

 

[Elec Car Aust]

We need individual EV users, forums like this and other EV publication to start lobbying Parliament together to improve the infrastructure in the UK. There needs to be more control on pricing, fault diagnosis and rectification and a standardised payment format instead of having to download multiple apps.

Unfortunately this is a global problem, not just UK.

 

[Maciej]

First of all I want to challenge part in which you call someone charging to 99% selfish when you have no idea if they need full charge or not. This is silly you don't get to decide how much charge other people need which brings us to second point which is you abandoned your charge at 68% when you needed more charge and then blamed other for this mistake. You could have charged more if you needed.

One thing that annoys me about EV drivers is that people have created themselves thier own "honour code" of what is absolutely isn't acceptable and then hold other drivers to account of their own made up rules.

Af far as I am concerned the only actual rule is don't park in charging bay" that is it. Every other rule is made up by the EV drivers who then act like children having temper tantrums because people don't play by their rules.

Yes EV charging isn't perfect at the moment and needs improvement. It isn't too bad but could be better but a main problem here was you found a charger could charge enough to get to your destination but then followed you crazy honour code and messed yourself up. Issue wasn't infrastructure it was your own made up rules. Infrastructure was there you was using it and then half way through you stopped for no reason.

 

[Bodgerx]

First of all I want to challenge part in which you call someone charging to 99% selfish when you have no idea if they need full charge or not. This is silly you don't get to decide how much charge other people need which brings us to second point which is you abandoned your charge at 68% when you needed more charge and then blamed other for this mistake. You could have charged more if you needed.

One thing that annoys me about EV drivers is that people have created themselves thier own "honour code" of what is absolutely isn't acceptable and then hold other drivers to account of their own made up rules.

Af far as I am concerned the only actual rule is don't park in charging bay" that is it. Every other rule is made up by the EV drivers who then act like children having temper tantrums because people don't play by their rules.

Yes EV charging isn't perfect at the moment and needs improvement. It isn't too bad but could be better but a main problem here was you found a charger could charge enough to get to your destination but then followed you crazy honour code and messed yourself up. Issue wasn't infrastructure it was your own made up rules. Infrastructure was there you was using it and then half way through you stopped for no reason.

Rather than a code, the chargers just need to implement overstay fees. An extension of the Tesla system:

At 100% - £0.20 per minute
At 90-100% - 50% premium on normal rate

I think you’d start to see behaviours changing after while.

 

[Gadget Geek]

First of all I want to challenge part in which you call someone charging to 99% selfish when you have no idea if they need full charge or not. This is silly you don't get to decide how much charge other people need which brings us to second point which is you abandoned your charge at 68% when you needed more charge and then blamed other for this mistake. You could have charged more if you needed.

One thing that annoys me about EV drivers is that people have created themselves thier own "honour code" of what is absolutely isn't acceptable and then hold other drivers to account of their own made up rules.

Af far as I am concerned the only actual rule is don't park in charging bay" that is it. Every other rule is made up by the EV drivers who then act like children having temper tantrums because people don't play by their rules.

Yes EV charging isn't perfect at the moment and needs improvement. It isn't too bad but could be better but a main problem here was you found a charger could charge enough to get to your destination but then followed you crazy honour code and messed yourself up. Issue wasn't infrastructure it was your own made up rules. Infrastructure was there you was using it and then half way through you stopped for no reason.

Their is no made up code, unless you call courtesy, good manners and kindness a made up code. Charging to 100% on a public charger can take hours as the charge throttles back to protect the battery. As I have metioned before, if I charge on type 2 AC, I will leave the vehicle because it takes a long time. On CCS however, the charge times are in the order of tens of minutes and so I would stay with the vehicle, ready to leave as soon as I had enough charge to continue my journey.

Did you notice that last phrase, "enough charge to continue my journey"? I stopped at 68% because I knew I had more than enough charge to get me to the next charger. If you have watched any road trip videos on Youtube, you will see that the quickest and most efficient way to travel in an EV is to "hop" from charger to charger to your distination (see Bjorn Nyland's road trips).

This only works if all the chargers are working, which is the point I keep making and some people keep missing.

 

[Maciej]

I mean they are made up rules. This is a honour code some EV drivers created for themselves. If this was actual rules there would be a notice on a charger stating it. If charger was suppose to charge to 70 or 80% it would cut off at that point not continue to charge. I understand charger hopping. But you plugged in with a goal to charge to certain %then decided not to. This is 100% your fault for not sticking to your original plan.

While we need more chargers we need to stop the honour code because that is nor how life work anywhere else. You wouldn't stop filling a tank at half full because queue behind you was big. You wouldn't leave half your shopping because there were 10 people at a till behind you etc I see no reason why you should stop charging because there is car waiting for charger unless you want to.

