Electric car charging – is it supposed to be this difficult?

First off, I have no issues with electric cars as a thing so this isn’t about a dislike of them as the way to go but until today I’d had zero experience of them other than maybe being a passenger in an electric taxi. Both my cars still run on dinosaur juice

Our friends had an electric Toyota as a courtesy car for the weekend while their ICE car was getting work done. They obviously didn’t have any charging option at home but we have 6 public charging bays at the end of our street so my friend popped down to ours and I took her to the bays. That’s when the saga began..

In the bay there’s a big box you plug one end of the lead in and put the other in the car.

On the box on a screen it says to touch your card against it

We touch a bank card against it

It says it’s failed to register

We try a dozen times, always the same

Eventually another car turns up and we ask the driver for help

Turns out the card you need to touch isn’t a bank card, it’s a “Charge Place Scotland” card. In the absence of that card, you can use their app.

Nothing at the charge point tells you anything about this

I download the app as my friend didn’t have her phone on her

I register for the app and put in my card details

We plug in the charger

It asks me to log in to the app despite being logged into the app

I log into the app

It asks for my card details despite already registering my card details seconds earlier

It automatically deducts £35 from my card

We now have the car connected to the charger. Before doing this the car had 26 miles range

Nothing on the charger or on the car tells us how fast it’s charging, how long to a full charge, how many miles it’s adding

We decide to lock the car and walk back to our house. We’re worried about leaving the cable there in case it gets stolen.

After half an hour we’re back at the car

Nothing tells us how the charging is progressing. The screen on the charge point is a very basic old fashioned LCD thing. Nothing on the screens in the car says anything about how the charge is progressing. We check the handbook. There’s an insanely complicated section about AC or DC charging, loads of scenarios.

We unplug the cable from the charger but the car end is locked to the car. Eventually we have to lock and unlock the car several times before the cable unlocks

We start the car and in half an hour on a supposed fast charger (the driver that helped us earlier mentioned something about 22kwh charging?) we’ve added 20 miles to the range at a cost of £2.21. if I pumped diesel for half an hour and only added 20 miles of range I’d be raging

This seems to be farcically complicated. If you go to a Shell, BP, Texaco or whatever garage do you have to register for their different charging apps and go through the same rigmarole?

I’m sure home chargers are easy but I can imagine the hassle of trying to decipher some random French charging station at 2am in the rain.

I’m pretty tech savvy and very mechanically minded but even I was losing the rag at how complicated this was. My Mrs is completely unable to lock the petrol cap on her car and there’s not a chance in hell she’d have been able to get this thing charging.

Was this just a bad experience or standard hassle?

A poor experience that’s for sure.

Double click the unlock button on the car remote usually unlocks the cable.

Where was the next nearest charger? If I have no success (which is rare) I head to the next nearest charger. Lots of chargers fast DC are now contactless with no registration. I think.

Pity the courtesy car people didn’t give any instructions.

Chargefinder is my go to app for finding chargers.

I had a chat with a nurse in Eyemouth whilst I was on holiday. I started with asking her why she was kicking the charging machine.. I then had an educational conversation about why electric cars aren’t a good idea – yet.

Hi Bob,

No, what you are describing is not normal. I run two EVs and frequently use Chareplace Scotland. Both of my cars clearly show charge state and rate, as have all chargers I have used, though some are difficult to read.

I am not familiar with using Chargeplace Scotland on the app as I have a card on both cars. The only other network I have used is Tesla via the app.

Sorry that you had a bad first experience, it is not typical. I would not have purchased a second EV three years after the first of it was.

I love my EVs and would not go back to ICE.

