Tesco stupid parking restrictions

Susanna

Susanna

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My local Tesco superstore has 6 pod point EV chargers, and a massive car park. I have never seen it full. They recently installed new signage, along the lines of ‘in order that our customers can always find a space…….’ a 3 hour time limit during store opening times (no change there), but a 30 minute time limit when the store is closed. Why? Surely if people living locally wanted to charge their EV’s overnight when the store is closed, then they are not impacting on shoppers in any way. Madness! I have attempted to find out the explanation for this, but it seems impossible to find out who to contact.
 
I wonder if Tesco are missing a trick, via clubcard registration could they issue a car sticker with registered number plate that allows overnight charging without incurring overstay parking fine? In after 10pm, exodus by say 8am?
 
Businesses still seem to be struggling with thinking through how to manage EV-equipped parking spaces. They're fixated on time limits, when much of the time time limits are inappropriate and often downright counterproductive. I wonder if some of this dates back to when some of these chargers were free, and they wanted to limit people taking advantage of this?

Assuming they're charging enough to make some profit on electricity sales, what is the point of these chargers standing idle all night, when they could be in use and making money? What is the point of forcing customers to cut short whatever it is they're doing and come back to their car and stop buying your product (electricity), if there's nobody else waiting?

If there are people waiting, hey, their product is really popular, better install more outlets!

Ideally, and we should get there in the end, a sufficient proportion of car parking spaces everywhere will be equipped with charging capability so that anyone who wants to charge their car while parked will be able to do so. You'll pay for the parking in the normal way (if applicable) and you'll pay for the electricity, and operators will be happy to let you stay there because there are enough EV-equipped spaces to go round, and it's a car park, not a charging station.

Of course, even if everyone owned an EV, only a proportion of spaces need to be EV-equipped, because people who charge at home aren't going to want to pay over the odds in a car park as a rule. But people who can't charge at home will be pleased to make use of the facility, and will bring their custom to the main business.

But businesses like Tesco (and others who really should know better) are still fixated on time limits and overstay fines on type 2 chargers, rather than working out how many of these chargers they need to install to keep their customers happy and keep them coming to patronise the business.

That clubcard idea to allow overnight parking is brilliant, and there will be other similar ideas, and I really don't know what they're paying their marketing people for if they're not coming up with a lot of these.
 
Robf said:
I wonder if Tesco are missing a trick, via clubcard registration could they issue a car sticker with registered number plate that allows overnight charging without incurring overstay parking fine? In after 10pm, exodus by say 8am?
Click to expand...
I don't know if they still do it, but supermarkets used to give vouchers for money off a litre of fuel if you spent a certain amount in store. Perhaps there could be a sceme to redeem some of your charging costs via the store's app?
 
Rolfe said:
Businesses still seem to be struggling with thinking through how to manage EV-equipped parking spaces. They're fixated on time limits, when much of the time time limits are inappropriate and often downright counterproductive. I wonder if some of this dates back to when some of these chargers were free, and they wanted to limit people taking advantage of this?

Assuming they're charging enough to make some profit on electricity sales, what is the point of these chargers standing idle all night, when they could be in use and making money? What is the point of forcing customers to cut short whatever it is they're doing and come back to their car and stop buying your product (electricity), if there's nobody else waiting?

If there are people waiting, hey, their product is really popular, better install more outlets!

Ideally, and we should get there in the end, a sufficient proportion of car parking spaces everywhere will be equipped with charging capability so that anyone who wants to charge their car while parked will be able to do so. You'll pay for the parking in the normal way (if applicable) and you'll pay for the electricity, and operators will be happy to let you stay there because there are enough EV-equipped spaces to go round, and it's a car park, not a charging station.

Of course, even if everyone owned an EV, only a proportion of spaces need to be EV-equipped, because people who charge at home aren't going to want to pay over the odds in a car park as a rule. But people who can't charge at home will be pleased to make use of the facility, and will bring their custom to the main business.

But businesses like Tesco (and others who really should know better) are still fixated on time limits and overstay fines on type 2 chargers, rather than working out how many of these chargers they need to install to keep their customers happy and keep them coming to patronise the business.

That clubcard idea to allow overnight parking is brilliant, and there will be other similar ideas, and I really don't know what they're paying their marketing people for if they're not coming up with a lot of these.
Click to expand...

I think the time limit is a good thing, to stop Joe Audi (other makes are available) from plugging into a rapid and leaving the car there all day while at work.
 
Would you believe it. but I'm not talking about rapid chargers. I'm talking about type 2 chargers, where people expect to park their car and go away and do other things. These need to be considered as EV-equipped parking spaces, not in the same way as rapid chargers, which are more like petrol pumps.

Absolutely put a time limit on a rapid charger. Totally. You shouldn't be leaving your car there once you've got the charge you need. But destination chargers are an entirely different animal. Too many providers are trying to ration time on them, vastly inconveniencing people who are in a car park because they have other things to do, and don't want to be running back in the middle of a meeting or dinner or a theatre performance to unplug their car.
 
I just popped up to Tesco to take some photos, and to get up to date information about the parking.
My point is really that if everyone is to be encouraged to buy EV’s, then shouldn’t opportunities for charging be increased, rather than deterring people by making them pay for parking as well as the electricity, when the store is closed?

Many people are not able to charge at home, and they were assured that public charging points in streets, car parks, supermarkets etc would be available. I am very cross on their behalf that (some) parking companies are now profiteering.

It would appear that a parking charge of £5 would be payable to park in excess of that stated on the Tesco signage. IMG_4094.jpegIMG_4093.jpegIMG_4096.jpegIMG_4095.jpeg
 
That really is punitive. I'm not sure it's deliberately malicious, but someone isn't thinking it through. It is difficult for people without home charging to manage both filling their batteries and balance charging if they don't have a charger within walking distance from home. What do you do while the car is charging?

If this was me, I'd speed things up by using a rapid charger to get over 90%, then take the car to a type 2 to complete the charge and balance - sometimes, anyway. Maybe three hours is enough for that. It's going to get tedious either way.

But why lock the chargers away overnight? What's the point? If they're concerned about ICE cars abusing the car park overnight then deal with that, but they need some way to allow EV owners who live nearby and don't have home charging to leave their cars there overnight. Otherwise, what a waste.
 
Maybe folk need to start contacting Tesco as said above, if they see a need and potential profit they will probably change their rules.
 
30 minutes after closing is usually to deter anti-social behaviour from groups of cars. Sometimes this isn't always the stores choice and stipulated by local councils.

You'll likely find paying to park longer than 3 hours doesn't include outside of store opening hours. Some stores around my area do the same and it was the council that didn't want car parks full of boy racers out of hours.
 
Yes, that is understandable on its own, but with EV chargers in the car park this means locking these chargers away so that local EV owners can't use them and they're lying idle all night. They need to devise some way to get the chargers available during that time.
 
I've just emailed ChargePlace Scotland about the £40 overstay fine on the type 2 chargers in the car park I use in Glasgow. Four-hour limit, then £40 penalty if you're a second over. In a car park with over 800 spaces and eight type 2 connectors, which are nevertheless never all in use at once. Also, a car park with expensive parking charges which EV drivers are paying the same as everybody else.

Want to have dinner then go to the theatre? Be prepared to run back to the car park during the interval to unplug your car, probably in freezing rain. Although it will probably be the only EV charging. Ridiculous.

We'll see how I get on.
 
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