Yes we need more chargers some places have like 2 chargers where they really need more like 8 but we also need to stop believing we are members of the same club that follows it's own rules society doesn't follow just because car is electric.

I agree for example thatvchargers should cost more once you go over say 85% but expecting people to follow some rules original few ev drivers made for themselves 10 years ago where there was maybe 10 chargers between them is simply silly and not the way things should work.

If I plug my car and intend to charge to 80% I am charging to 80% even if there is 10 cars waiting for my charger is a queue because 80% if what I need. This isn't rude this is normal behaviour

 

[Gadget Geek]

I mean they are made up rules. This is a honour code some EV drivers created for themselves. If this was actual rules there would be a notice on a charger stating it. If charger was suppose to charge to 70 or 80% it would cut off at that point not continue to charge. I understand charger hopping. But you plugged in with a goal to charge to certain %then decided not to. This is 100% your fault for not sticking to your original plan.

While we need more chargers we need to stop the honour code because that is nor how life work anywhere else. You wouldn't stop filling a tank at half full because queue behind you was big. You wouldn't leave half your shopping because there were 10 people at a till behind you etc I see no reason why you should stop charging because there is car waiting for charger unless you want to.

Yes we need more chargers some places have like 2 chargers where they really need more like 8 but we also need to stop believing we are members of the same club that follows it's own rules society doesn't follow just because car is electric.

I agree for example thatvchargers should cost more once you go over say 85% but expecting people to follow some rules original few ev drivers made for themselves 10 years ago where there was maybe 10 chargers between them is simply silly and not the way things should work.

If I plug my car and intend to charge to 80% I am charging to 80% even if there is 10 cars waiting for my charger is a queue because 80% if what I need. This isn't rude this is normal behaviour

Yeah . . . OK. I'm not like you.

 

[WalkingBootWeather]

I mean they are made up rules. This is a honour code some EV drivers created for themselves.

You are right. Many of the 'rules' around charging are not clearly stated or are unenforceable. In the short term you will likely make best progress by ignoring them. Like many other things in society, like giving up a seat on public transport to someone more in need, not parking in parent & child or disabled spaces, finishing your beverage promptly in a cafe when all tables are taken and a family is waiting to eat, we can choose to look after ourselves, first but if everyone behaves in this manner systems will break down. Next time you might be waiting for someone else being less considerate.

This doesn't mean you should be a soft touch and not take a fair turn at a charger, and the real solution is for there to be more chargers (and the ones installed should work), but while there are limited resources and lots of people choosing to dwell for a long time, sipping energy at low charge rates, then pretty soon everyone is waiting longer than needed.

@Bodgerx is on the right lines. The only way that undesirable behaviours can be discouraged is by setting tariffs at a level where people will choose to move on sooner. If you insist you are free to charge to 90%+, or finish your meal before returning, but that final 10% might charge you the same as another driver taking their car from 10-70% since the charger is occupied for a similar time.

 

[Maciej]

I never occupy charger for a sake of it. But in above example driver clearly needed 75% decided not to charge to 75% and then struggled I think there is a difference between being considerate of others and giving up your charger too soon to a point in which you then end up doing crazy travels between chargers to get last 10% top up.

I agree that if charge to 80% is desirable then we should put higher cost at charging between 80% and 100%. I'm actually surprised more places don't it's in their best interest to move as many cars as they can. But if I was in position where I need 75% charge to get home there is no way I am leaving a charger at 68% because someone is waiting. Speeds hardly down anyway until you get to 80%+ so for me this was very bizzare behaviour on driver part.

On the other hand if I need 75% I am charging to 75% and no more because chargers are expansive and I would rather charge cheaply at home

 

[WalkingBootWeather]

I never occupy charger for a sake of it. But in above example driver clearly needed 75% decided not to charge to 75% and then struggled I think there is a difference between being considerate of others and giving up your charger too soon to a point in which you then end up doing crazy travels between chargers to get last 10% top up.

I agree that if charge to 80% is desirable then we should put higher cost at charging between 80% and 100%. I'm actually surprised more places don't it's in their best interest to move as many cars as they can. But if I was in position where I need 75% charge to get home there is no way I am leaving a charger at 68% because someone is waiting. Speeds hardly down anyway until you get to 80%+ so for me this was very bizzare behaviour on driver part.

On the other hand if I need 75% I am charging to 75% and no more because chargers are expansive and I would rather charge cheaply at home

All perfectly sensible and even the most zealous charger monitors aren't going to complain at that. It is drivers like the one reported by the OP sat on a rapid at 99% that we need to change their ways.

To be fair most of the worst behaviours occurred on free chargers and I generally avoid the few that remain for that very reason.