My first experience wasn’t much better. Bad show on the garage not explaining what would need done – or indeed providing the car with a full charge.
The app does show how fast the charge is happening…despite 22kw, I’ve yet to see that…11kw seems to be the fastest I’ve had.
On the positive side though – if you had been pumping diesel for 30 minutes, you can be absolutely certain it wouldn’t be costing you just over 2 quid!
I’ve mentioned it before, but there are too many apps needed for all the various charging providers. Needs to be a single app for the user that can be used and the relevant supplier then gets paid for the charge used…first time without being shown it all beforehand and having it all setup is a total nightmare.
Hopefully this hasn’t put either of you off considering an EV in the future.

contactless with no registration. I think.

That was my probably naive expectation for how this would work.

I really wanted an EV at my recent car change but couldn’t quite get the right thing but did do quite a lot of reading on the EV thread on here about charging.

22kW is I think described as “fast” but is a throwback to the earlier generation of cars and chargers where the only other common options were 3 pin plug type things.

Fast in current terms therefore seems to mean “faster than a 3 pin plug/domestic wall charger but still takes several hours to put meaningful mileage on your car”.

AIUI What you need for a quick useful top-up is “rapid” charging in current speak.

That assumes your car can make use of that speed of electricity delivery.

Hyundai and Kia have some properly fast charging stuff.  An old Leaf by contrast it’s (for all practical purposes) wasted on.

In defence of EVs I think you’d get the hang of it quickly if it was your daily and you’d probably have read up in advance of delivery/buying (certainly I did a lot around how we might charge on some critical/regular trips).

It does strike me as annoying that I might have to register with multiple providers to do a longer trip / have good flexibility of charging.  That’s a real shortcoming of private ownership of the charging network and limited regulation of how that’s delivered.

It’s normal for Charge Place Scotland, in my experience, if you don’t have the card.  They tell you to get the CPS card, but what they don’t tell you is that a lot of the older chargers are not app-enabled, even though they show up on the app and have a big ‘start charge’ button that simply never works.

For nearly all rapid chargers elsewhere, you do just plug in and tap your bank card – no need to sign up for anything.  Some slow chargers at destinations can be a bit shit still, but they are of minimal value in reality.

if I pumped diesel for half an hour and only added 20 miles of range I’d be raging

Sounds like you were plugged into the slow charger.  My car is about the slowest car around and it can still do 20-80% in half an hour, which is about 120 miles.

The app does show how fast the charge is happening…despite 22kw, I’ve yet to see that…11kw seems to be the fastest I’ve had.

So there’s AC and DC charging. AC is slow, DC is fast.  AC is where you use your own cable (usually), DC is where the big thick one is attached to the machine. Almost no cars can charge AC at 22kW, it’s usually 7kW sometimes 11kW.  DC is where you get at least 50kW up to 250kW in the first 60% or so of your charge, depending on car.

It does strike me as annoying that I might have to register with multiple providers to do a longer trip 

You don’t have to – unless you’re in Scotland.  Registering with a programme just gets you a modest discount for a monthly fee which isn’t worth bothering with unless you’re a mega miles driver.  Tesla public charging might be the exception as they are cheap but again this isn’t essential, plenty of other chargers around. When you stop at motorway services you’ll be using Applegreen, Gridserve, Osprey, Ionity etc and they are all tap your bank card and go.

Yeah, definitely DC but never really goes above 11kw…CSS combo Type 2 charging. So not using my cable but the one attached to the machine.
It isn’t a major issue for me though as I don’t tend to charge anywhere other than the office and that is a 7kw and I just charge it to 100% as it is a slow charge so doesn’t risk damage to the battery – it does tend to take almost the full day though, but it is a constant 6.9kw.

Even in England / Wales there is a bit of a small learning curve.

When I first got mine we did a trip to Anglesey and had a bit of a mare with finding chargers that worked, had to download a few apps, put £30 on them only to find that the charger just trickle fed a tiny amount of electricity. My Audi app would have told me the charging rate if I’d have had a look.

But it was a mare, and mainly because I didn’t know what I was looking for. So no wifi or phone signal trying to download an app. Quite stressful.

But now I know what I’m doing, as a system it now works well for me.

