Electric Cars 1000% Need More Of This! 

I agree with the sentiment here. Most ICE drivers think about "filling a tank" rather than grazing at a destination.

The issue is when you go to Supermarkets in the UK they see it as a way of making money from charging and not getting you into the shop. 75-85p/kWh. Same with some chain hotels like premier inn, ripping off the punters at 85p. For me, destination chargers is a hotel that allows you to plug in at 25p/kWh

EV man you should visit Norway (Oslo). EVERY Parking spot in nearly every car park has destination charging, ice'n isn't a thing . cos every parking spot has chargers (mind you ICE is nearly gone in Norway)

Couldn't agree more, as a 10+ year EV driver I made the installation of 2 x 22kW destination chargers a priority when I recently purchased a holiday cottage business in Gower, South Wales. The cars are going to be parked overnight, so no need for an expensive rapid charger - this is where EV ownership becomes frictionless, and surpasses ICE cars for convenience.

A big problem with destination chargers is blocking either by ice, or (new?) ev drivers. I recently attended a wedding at a remote hotel. It had a row of chargers, where a saw a Polester charging on the first day. Second day it was still there dispute obviously being fully charged. My Tesla long range had 80% when I arrived so I didn’t need to charge, but the point is that on slow chargers people just seem to stay on them until they go home.

An excellent video. This is one of the biggest issues in the charging network. I live in Southsea in Portsmouth and have been running EVs for 5 years. Portsmouth is an island city mainly built by the Victorians. Off street parking is rare. 5 years ago our council started installing street lamp based 4kW chargers. It’s how us residents charge overnight. Visitors to the city use them in the day. Our council was really thinking ahead. We now have over 90 chargers in the city. For a couple of years the chargers worked well and cost about the same as home electricity. Then it all started to go wrong. The prices crept up during the energy crisis to around 50p/kWh and never went back down. Some became very unreliable. Finally, 6 months ago they all got turned off because the street lamp electricity supplier had a hissy fit and sent a legal letter to the council telling them to turn them off. Lots of emails to the council and councillors still hasn’t yielded any answers. A city like Portsmouth trying to clean up it’s air and give residents the opportunity to own EVs needs working reasonably priced destination chargers. The roads are full of parked cars which if they were EVs could plug into street chargers. I’m fortunate to have a Tesla now and there’s a local Supercharger. It’s a pain sitting waiting for a charge compared with plugging into the charger across the road from my home every couple of nights. The Superchargers are inexpensive and I tend to do my work admin while charging. But Portsmouth City Councils failure to make a success of street chargers that started so well cannot be an example of how we deal with urban charging.

My office recently had 8 chargers installed. I've used them a couple of times, once to try them out and then last Thursday to top up to 100% as I was going immediately from the office to do the ~250 mile drive up to Harrogate for Everything Electric. Great idea but in practice I won't use them too often as it's 59p per kWh. Quite a lot more than my 9p at home (4 miles away). We need the price of destination charging to come down (VAT is part of that).

Agree completely, we’re away this weekend and put 40kWh in today on one of twelve destination chargers at a National Trust site we were visiting anyway. The avoided a trip to a rapid (to be fair there are a total of 30 available at three sites within 10 mins of where we’re staying so it wouldn’t a massive pain) but not having to wait around was great. I’d also second @animationcreations42’s comment about faster AC also being part of the solution. Given most larger installs of destruction chargers will almost certainly be split across phases making them 11 or even 22kW capable isn’t a huge increase in cost but significantly increases the utility for people with capable cars, certainly 11kWh onboard is becoming more common. Not important at most work places but at supermarkets and cinemas it could really help.

It’s like how we tend to eat. Most is at home. Sometimes we have a snack when out and about. We don’t go for a big expensive meal every time we want to eat.

It was great discussing this at Everything Electric and totally agreed.11kWh AC charger is a lot cheaper than a rapid charger. Cinema 3 hour visit and more than half a battery gained. Or even a smaller one filled. Destination chargers are needed, not necessarily more rapid chargers.

