What would make public charging better for you..?

[Kithmo]

Problem we have at work in connection design is petrol stations generally only have small supplies many only have 18kVA single phase or 30kVA 3ph connections and fuel pumps use next to no power.

So Costs them a lot to upgrade the supply for rapids especially if they're having more than one or two units.

The maximum you can get on an single LV connection before you need a substation is 276kVA (400A) per phase. Which is eaten up by 2x 150kW units with load balancing to keep it within the 276kVA that's why instavolt only normally install 2 units and load balance between them.

I didn't say it would be cheap or easy, just nice to have

 

[MoDolph]

Are people with £25k + cars really finding pre authorisation charges a problem? It's only a few hundred pounds, even on a really long journey. It's not like it's months until you get it back.

 

[Rolfe]

A bunch of chargers in every petrol station.

I don't think a petrol station is the place for chargers. The odd rapid to allow travellers to charge and get on their way is helpful at the moment, but people would rather go to a proper electric forecourt where there is a decent number of chargers and somewhere to wait/have a coffee rather than just a wee grocer's shop.

Locally, people want a lot more type 2 chargers within a short walk of home, and again I don't think a petrol station is the right place. Car parks and by the side of the road are more acceptable.

Are people with £25k + cars really finding pre authorisation charges a problem? It's only a few hundred pounds, even on a really long journey. It's not like it's months until you get it back.

It's not even that. If you get a successful charge the pre-authorisation goes away within minutes, to be replaced by a debit for the amount you actually spent.

The problem that can happen is that if you have a charger that is reluctant to talk to your car, you can easily pre-authorise three or four amounts, which then may not go away for several days, but hang around in "pending transactions" freezing up your money. This only happens if you don't get a charge though.

One way round it is to use a credit card.

 

[GaryMG4]

As I rarely travel beyond the range of my car I'd like to see an abundance of destination chargers. Be they at railway stations, cinemas/theatres or other attractions, so long as they are sensibly priced say 40-45p. A railway station car park could have 20 7.4kW chargers in place of 1 150, in a lot of cases a commuter could happily charge all day on a 3.2kW charger and come back to a decent amount of charge and not need to charge every day. The railway has a good network for moving power around which could have enough capacity after rush hour to cope.

 

[Rolfe]

I agree wholeheartedly. If people could rely on being able to leave their car on a type 2 when they got to wherever they were going, it would effectively double their range. It would be invaluable for people who can't charge at home. I saw a video explaining that if everyone who wanted to could charge whenever their cars were parked at their destination, being able to charge at home - even on a type 2 within walking distance - would become almost a non-issue.

 

[MoDolph]

I want to know how likely it is that the charger will be free when I get there. I don't like the idea of reservations, but I would like the sat nav to take onto account how many others were navigating to it to predict the probability of it being available when I arrive and suggest better alternatives based on real time data. It'll take some time but it should be possible.

 

[Ayoull]

I want to know how likely it is that the charger will be free when I get there. I don't like the idea of reservations, but I would like the sat nav to take onto account how many others were navigating to it to predict the probability of it being available when I arrive and suggest better alternatives based on real time data. It'll take some time but it should be possible.

ABRP is closest on terms of this even with it's pee poor routing, in that a charger becomes unavailable / fully utilised it will change to the nearest one to it within your safety soc level

 

[Rolfe]

I want to know how likely it is that the charger will be free when I get there. I don't like the idea of reservations, but I would like the sat nav to take onto account how many others were navigating to it to predict the probability of it being available when I arrive and suggest better alternatives based on real time data. It'll take some time but it should be possible.

I'd rather there were enough chargers so that we didn't have to keep second-guessing and re-routing to find ones that are free.

And honestly, I think that's coming. Look at that nutty MacMaster video (or rather three videos) he did just before Christmas, supposedly the busiest time of the year. He was clearly hoping to find the charging sites heaving and long queues, but he didn't. And that's even with him checking his satnav and deliberately going to the busy places. (His Porsche has a satnav that will do what you want already, as have Teslas.)

Only on his way home did he find, first a ghastly motorway service station with only a single CCS plug and some benighted idiot trying and failing to get a charge from it, and then when he moved on to a site with only two Instavolts which were both in use, he was next on with only a 15 minute wait. (He tried to pretend there was a queue, but his timings gave him away. Drove in to the site at 4.50, charge started 5.05.)

The thing is, in order to find the ghastly motorway service station he had to drive right past the freaking NEC charging hub with 24 ultra-rapids, and then only a mile from the ghastly motorway service station there was another hub with several more ultra-rapids. A normal person would have driven straight on to a charger even then.

 

[MoDolph]

Look at that nutty MacMaster video

I know, he's an idiot. Is it you he keeps mentioning? If it is your doing a stellar job

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. I was intrigued enough by the tricks he's pulling to take a deep dive into some of his videos, with some surprising (and some not so surprising) results.

