Can't Charge At Home? How It Should Work When You Have Little Choice! 

I just visited a new retirement home. Virtually no parking space, what there was had no charging facility of ANY kind. Disappointing.

Stonks

There needs to be pv panels on the roof/bodywork, that are constantly charging.

@@garyrowe58 The weight of such panels reduces the efficiency more than the panels can generate.

Maybe get those Shell Recharge chargers with the RFID cards to use and set it up like a public charger.

Where you live I’m moving there now 🤣

If government are serious, why not electrifying the roads, like scalectrix. With pickups under cars.

Bjorn :)

Hi Tesla obviously charge around £1/minute over 5 minutes (auto debit) past charging completed and will be required to other charging station providers to allow other vehicle use. Agree with content but doubt if Government will grasp in time!

@@terrybranaghan8251 do Tesla do destination chargers? The idea is that virtually every parking space would have a charger. If you're parked your charging. Rapid chargers would be more akin to going to a petrol station.

The law needs to keep up with stuff like that. Over here in Berlin/Germany i call the police if someone has an ICE in a charging spot (or an EV that is not charging or is doing so for more than 4 hours during the day) and they call a towing truck, tow that vehicle to a free parking space elsewhere (can be quite far away). Which costs the owner €280 for the towing truck and a further €55 fine for parking on an EV charging place.

@@Soordhin how sensible!

Recent holiday in Scotland and I was surprised by how easy it was. I was grazing on the 22kW chargers dotted throughout Argyll & Bute. My car pulls 11kW so a healthy refill was had whilst the family and I did a tourist thing. Had 2 issues the entire week, with one rapid charger playing up the first time and then it being offline totally the 2nd. CPS card worked a treat everywhere. Was only there a week though and the rapid chargers are few and far between and probably fecked like you say.

@@chrischild3667 I wish it was as you say but unfortunately you've been very lucky.

We traveled the North Coast 500 (picked up the i3 from Edinburgh) and only once did I have a minor inconvenience where the phone signal was poor so had trouble starting the charge. Had we the charge Scotland RFID card, I'm sure would have been even easier. All the charging was free as a bonus.

Make a point of writing to Asda's CEO, telling him/her you will be shopping at Tesco in future, as they offer free charging for EV drivers. You may also like to point out that if Asda got off their arses and bothered to find out, they'd discover they could get a Government grant to install chargers on their car parks... Tesco obviously have! A supermarket *not* having EV chargers on it's premises in the near future, will put them at an ever increasing disadvantage.......as the number of EV's grows.

Must be their manager. One of our local Asda’s has 3-7 ke chargers

I generally shop at tesco's now because of free charging but sometimes especially now all 4 bays can be in use but when I first got a EV I was lucky to find 1 in use.

@@jonathansmith5850 Or maybe, just maybe, the Local Authority in that particular location has a green(ish) policy, and has helped that branch of Asda to facilitate the installation. Good PR for the Local Authority, and good for Asda's customers......everyone's happy.

@@Brian-om2hh We got some help from local council [or maybe government] (50% subsidy IIRC) to put EV chargers in the car park at work. Very few EVs using them as yet, but we wanted to encourage that. I think I'll put up some "Reserved for EV" signs so that the ICE will have to park down the road and walk to work ...

Why 50? I’d also rather that there was a requirement for accessible ev spaces.

@@JohnR31415 well YOU would wouldn't you. But you still want to park in non ev spaces. That suggests a sense of entitlement.

@@MrZoomZone erm? I’ll park in a non charging spot when I’m not charging - that doesn’t seem in any way contentious. The fact that people with disabilities may also need access to a public charger really shouldn’t come as a surprise. As to the “why 50” question… it seems like quite a large car park for such a minimum. Just finishing up a fairly large building with a little shy of 50 spaces, but provision for three charge points (6 cars), including an accessible space.

@@JohnR31415 I'm one of those disableds with an EV and can confirm this would be a huge benefit :)

I don't think this concept is realistic at all. It certainly isn't in terms in terms of the real we are currently living in. Not every car park has a charge point, or if it has, it will probably be in use, or not working. No sorry, totally unrealistic.

i totally agree with this sentiment. i don't have an EV but I would do the same... except I have no problem going to IKEA 😂

Tesco already do free charging points. You don't even have to do shopping. I have tested this with my local tesco and asked the manager. He told me the charger is open to all shoppers and none shoppers.

good choice! had mine a week, you wont be disappointed

@@qwerty1weir thanks looking forward to it ( currently quoted Feb for delivery) first step into ev world

Our local Tesco’s have free chargers. 22kw. Also few fairly cheap 50kw rapids locally. It’s much easier than people realise. Park up. Go shopping and have a coffee.

@@jonathansmith5850 thanks got a asda with chargers at bottom of road and a few rapid chargers about, also am getting older so am not planning on rushing about so happy to stop for 20 mins and have a coffee while it charges

You're arguably better off than the people who charge at home! I have to pay for my electricity.

Generally keeping between 20-80% is best for battery life so I’m presuming 2 maybe 3 grazing charges per week should be ok

Only if you don’t have home charging, right?

Yep, and I certainly don't miss standing in a puddle of spilt diesel, having to hold a usually filthy nozzle in place until the car was full.

That's great you can use Morrisons I live in Nottingham and I"m struggling to find decent chargers around me. I live NG5 4GT. could you just drape a cable over your pavement to charge or is that illegal ?