Great video. There’s a small multi level indoor car park where I live. It houses 16 Tesla Superchargers and 130 level 2 chargers. The great thing is EVERY parking spot has a charger so ICEing is a non issue as every spot has one. I hope we will see more of these kinds of car parks.

Completely agree. I've only had an EV a few months but I've already encountered this problem. Had a trip to York last month. Used the park and ride but was amazed they had about 6 fast chargers and no destination chargers. Luckily I didn't need top up as it turned out but would have been very annoyed to have to wait while it charged on the fast charger, when it could have charged over the 4 hours I spent in York otherwise.

Agree with this but for me there are two other important elements to the equation. First is maintenance and reliability, this weekend I have attempted to graze at a modern multi storey car park and all chargers were out of order. Then at supermarket today the charger was down. So investment in maintenance is as important. Second one is cost, public charging costs are now comparative to petrol so to graze away from home or to attract more drivers who cannot charge at home we need to make it cost attractive. But more slower chargers at these destinations is def the way forwards 😊

Another viewpoint. I live in SW France in quite a touristy, medieval village. I have just had a domestic charger installed. (With a €600 contribution from Renauld and a €700 tax break from that nice Mr. Macron)! Now, visitors to the village will normally stay for several hours, canoeing on the river, climbing, having lunch, exploring, whatever. There is an app which enables me to share my charger with any EV owner. I assume a similar thing exists in the UK as well. Not decided yet but, if I decide to partake, I get paid and another charger will be available in the village. If you think about it, and in bigger conurbations, that could be a great asset if it is widely taken up!

It's amazing how useful even a 3 pin plug can be. If you're staying somewhere for a couple of nights or at work a few days a week you could get a full charge - and no install costs. If you do 200 miles a week, that's about 50kwh per week. On a 2kw domestic socket that's 25 hours, so about 3 x 8 hour charges while at work or whatever. Sometimes you only need a few more miles to get home and you can add 80-100 miles overnight. It's not ideal but it's workable in many cases.

Exactly correct as usual Andy. My non EV owning friends and colleagues seem to think you need lots of public rapid chargers. As an experienced EV owner (since 2016) I agree with you that the slow chargers are far more important. The only times we should be using rapid chargers is for a journey longer than the car range - so for many these days that means a 300 mile journey and for me at least that happens a couple of times a year. Even when we do go away I now try to find accommodation with a destination charger - it really does make the qorld of difference if you are an ev driver. So I would prefer that hotels, B&b's etc. invest in destination chargers rather than rapid chargers. To be honest if i am staying at a hotel a rapid charger is less convenient- i will have to unplug it after 30 minutes whereas a destination charger i can leave till the nezt morning.

Imo, what we need more of us 22kW chargers and 22kW support in cars! When we had the Zoe, we could basically get a full charge when doing a shop at Aldi and a quick coffee in Spoons, all for 25p/kWh!

California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Virginia have passed right-to-charge laws aiming to streamline the installation of residential community EV charging stations. Also, Illinois recently passed a right-to-charge law specific to new houses or multiunit buildings.

The thing that annoys me is, 7kW chargers are installed in car parks so you can charge whilst you go and do something else, but they stupidly put an overstay penalty on them so you have to keep checking the time and rush back to disconnect.

Totally agree Andy, local authorities etc need to get their heads around this. One thing I would add is that the calls for a VAT reduction should (in my opinion) be only for the equivalent chargers to home devices, ie 7kW or less. This is more reasonable as it brings parity between those who can charge at home and those who can’t. I fear asking for VAT cuts on all chargers will always be dismissed as we pay full VAT on petrol.

I work in a business park with a (council-run) multi-storey car park. One floor has a charger for each space, and they're free to use (you still have to pay to park). That'd be perfect, except that floor is always full. Shows the idea works, but there need to be many more like it.

Spot on EVM! Great video and a change in mindset needed by those with the money and influence to make it happen.

