MG ZS EV Owner shame on you

[Stuart74]

Had a great away day at football today. Planned charging from East Lothian to Aberdeen.
Stopped at Forfar 50kwDC charge free and parked in Bon Accord shopping centre and got free charge in Aberdeen(£6) parking.
On way back stopped at Forfar for a top up.
High winds affected my range and Edinburgh city bypass closed at Hillend. Pulled off at Hermiston with 18 miles remaining.
Only to find another mg ZS EV identical to mine parked with the 50kw ccs plugged in with nobody in it.
It’s bad when we get iced but I thought MG owners would know better.
Shame on you!
Took me an extra 1 1/2 hours to get home
Has anyone else had this problem?
Do we post pics of the culprits ?
Maybe this will embarrass them to stop being so selfish!

 

[Dr Dave]

Only to find another mg ZS EV identical to mine parked with the 50kw ccs plugged in with nobody in it.

I have never used a 50 kw charger, are you supposed to stay sitting in the vehicle whilst charging? Is this selfish? Perhaps the driver was having a coffee or at the toilets.

 

[Sean]

Stopped at Forfar 50kwDC charge free and parked in Bon Accord shopping centre and got free charge in Aberdeen(£6) parking.
On way back stopped at Forfar for a top up.
High winds affected my range and Edinburgh city bypass closed at Hillend. Pulled off at Hermiston with 18 miles remaining.
Only to find another mg ZS EV identical to mine parked with the 50kw ccs plugged in with nobody in it.
It’s bad when we get iced but I thought MG owners would know better.
Shame on you!
Took me an extra 1 1/2 hours to get home
Has anyone else had this problem?
Do we post pics of the culprits ?
Maybe this will embarrass them to stop being so selfish!

I often leave my car while it's charging, and go for a coffee or something.

 

[Stuart74]

It was a park and ride with toilets locked up as far as I could see. There are no facilities nearby. The mg badge was not lit. Looked like it had left.
9pm on a cold rainy Saturday night.
Maybe the owner was walking their dig?
I’ve had my car a year and done 27k miles.
Most of my friends don’t want to change over to electric and issues like this shows why.
Just very frustrating and selfish.

 

[Dr Dave]

It was a park and ride with toilets locked up as far as I could see. There are no facilities nearby. The mg badge was not lit. Looked like it had left.
9pm on a cold rainy Saturday night.
Maybe the owner was walking their dig?
I’ve had my car a year and done 27k miles.
Most of my friends don’t want to change over to electric and issues like this shows why.
Just very frustrating and selfish.

At least it was an electric car and plugged in. Over the past month I have been at charging stations with ice cars parked in them and worse several occurances of electric cars parked at electric charging stations and not even plugged in. Now that really is selfish.

 

[Reygun]

There will always be idiots around. The solution is of course to have enough charging points for everyone. Happened to me this summer, had to cut short a trip because of it.

 

[kiltox]

So you don’t actually know that they weren’t using the charger as intended, just assuming?

 

[Headgas1]

Well if it was plugged in it must of been charging at some point yes ? And it might have not long finished when you got there I don’t really see the issue unless your saying you waited for 11/2 hours before they returned ?

 

[Jajadingdong]

Looks like there’s also a type 2 on that charger, and two parking slots dedicated for charging, according to a Hermiston Park & Ride spot I found in PlugShare..

 

[jamesie]

What's selfish about plugging in and leaving the car to take a short walk......or, am I missing something?

 

[Kithmo]

I wouldn't leave my car plugged in to a rapid charger at a park and ride, a 7kW maybe, depending on how long I'm going to be, but not a rapid.
To me, 7kW chargers are destination chargers and rapids are for topping up. At a park and ride, on a rapid charger, you should either top up when you get there, staying with the car and then park the car in a normal parking space, or park in a normal space when you arrive and then top up when you come back, before you leave.

 

[JodyS21]

I can understand why it is very annoying, however I'm not sure they did anything wrong.

If someones car is plugged in and finished charging and they aren't back, I thought you were allowed to remove it from their car and start your own charge.

It is a bit strange that it is a park & ride at 9pm at night and they've not come back yet for their car, but it's kinda besides the point.

I would suggest this is almost an expected/will become common scenario to find a car plugged in and it has finished charging with no owner around.
At a park & ride I imagine it will happen all of the time, someone's driven their car there and need a charge and are going into town for several hours, they have no choice but to leave the car and know that it'll finished charging before they return.
At my local shopping centre there are several of the pay and display spaces that also have chargers, people will pay for say 2+ hours parking and plug in to charge, they'll be finished charging before they return. Assuming there isn't a charger per space and it's shared between 2 spaces, this situation is going to occur regularly.

The only way around this is for charging stations to have more than 1 ccs cable on them, so that you can use the 2nd cable if someones charge has finished on the other cable. Maybe this will happen.
The chargers should say on them really, "if plugged in and not charging, remove from that car and use". Do any say anything like this on them? I rarely use them.

 

[jamesie]

Are we assuming that this person has "parked and ridden" though. He/she may be stretching their legs after a long drive.

 

[mj224]

When on motorway, I plug in the rapid charger, then go and ablute and coffee etc, but am always back in the car to watch the charge progress. I guess unexpected circumstances can happen and delay return.

 

[Gomev]

I wouldn't leave my car plugged in to a rapid charger at a park and ride, a 7kW maybe, depending on how long I'm going to be, but not a rapid.
To me, 7kW chargers are destination chargers and rapids are for topping up. At a park and ride, on a rapid charger, you should either top up when you get there, staying with the car and then park the car in a normal parking space, or park in a normal space when you arrive and then top up when you come back, before you leave.

Even at a rapid the car can take an hour to charge up if very low SOC and temperature low, so I think it is OK to wander off and not be ties to the car.
Very poor if leaving it overnight though.
The Geniepoint/Engie chargers have a £10 overstay charge if still connected after 90 mins.

 

[jamesie]

Even at a rapid the car can take an hour to charge up if very low SOC and temperature low, so I think it is OK to wander off and not be ties to the car.
Very poor if leaving it overnight though.
The Geniepoint/Engie chargers have a £10 overstay charge if still connected after 90 mins.

Agree with this.

Overstay charges seem to me to be the way to handle charger "overuse".

 

[Headgas1]

I’ve rapid charged a couple of times and on the second occasion I knew what to expect the car is locked so I went for a walk for an hour but was careful to check the time as I didn’t want to pay the £10 overstay charge 90min and I nearly got caught out so it’s easy done. Not sure @JodyS21 if it’s ok to unplug them ?

 

[Kithmo]

Even at a rapid the car can take an hour to charge up if very low SOC and temperature low, so I think it is OK to wander off and not be ties to the car.
Very poor if leaving it overnight though.
The Geniepoint/Engie chargers have a £10 overstay charge if still connected after 90 mins.

Wander off for an hour, yes, but park and ride usually means park up and catch a bus to the local town or some other location, which is usually more than an hour.

 

[Bazzer44]

Even at a rapid the car can take an hour to charge up if very low SOC and temperature low, so I think it is OK to wander off and not be ties to the car.
Very poor if leaving it overnight though.
The Geniepoint/Engie chargers have a £10 overstay charge if still connected after 90 mins.

75 minutes is the limit, changes to 90 minutes next week, I thought it was 90 and had the £10 fee this week, was in the car, It was Engie , contacted them and Genie refunded the fee as a goodwill gesture , they looked at my history to decide to refund, very good I thought

 

[weedavemac]

I use the rapid charger at my local park and ride. I start charging, and then walk to my gym. Make a fool of myself for 40 minutes and then walk back to the car. 50 minutes in total.