@@GeoffKirby Looks like there's a couple of Rapid 50kw chargers near you. One on Haywood Road past Sainsbury's local, and another at Arnold Leisure Centre just past Asda. Try and choose one near somewhere you can walk and get a coffee or do something else like shopping. Asda seems perfect for that. Also, download the apps for the provider of that charger so you're prepared in advance.

3 1/2 hours of charging at 7kw for free. That won't be a thing when we're all driving electric cars!

That's basically the adjustment people will need to make. It's not difficult, just different. But some still have a problem with it. My 80 year old father in law buys a new car every 4 years or so, and is aware of the growth in electric car sales, but says he couldn't live with one. He lives quite rurally, and drives around 100 miles per week to get shopping and visit the doctor etc, but steadfastly maintains that he "couldn't be bothered" plugging it in. Yet he travels several miles to the nearest petrol station when he needs petrol! I explained that plugging the car in might take all of 5 seconds once a week, but no, he still remains unconvinced. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The best of it is, he's already using cheaper rate electricity because his place has storage heaters. There is no gas available in his area.

@@Brian-om2hh My elderly father in law would like one, also very rural location, but he's hesitant because of the cost at his age - he does a lot less than 100 miles a week. He'd definitely love NOT having to drive to a smelly forecourt and I think he'd get on better with automatic than his current manual. Hadn't thought to get him to drive mine and see what he thinks ... I'll do that.

@@ecok if doing low mileage an EV won't really pay off. Probably just cost way more, no matter how nice it is to drive.

@@Brian-om2hh if buying new every 4 years a EV sounds like a great idea. I never change cars ever and have a 10 year old car. I probably do 2000miles a year. Getting a EV definitely wouldn't work for me.

Did you type this or dictate to Siri?

Unfortunately, none of the supermarkets in my fairly large town have any chargers. Hopefully the new Lidl being built, will have some.

This is a legitimate concern, it is equally important to keep the chargers operational and compatible, as well as to install them. Especially with grazing when going to work, you have no time to spend troubleshooting charging issues. However, I believe that these are growing pains, and that it will improve in the future.

@@AleksandarStefanovic perhaps I was too early an adopter, but it was 2 WASTED years!!!

Ubitricity have been doing that sort of thing for a few years already Mark. Street light chargers, plus stand alone bollard type chargers, ideal for street installation as the wiring for lighting is already under the pavement. They don't normally deliver a great current though, usually just a few kw. But still fine for a top up.

I second that @@Brian-om2hh I don't have off-street parking, so I use a mix of Ubitricity street-lamp charging and a Lidl not to far away. The Ubitricity power is 5.5kW on most of the lampposts, so not that much different to typical domestic and destination 7kW sockets. The Lidl is handy for when I want a charge in a bit of a hurry or when the kerb-side lampposts are ICE-ed (because they aren't reserved for EVs). I think it is a great idea utilising the lamppost infrastructure. The power is often there because of the legacy of power needed for non-LED bulbs. I often visit towns in East Devon, where the local authorities have really dragged their feet in installing any public charging. There are great solutions like Ubitricity's (now part of Shell) or the rapid charging from Instavolt. One of the great advantages of the Ubitricity system is that all there is which is visible is the type-2 socket set into the inspection panel of the lamppost and a small instruction label with a QR code on it. You scan the QR code with your phone and it opens a webpage, the webpage is the right one for that charge point, it shows the address, you confirm the payment. There's no over-sized street furniture to add, no RFID or contactless technology to fail, which is a good idea in salt-spray lashed coastal towns! Who wants fancy posts with lights, LCD displays, card scanners, air intakes and fans to rust and fail. When I unplug I get an emailed invoice a few seconds later and the provided credit card is charged. We already know some of the technology winners, but it seems the council is poised to install some no-name minority player which has no doubt ticked the right boxes on some sort of box-ticking appraisal. There will be *another* app to install on my phone :-(

That assumes all EVs on the road have the same plug. Rapids are always tethered.

@@ElectricVehicleMan cars that don't use CCS could carry adapters... It's got to be easy to "graze" otherwise it's going to be a PITA.

@@ksmith660 All rapid chargers are tethered now, assuming that’s what you mean. I was talking about AC charging.

Until people start to take action it won't change.

It’s a big challenge ahead, but it has to happen.

Currently if we can get the establishments to see the advantage of having more charge points in their parking lot they’ll have customers. The cinema is the genius location. I charge at home once a week, I could do that in 3 hrs at the movies.

That's why all the destinations need to become more like Chester Zoo. Rather than having 2 chargers tucked away in a corner of the car park, your supermarket will need chargers in perhaps a quarter of the parking spaces - more as the numbers go up. There's less scope for a supermarket, but at a hotel for instance, they would then want an intelligent control system. Clearly you can't charge everyone at the same time, but if you plug in on arrival and state your requirements - I need a little trip out on Saturday afternoon and then a full charge when I leave on Monday morning - the control system can decide when to charge each car at the lowest possible cost. The control system should also cope with the car being parked in a different bay when it returns from the Saturday afternoon outing. Make computers do the work.

That may be because its free and better to charge there instead of home. When its not free you notice alot of ev's not using them

@@stuartevans6807 it’s not free at Chester zoo.

Got lots of years yet.

The National Grid say they aren't worried. They anticipate 9 million EV's on Britain's roads by 2030... Ted, the UK's oil refineries produce 14 million gallons of petrol and 11 million gallons of diesel each day. Each gallon requires approximately 8kw of electricity to produce it. That equates to roughly to enough electricity to charge 3.29 million electric cars every day..... If it becomes an "all EV world", then we won't be needing all that petrol and diesel, will we? And of course not every EV will need charging every day. I charge mine around every 8 to 9 days.