Much as I have thought for several years. Some kind of phone app for identification would work with a small screen QR code that could change every time it was used.

My new office at work Has 350 destination chargers but that is the oil company investing themselves. So no excuses.

After a year charging my EV on public chargers only, I agree. Charging at home isn't an option for me. I occasionally use a rapid charger because it fits better in my schedule, but most of the time I just charge in the neighborhood I'm parking anyway.

I went to Clacton last week. There was one single 7KW at the multi-story car park, maximum 3 hour stay. Shortly after getting there, someone trapped on my window asking how long I was going to be. I said at least 2 hours. When I came back 3 hours later, he was there, hanging about! I went to Norwich later in the day. The multi-story car park, had about 8 chargers. Non of them working 🫤 I ended up using a Tesla super charger. Worked flawlessly. 45p per kw. Nice location, and pub serving food.

Lamp posts and parking lots are really the key to adoption, especially for those with smaller batteries where you can get upwards of 60% in a few hours. A ratio of around 1:6 between rapid and non rapid chargers, especially with off peak rates, feels like the primary priority for any new charging spots being installed (I could discuss only focusing on 50 - 100kw speeds over supposed 300kw+ ones, but it would take longer than an average charge to go over that lol)

I’m on my third EV over the last 6.5 years and can’t charge at home. I have adapted to all the changes until recently when it’s become untenable. The main stumbling blocks now are the price of AC chargers and the ridiculous parking restrictions at these sites. Eg. You can’t use them when the store is closed, you only have 90 minutes when the store is open, no return within 4.5 hours etc.

There is a shortage of AC chargers in the UK for older EV's that were pre-CCS. Some charging points have DC CCS only, and some have AC but are only 7kwh. 22kwh chargers (and a few more of them) are a must if we are going to expand destination chargers.

Great point, didn't we start with these about 10 years ago, but now most seem to have been removed .

I am really fortunate to work for a company that has a clear sustainability vision and we have 10 22kWh chargers across three sites that are set at a reasonable rate (less than domestic peak rate). There has been quite a large up-take of a salary sacrifice EV scheme and many of the charge points are used daily. We also have a pool-car EV (Polestar) for supplier visits. I am also fortunate to have my own charge point at home so can charge up for a third of the cost of the work chargers!! I haven’t yet needed to use the work chargers (or a Rapid charger). I am 100% with you on the destination charger thing. Motorway services are probably one of the few places that really need rapid chargers, arguably supermarket car parks as well (people tend to be there for around an hour) but most places would benefit from lots of 7-22kWh chargers and nothing more. These are cheap, generally reliable and require much less infrastructure to be installed. Every public car park in the country should be required to install these in 10% of spaces as a minimum starting point!

Right on point EVM. With progress being made on L3 rapid charge networks, L2 charging is the area most in need of improvement. Town councils need to make it easy to install troughs for charge cables to cross your sidewalk, and partner with CPOs to install street-side L2 charge points. Tax breaks are needed to encourage landlords and business owners to install L2 charge points.

I live in the Netherlands; I have a home charger but rarely charge more than 70% (looking after my battery 🙂) and only rapid charge when crossing borders. I'm able to graze, as you put it, almost everywhere, work, shopping, or leisure. Best car decision I ever made.

Very true every lamp post should have a charge point, little bit of profit for the council and maybe the councils can then afford to turn said mentioned lamp posts back on at night! win, win

100%! 👏 I visited Alton Towers recently, they’re currently installing some EV chargers and I hope to god they’re SLOW chargers. No one is leaving a theme park after 2 hours to unplug and move the car from a charging point. We need to address this obsession everyone has with super-fast (and usually super expensive!) charging. Yes, it’s important at a motorway services. But if your car is going to be sat still for 2 or 3 hours, there are better options.

We have only EVs in our household since 2019 now and we don't ever charge at home. We ONLY use a destination charger in our village. I totally agree that destination charging is very underrated compared to rapid charging.