Unsurprisingly he drives past things like open Tesla superchargers and the NEC charging hub to martyr himself at 50 Kw units - CPS village-green chargers and old, not-upgraded motorway services - in a car that can charge at 250 Kw. He also charges from 40% to 100% pretty much every time, standing there to the bitter end putting in charge he can't possibly use as his next inevitable stop is closer than that. He also goes to charging sites he knows are busy or malfunctioning in preference to the trouble-free ones. He parks badly then complains that the cables won't reach or are scratching his car. He goes to hotels with type 2 chargers right next to them, and doesn't plug in overnight.

One day he stopped to charge about 8 miles short of where he was staying the night before setting off on a challenge. I thought, why there, don't you want to start on 100%? (There was a site with several new ultra-rapids only 500 yards from his hotel.) Then the penny dropped. He went straight to an Osprey site, making out that he'd come across it almost by accident, and claimed that none of the chargers were working. In fact the site was brand new and not yet switched on, as confirmed by Plugshare. That was a novel one.

But the thing that surprised me is that he is a very slow driver. I started to notice that every time he did one of these challenges he was getting in about an hour and a half later than even his weird routings and contrived charging delays could explain. At first I thought he must be parking up to waste even more time and blame it all on the charging. I mean, he's driving a bloody rocket sled. I couldn't go that slow in that car if I tried. I don't think I could go that slow in my MG4 SE if I tried.

However his mate Geoff says he thinks Lee simply has no sense of urgency and pootles along (in a Porsche Taycan that can rearrange your face if you let it go) like a Sunday afternoon driver. He said Lee was complaing to him that vehicles behind were flashing him to get past. "They weren't doing that to me!" says Geoff. I'm coming to the conclusion that's the case.

I think Geoff is getting a bit disillusioned, and realises Lee has no intention of trying to win, but his basic hatred of EVs means he's not going to pull out completely. He agress that Lee really loves that Taycan and will either keep it or get another similar car when the lease ends, but so long as Lee pretends to hate it and badmouth it for YouTube revenue, Geoff will go along with it.

Geoff's basically a petrolhead, and a conspiracy theorist who thinks that EVs are part of some sinister attempt to control the population and corral us all into 15-minute cities. I wouldn't like to live inside his head, to be honest.

 

[MoDolph]

I agree with all that, it's so obvious to us who have real experience.

Although I called him an idiot I do admire the fact that he's getting anti EV people to pay for his car that I think he secretly likes.

My dad recommended him to me initially but the last time I asked him about one of his videos he said "Oh, I don't watch him anymore as I'm fed up of him faking things".

 

[Rolfe]

It's a grift. Any admiration I have for him is pretty grudging. He doesn't care that he's misleading people and putting them off getting the thing he loves.

It's not so secret that he loves his car if even GeoffBuysCars realises it. Also, he has old other Taycan owners that he loves it. He keeps saying nice things about it as if he can't help it, then starts on some rehearsed rant about no soul and no lovely engine noise and no gears to change. He has videos where he test-drives an even faster Taycan, and a Tesla, and he's quite obviously thrilled to bits with both of them. I'll just be interested to see what excuse he comes up with in October when his lease ends and he either keeps the car or gets the even faster Taycan.

I think it's becoming more obvious to people with half a brain that his only complaint is with the public charging system, not the car. Only so many times someone can say sneeringly "well if you can charge at home and only use it to go down the shops maybe it's OK" before people start to think, well I could charge at home and so could a lot of people, and a 200-mile plus range will get you a lot further than down the shops.

Then it becomes obvious that he's faking the charger woes, unless you're a complete idiot. And he's started saying things like "it's the public charging network that isn't ready and it never will be" even as chargers are being installed on an industrial scale. He's going to find it gets harder to keep the grift going when more and more people know someone who is loving their EV, and when it gets harder and harder to find lousy charging sites with only a couple of 50 Kw chargers.

 

[Vingnut]

About chargers at petrol stations, size of electric services the petrol stations have are not a concern. Because fast and ultra fast chargers need their own electric services anyway.

Here in Norway we have a lot of petrol stations with chargers ranging from one 22kW and one 50kW ccs/CHAdeMO up to several 300kW CCS chargers.
Those petrol stations are more fastfood shops than anything else and the bigger ones (and new ones) are usualy open 24/7. I usually do not charge at these places unless they have Tesla chargers nearby (like 50m as I'm lazy). I might charge a little top up there to get home or to get to the next open for all Tesla charge site, as the Tesla chargers are a lot cheaper and there are usualy lot of stalls but that's it.