 

[Gadget Geek]

I never occupy charger for a sake of it. But in above example driver clearly needed 75% decided not to charge to 75% and then struggled I think there is a difference between being considerate of others and giving up your charger too soon to a point in which you then end up doing crazy travels between chargers to get last 10% top up.

I agree that if charge to 80% is desirable then we should put higher cost at charging between 80% and 100%. I'm actually surprised more places don't it's in their best interest to move as many cars as they can. But if I was in position where I need 75% charge to get home there is no way I am leaving a charger at 68% because someone is waiting. Speeds hardly down anyway until you get to 80%+ so for me this was very bizzare behaviour on driver part.

On the other hand if I need 75% I am charging to 75% and no more because chargers are expansive and I would rather charge cheaply at home

I didn't need 75%, that was an aspiration, not a target. I could have stuck it out for the 75%, but I would still have had to stop and charge again (if for a shorter period). I could have taken the attitude of "I was here first, so tough", but I'm not like that. I needed a certain level of charge to complete my journey, whether that was a 40 min charge and 10 min charge, or two 25 min charges, the charging time would have been the same (presuming equal charge rates, which they weren't, but that's the roll of the dice).

At no time was I doing "crazy travels between chargers". I'll state it again, the problems I had were with the number of chargers and their reliablilty. The people I met at the chargers were friendly and helpful, letting me know whether thay had just got there and would be a while, or if they were doing a quick top up and would be 10 minutes. This allowed me to decide whether to stay or move on.

Just to add, I give up my seat on public transport to someone who is in need of a seat, and if I have a full trolley at the checkout, I will let someone with a few items in their basket go before me.

 

[Crod]

All good points, although I did say that I wanted to use the cheapest network, so expected some of the issues I encounterd. Broken chargers though are totally unacceptable. Imagine if petrol pumps were left not working, there would be questions asked in parliament.

Real time navigation requires an internet connection, which I don't always have.

It's the old adage, "you get what you pay for" I suppose. The cheaper networks have less funding for maintenance.

And apart from Pod-Point, I always use contactless payment as I refuse to have all those apps, cards and RFID's. If ICE car drivers don't have to use them, why should EV drivers have to?

" Refusing" to have apps and RFIDs is just daft. Charging provision is far from ideal but we need to use to it as it is, not as we'd like it to be (e.g if it had been planned!) Podpoint and Pulse apps plus Shell ( also linked to my Geniepoint account) and Octopus RFID cards cover 95% of my public charging requirements. While ever drivers expect EV driving to be exactly the same as ICE driving, we'll keep burning fossil fuels

 

[Gadget Geek]

While ever drivers expect EV driving to be exactly the same as ICE driving, we'll keep burning fossil fuels

Completely agree. Until EV charging has the same provision and ease of use as a petrol pump, petrol heads will simply refuse to cowtow to the charging network overlords.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Today I did the run out to Heathrow and back to collect my daughter from the airport, and it was a totally different experience.

This time I did my charging on the inbound journey so we could have a straight run back without stopping. I went M5 and M4 to Reading and the Pod-Point charger at Lidl. It was 3.30 in the morning and as I anticipated I had the charger to myself. I arrived with 69% and plugged in the CCS and started charging via the Pod-Point app.

I then had a problem which underlined why I dislike using apps to charge an EV. Whilst I was sitting in the car having a hot drink from a flask, I had a text from ASDA mobile informing me that my automatic top up had failed and I had no credit left. I tried to manually top up the phone and it informed me that it had failed also. The car was up to 84% and started throttling, so the only way I could stop the charge was by hitting the emergency stop button, which worked and I was able to remove the CCS plug (I thought I might have a problem with that but it was fine).

I then had to revert to plan B as I was originally going to use the Source London fast chargers at Hounslow West car park. Without being able to access the website, it would be impossible to start a PAYG session. So, I headed for the small charging hub in Slough suggested by Striker as it was only 12 miles from my destination and would still alow me to make the return journey without stopping.

If anyone is travelling along the M4, this hub is only 1.5 miles from junction 6 and accepts contactless charging. I arrived with 77% charge and plugged into a 150kW charger, where I charged to 95%. At the hub there was a DPD van and another van plugged into the 7kW posts with no drivers, so I presume they had been left overnight.

I got to Hounslow West Underground Station car park with 86%. Weekday parking was £6.50 (a lot cheaper than Heathrow Short Stay). 2 stops on the Picadilly line and I was at Terminal 3. Picked up my daughter and back to Hounslow West. On to the M4, and no offence meant to any Londoners on this forum, but the lack of lane discipline and lack of indicators was frightening. Once we got past the M25 it was plain sailing and got home with 33% remaining. I subtracted the Sat-Nav distance from the GOM prediction and it said I would have 73 miles remaining. When I pulled onto the drive the GOM said 72. Not a bad guess once again.

What a difference it makes when chargers are available and working.