1000% agree with you. Just done a trip for a few days to London in my E-Niro. 100% to 39% and I had travelled 185 miles. We done the Harry Potter studio Tour and that topped me back up to 90% while we done the tour at one of their 40 destination chargers. Plenty in the battery to get me back home... So a near 400 mile road trip away from home and not had to use a single rapid charger. For a grand total of just over 20 quid including my home charge to get me back to 100%. I find it truly baffling that the major hotel chains are not rolling out massive amounts of destination chargers in their hotels that can load manage between each other. The amount of revenue they are missing out on is tremendous.

Brilliant video. A really important concept that approaches EV charging from the opposite direction to the naysayers who hate them because they can’t drive 600 miles on a single tank.

Did recently a short road trip to in northern Spain (from Porto). Charge wasn’t enough to return without a charge, and I didn’t care as i knew there is a supercharger close by. However, when we went to the city and parked at the harbor, i discovered they had around 15 charge points of which 2 were in use. Just standard 11 kW. Price was included in the parking fee (or no extra charge), and in the few hours we enjoyed the town the car charged up enough to comfortably drive back home and do the next few days of local driving. Yes: tons of low power chargers is what we need.

Completely agree Andy, we need the right chargers at the right location. More destination charging at places were people will typically be sat for an hour or more. Btw, it was great chatting with you at EE North 👍🏾

100% totally agree. Thank you for the video.

100% agree. Most of the time the car is used in a commute, typically within the car's range. The car is then parked up for hours. Once in a while a longer journey is made which needs the car to beyond its range. We need the rapid network for that. But for 99% of journeys a destination charger is all we need.

Destination chargers are better for your battery too as they charge slower. A very valid point here. We REALLY need more destination chargers like this. At the moment there are so few it's laughable. My local town has two locations with around 10 chargers in total. But, most are out of order when you visit. Also, hotels are another area where they really need to have some chargers installed. For the moment, I can only think that hotels may need a night car administrator to move cars around when batteries become charged.

My destination charging is my home and my work with AC charging. There are some good ones in Selfridges car park in Brimingham. More of those are needed in places where you will spend more than an hour.

Agree totally. I did a tour of Northern France last year and after the first day travel I realized I didn’t need to plan around rapid chargers- instead I found there were public car parks with slow chargers in most towns and often the parking was free so recharged overnight for the next days touring. Just need to watch for idle fees!

Perhaps your most important video ever. Bravo. And thank you

Local councils seem to use destination charging as a cash cow. In Scarborough they use Connected Kerb who charge 50p per kWh. But I've seen higher prices in some towns.

In Sandyford there are chargers built into the street lighting so either every second lamp post or every lamp post for slow charging.

Great video, this is exactly what’s needed.

You are spot on

👍 I totally agree, but the down side for me as a owner of a pub is that I pay a lot more for electric than a home ! Businesses get charged more per unit so how can they provide the service that will be needed, because of the extra I pay for electric compared to a house I haven't been able to buy a ev ! I don't think that the government is really serious about going electric because they aren't even trying to help businesses provide the service!

1000% agree. We are lucky in Pembrokeshire. Towns have destination chargers in most National Park carparks.

Great video, as usual, thanks. There are plenty of 7kW chargers where I live but they are rarely used. The only time I attempted it so far I gave up, frustrated with the obscurity of what was going on. For instance my nearest chargers are run by Blink, yet they don't appear on Blink's own map of their charger network! Ultimately I think what's going on is the phenomenon where you can only get serious resources for things that are profitable to do. I've been watching for 40 years now frustrated at how painfully slow the roll out of decent home insulation is. It's a great idea but somehow it doesn't happen and I think that's because there's no glamour to it (in marketing terms) and no money in it for the installers. That's with the exception of double glazing - poor value as insulation but profitable so well supported. In the world of charging that spot seems to be occupied by home chargers. They're very appealing to users so the installers can run a good business. DC chargers seem at least to have the glamour. AC, valuable as it is just isn't very well executed. Yet?