Talking about Tesla chargers, let me give an example on how many stalls the ones I used on my last trip to south of Norway (655km/406mls one way).
These are teTesla charging sites I used or have used on this and other trips to the same destination last summer:
Åndalsnes 12 150kW stalls.
Dombås 23 250kW stalls.
Vinstra 12 150jW and 20 250kW stalls on two sites a few 100m between.
Lillehammer 10 150kW and 20 250kW on two sites 4 miles apart.
Gjøvik 24 250kW stalls.
Gran 12 250kW stalls.
Hokksund 20 150kW stalls.
Notodden 12 250kW stalls.
Skien 9 250kW stalls.

There are of course more Tesla charge sites on the route than this and many many more chargers from other companies.

I have not yet waited for a charger to become available on any trip so far in Norway, to be honest you guys and gals from UK and many other places in the world would not have this discussion if you lived in Norway as we really do not see the problem.

The one thing I do miss here in Norway are real destination chargers, we have some but unless it's at a hotel, they are a bit costly and are few and far between. Instead we have 50kW chargers at malls and places like that, but prices are often a bit eye watering for the speed you get.

 

[Vingnut]

It's a grift. Any admiration I have for him is pretty grudging. He doesn't care that he's misleading people and putting them off getting the thing he loves.

Mac is in it for the money (his Porsche is costing him a small fortune) and the trips are pure scam, it's becoming a bit too stupid when a guy in Norway spots the bs without ever setting a foot in UK. The problem is like the Electric Classic Cars (YT) pointed out, that any EV driver spots MacMasters bs miles away. But those who do not have experience with electric cars do not and get put off EVs by him. That said..... I do belive he is spot on on ev depreciation, especially for costly cars like his Porsche Taycan.

 

[Tig170]

My simple request is to have the chargers in the correct GPS location (not 30 miles out of location).

 

[Vingnut]

Sorry for the double posting, this post was the same as post #93

 

[Chequers]

I want to know how likely it is that the charger will be free when I get there. I don't like the idea of reservations, but I would like the sat nav to take onto account how many others were navigating to it to predict the probability of it being available when I arrive and suggest better alternatives based on real time data. It'll take some time but it should be possible.

Tesla already does this.

 

[Rolfe]

Mac is in it for the money (his Porsche is costing him a small fortune) and the trips are pure scam, it's becoming a bit too stupid when a guy in Norway spots the bs without ever setting a foot in UK. The problem is like the Electric Classic Cars pointed out, that any EV driver spots MacMasters bs miles away. But those who do not have experience with electric cars do not and get put off by him. That said..... I do belive he is spot on on ev depreciation, especially for costly cars like his Porsche Taycan.

It's hard to know how much effect he is really having. I think the anti-EV newspapers are more influential. They're all going to look fairly silly fairly soon, but he will look sillier than the newspapers.

The thing about his depreciation is that the list price for the Taycan he has, when he bought it, was about £80,000. I don't believe even the top of the range Taycan right now is £120,000 at its base price. He got it to that price by ordering a car with every expensive extra feature in the brochure. (Like that very clever satnav that would save him having to think once, never mind twice, if he just did what it told him to do.) You never recoup the cost of these extras when you sell the car. They might make it easier to sell but that's about it. So any depreciation really needs to take £80,000 as the start, not £120,000.

Also, he has it on a three-year lease. He just has to pay the lease every month then hand the car back at the end. What's he bellyaching about?

I don't really care about depreciation, personally. I bought the car I wanted and could afford when I needed a car. There's no point second-guessing because it was the right decision at the time and I couldn't really afford to wait. (I had a write-off on my hands which was running but wasn't going to get through its next MOT.) I'm going to keep the car. You might as well ask me if I'm concerned about the depreciation on my television. I bought it to drive it, not as an investment opportunity.

 

[Archev]

My simple request is to have the chargers in the correct GPS location (not 30 miles out of location).

How about giving the “What 3 Word” address ?
Get The W3W app it’ll give the 3 word address of the 10 foot x 10 foot square you are stood in (or driving in - or lying injured in on a remote hillside etc etc )
And that can be ANYWHERE on this planet we call home.
Look it up - it’s free.

How about giving the “What 3 Word” address ?
Get The W3W app it’ll give the 3 word address of the 10 foot x 10 foot square you are stood in (or driving in - or lying injured in on a remote hillside etc etc )
And that can be ANYWHERE on this planet we call home.
Look it up - it’s free.

For example I charged my MG 5 away from home in the square
“///gratitude.spouting.emailed”
The very close by hotel serves wonderful afternoon tea and scones and the scenery is glorious.
Where was that?

 

[ozzz]

1. 5% VAT for all EV chargers.
2. 215% increase in rapid chargers. (thats how far behind the country is in 2023. Only 7 years to go folks before the estimated number of EVs will need that increase.
3. Rain covers (why not put solar panels on top)
4. Clear display of charges per Kw/hr before you enter.
5. Safe location, not hidden in the dark near the bin area.
6. Clean and maintained toilet facillities.
7. A place to get a drink or snack.
8. A queue system if the chargers are occupied.

Sun covers would be awesome plus a nice view