Totally agree, lots of parking lots with destination chargers, they don't need to be more than 11 kW plenty of power to get it filled up in a few hours at work or at the hotels, for Malls a 50 kW will be sufficient, this way you can charge an hour while shopping

It would help if some of the companies made sure they were working and when you report them they bothered to fix them rather than leaving them out of action for 3 months plus. I have just had a holiday on the East Coast and spent most of one morning looking for a charger that was actually working.

Totally agree. Place those on the football stadion, at the GYM when you work out. When your going to tennis, hockey, Yoga, the dog training school, or the mall, what ever. There is electricity at every street corner, shed or lamppost, use it.

The bigger problem is the cost of charging on the road. I’ll give you a recent example : I’ve got two cars, one is a hybrid Toyota gas guzzling van which does about 25mpg and my Ioniq 5 EV which costs 9p per kWh to charge on Octopus Go. Recently had a long trip to Manchester from my home in Oxford and was toying with which car to take and decided on the EV. Having got to Manchester with 30% battery I charged the car from 30-85% at a Lidl ccs 50kw charger, which cost £30 ! So my total expenditure to get back to Oxford was around £37…outgoing journey £7 and return £30. If I had taken my gas guzzling van, it would have only cost £33. Why oh why is public charging so expensive !!

Fully agree and some local councils are doing it. For example in London/Fulham almost every lamppost is converted into a destination charger. I think more than 400 of them in 2023

100% agree, and much kinder on the battery.

Exactly right, I think more of the EV sites need to be making these statements about the infrastructure as well. My company site has literally only 1 7Kw charger for 2 vehicles which is nowhere near enough for the number of EV's now in the company fleet, but as you say there's no incentive for the company to pay to put in more.

Spot on mate

I've been saying for years that there should be charging in every parking space. Be it private driveways, public and private car parks, every on street slot. If an EV is not driving, it should have the optiojn to be pugged in. Add to that two way charging, with a protocol thart can be controled by the nation grid. We have a scaleable distributed storeage system. (Opt-in, of course. But if you can lease your battery back, at an attractive rate, people will do that.)

You have the right idea of how it should be well done mate

Charge when stopped rather than stop to charge. As more people get BEVs and home charging, family & friends can use those "home destination" chargers when visiting family and friends.

I agree, most people are travelling far for the day out, so places like hotels, museums, cinemas, National trust, zoo, theme parks, arenas, and just general popular point of interest only need to be the slower kind because your usually going to spend the day there. Most of these place have started putting one or two pint in, but they need to be a lot more.

Completely agree. DC chargers are useful on main travel routes where people need to charge quickly but in car parks (where people will be leaving their car for an hour or 2!) it makes much more sense to have 10-20 destination chargers instead of 1 or 2 rapid chargers.

While central government may want EVs, local council simply don’t want cars. See Oxford as an example, closing roads, bus gates, taxing office carpark spaces etc.

Absolutely!!!!! I use en-route charging maybe on 10 trips a year. But if I could charge in any carpark I arrived at at 7kW I would use it when away from home.

When car parking power sockets are available people can also charge electric bicycles and scooters too.

I run a small complex of self-catering cottages and have recently installed a 7kw charger for exactly this reason. I don’t own an EV myself (yet) and I'd have installed another bay if I had enough capacity in my consumer unit. I want my guests to be able to trickle charge when parked here and not to spend their holiday looking for charging when out and about. I just pass on the unit kWh rate that I pay and have absorbed the installation cost myself.

It's a no-brainer to install chargers as you described, the problem is the rip-off prices you pay for the Kwh will kill the idea. The government should cap the price so it is affordable for everyone.

100% agree. I can get 250-300 miles range from my Kona. If there’s a destination charger, that unlocks the vast majority of the country without any need to stop more than once in the middle… I stayed in a place up in Scotland, beautiful place and they had solar/batteries etc. Had an EV charger and included 100kWh in the price, if more is needed they charge the grid rate for electric (regardless how it’s generated) which seemed entirely reasonable to me, perfect! Basically, just enough to do a full charge and then top up bits for the week that we were there. I would happily pay more to stay somewhere with destination charging that is reasonably priced.

So agree. Groceries work for high speed charging ports. A grocery shop is about 1/2 hr or so. Work can be slow chargers but I would suggest partly sheltered ports for people whose cars are older like Leafs that can’t grill in the sun.

Well said. There are a few national trust places that have destination chargers which makes a lot of sense. They dont have many but its a start. I was pleased to see all 3 in use at fountains Abbey this week. There is clearly a need need for them. I asked someone at Lightwater valley before going there about ev charging and they didnt seem interested at all.

Fancy a new job, Transport Minister maybe? Keep up the flow of real info mate. Well done and all the best going forward 👍🏻

Destination charging is good if it’s home or work but on the rare times we’ve had to charge it’s been quite expensive to do so. We try to keep to under 150 miles on the outleg so we get back home to charge

👍yes! destination charging is 💯 Also, charging for street side parking is important.

Here in NZ, there is a big box retailer that has 22kw chargers for free! Also, a supermarket chain that has 7Kw chargers for free too! Big incentive to shop at these places.

spot on

Love your mii - have a vw eup! and it’s been used as more than a short range car on several occasions. So efficient! Would love to see a video on the car.

Church Stretton in Shropshire have 16 distination chargers 50p per kwh and free parking on a Sunday. Go for a hike and come back at 100%

I completely agree! Destination charging makes much more sense than Rapids. I can’t understand why tourists destinations like Devon and Cornwall don’t focus on putting large numbers of 7kW chargers in car parks near tourist hotspots. Cheaper equipment, less demand on the grid for connection and people can just graze for a charge whilst doing other things. Another thing is lamp post chargers. We have tech demonstration versions of those where I work. Only 4.6kW but imagine if all lamp posts you could park next to had one!

Even outdoor 3-pin sockets to plug in granny chargers would be enough most of the time

Yes, yes, yes! When away from home I’ve been tending to stay in a Travelodge at services because they mostly have 2 Gridserve AC chargers. Perfect when staying overnight and cheaper than DC. Now, at these services, they’re upgrading them with an additional 12 - 16 DC rapid chargers but no more AC. People need to use the AC chargers more. When I’ve been staying at one of these locations, I’ve rarely seen anyone else using the AC chargers. If the networks don’t see a demand for them, they’re not going to install more.

Destination charging rocks. Always look for this when looking for somewhere to stay,

Round us the Nearest Lidl, nearest Asda, nearest Tesco, nearest Waitrose and second nearest Sainsburys all have chargers of some form. Reading has chargers in on elf the shopping center carparks, and seen at a pub near my sister. Used a destination charger at a hotel overnight in France too, wasn’t advertised so happy to find it

Agree. Both destination and rapid chargers are part of the solution. I charge at home the majority of the time but changed job last year and now charge at a destination charger in a park and ride. Saves £££’s versus rapid but still not as cheap as I’d like. Driving a Nissan leaf the car is fully charged by the time I’ve finished work. Use destination chargers twice a week and makes commuting with a 40kwh battery achievable. Best thing of driving an EV is not going to petrol stations.

Sterling park and ride is a handy charging stop when going to the Highlands, but how often are the toilets closed, mostly, no joined up thinking.

Broad access and fair pricing seems to be the required mix. Thanks for highlighting this. I see a trip to Norway in your future. This would allow you to compare and contrast.

even a timer paid 3 pin plug would make a massive difference. 8 hours @ 2kW and you've added 60+ miles range

I agree 100%, I did have hope for some solar pv panels on ev roofs, if I could charge at even 3-5KW a day, I wouldn't have to even home charge probably.

I agree but, I think you should speak to the Electricity Suppliers to find out the feasibility of your proposal - what you are asking for requires humungous cabling and all sorts of considerations from the supply and distribution network that 'someone' will need to pay for and maintain. In all of these EV channels I've never heard an investigation/report on the Electricity side that describes how they will meet the charger requirements

As others have mentioned. The cost of destination charging needs to come down. I live between Bedford and Northampton and near me supermarkets, cinemas etc are charging around 45p/kwh. Thats too much. We're sleep walking into a situation where the poorer people in society who can't afford homes with off street parking, and thus do 100% on public networks, are going to be paying considerably more for their electricity than those better off in society. That can't be allowed to continue.

As a relatively new EV driver this was the revelation for me - I am lucky enough my work has 14 free ‘pod point’ 7kW chargers. And the hotel near my office (my office is 200 miles from my house) also has free 7kW destination chargers. I do have to top up en-route but with it being a 3 1/2 hour drive, I generally need to stop for some food & a toilet break and preferentially pick places I know have cheaper but faster chargers (I have a Polestar Charge Sub so I will stop at either Ionity or Tesla Superchargers, both roughly the same cost). I can charge (slowly) at home on a granny 3-Pin charger (I can’t get an EV charger fitted) but as I’m predominantly a home worker, this works for me too. And when travelling for pleasure I will do the research on ZapMap or ABRP and preferentially pick hotels with destination chargers or at least a set of decent cheaper rapids nearby.

Good video! This will be key for people without driveways. Another advantage is lower cost for slower charging. Unfortunately there is no incentive for workplaces to put in chargers. Even if you are lucky enough to work in a place that has chargers how do you decide who gets priority? And I imagine maintenance costs will be higher for multiple slow chargers compared one single fast charger.

I'm planning to go to York this weekend. Zapmap shows the park and ride at Poppleton has super rapid chargers just next door, that's great but I want to pull up and get on a bus for the park and ride leaving the car on charge for a few hours instead of waiting to rapid charge it in 40 minutes.

Probably the Most Important video you have ever made. 100% agree that Destination chargers that are affordable to use, with free parking, are the key to universal EV adoption. The Government have left it to the commercial sector, who by and large are ripping us off. Tesco and Lidl are being fair. And some independents like our local Otter Nurseries, which is still free to use!

I recently had a midweek in Rotterdam/Zeeland, driving 435 km in total. I'd expected to rapid charge once but the car park opposite our hotel in Rotterdam had 60 destination chargers. Topping up with 23 kWh cost €12.64 - quite a bit cheaper than rapid charging. That was all I needed, getting home with 5% SOC.

For day to day use destination chargers make a lot of sense at places like work, big retail parks etc. it takes the stress off the rapid charge network, for those on longer journeys, who need to charge more rapidly. Add more destination chargers, the low range supermini EV’s start to make the sense that up until now they didn’t. My current commute to work is 25 miles door to door. If I could charge at work I would actually consider an EV. That said I would personally still prefer an EV with a longer range. Something with a realistic 200 mile range seems sensible, to enable again either stopping at a destination and charging, when going on holiday, or on a really long trip stopping part way for that inevitable comfort break, with maybe a stop for a cuppa, quick meal and a stretch of the legs, before continuing. If your general day to day commuters are charging at home and work, then when we are going on a long trip getting access to a rapid charge point for 40 or so minutes would be easier. And the transfer to an EV would be far more enticing.

I always thought this. Car parks could be full of relatively low cost chargers and it wouldn't be a problem if an ice car parked there as all the spots would have a charger. Until then maybe there could be overstay charges so that people came and moved their cars when charged. You could get hourly type tickets as you do in most car parks to ensure you come back and move the car to a non charger parking bay. As you rightly say the average small hatchback is mainly used locally and will sit idle for hours so the slow charger will work but,at the moment, it's just the lack of chargers and blocking which kills the idea. Why don't even small cars have rapid charging so , in effect, you could go long distance in a "splash and dash" manner instead of topping fully up every time?