I’ve also had some issues with Charge Place Scotland. I had to do a long trip shortly after getting my car, so the RFID card I ordered had not arrived. As mentioned above, I found that the older style chargers (the large colourful cabinets) simply don’t work with the app. I did eventually successfully charge on a newer charger using the app. On my return journey I experienced problems with very different charge rates (on the same type of chargers). Tried one in Kingussie which wasn’t much better than a slow charge, so gave up and drove to Newtonmore where I very quickly got charged at a good rate on exactly the same type of charger. Possibly a site load problem, because the first car park had multiple chargers, whereas the second had only one?

After waiting a couple of weeks, I had to contact CPS to get my RFID card sent out, and it simply didn’t work the first time I tried using it. I contacted CPS to report this, and they eventually responded asking for confirmation of identity before they could investigate. Provided the info, and a couple of weeks later got another email from a different person asking for confirmation of identity before they could investigate. Provided the info again. Still waiting for a response a couple of weeks later…

On a more positive note, I also ordered an Electroverse card which arrived very quickly and has worked without any problems on every occasion I have used it.

It’s not difficult but it does need preparation, which is not good if you are given one unexpectedly. It would be the same if you were suddenly given a ICE car but didn’t know the difference between petrol and diesel.

22kw chargers are all well and good but lots of cars will only take up to 11kw on AC. DC charging is what you need when out and about.

Worst issue for me is that so many chargers rely on mobile data connections which are unreliable. Charger at hotel in Aviemore wouldn’t work with contactless. Couldn’t download the app because of no mobile signal. Had to go into hotel for WiFi then register the app. Took ages to get charger to connect to app. On the plus side due to all the dodgy connections, my car charged but my account wasn’t debited.

A connected network is badly needed. ChargePlace Scotland card is great example of what could be done.

I managed 45kWh of free power from CPS on their slow 7kWh chargers on my last trip to Scotland. No dedicated card either.

I wonder how much of this complication is driven by the desire for your data? Pumping petrol or diesel today is no more difficult than it was when I first started doing it 30 years ago. It’s the same experience at the fancy BP garage along the road or the tiny wee garage in the middle of the Highlands. Stick the nozzle in, pull the trigger until you’ve put in what you want, go and pay for it. I’ve never had to download an app to do that or need a different app per supplier although I know apps are available for pay at pump stuff.

I can’t think of a single example of anything which is improved by having to do it on an app. At least for the user.

And all of this is exacty the reason I didn’t hire an EV when I was in France.

In England and Wales you don’t need any apps.

Plug in, beep your debit card.

Oh and if it helps anyone: if you do find yourself at a CPS charger without an RFID card you can ring the number to have them start the charge remotely. Some chargers say this on them, others do not.

Just checked what car it was. A Toyota bZ4x. Horrific name unless it’s a play on words I don’t get?

Just googled the charging details for it

https://support.toyota.com/s/article/bZ4X-Charging?language=en_US

Appreciate that’s the US page but it isn’t half complex. A quick skim read throws up the following variables when it comes to charging

110v

240v

NEMA 14-50R outlet

Level 2 chargers

Level 3 chargers

J1772 connectors

CCS1 connectors

12 amp charging

32 amp charging

Again I’ll use my Mrs as an example of someone who can’t get her head around the difference between a micro USB and USB-C phone charging cable. She’d have a meltdown trying to charge an electric car if she read the instructions

Pumping petrol or diesel today is no more difficult than it was when I first started doing it 30 years ago

indeed. Think though how complicated it was for folks moving from horses to cars back in the day. It was so complicated then you had someone fill your car up for you. ?

Since moving to BEV in 2018 I’ve only had a couple of ? experiences. One at the old chargers at the Eden centre – figured it would be fun to give one a go. It wasn’t as fun as I’d expected. Another at a car park near Mousehole which was a failure to rtfm for the charger.

other than that, no problems. And not missing the stink of diesel or the heady fumes of petrol at all.

I sympathise with you OP. We’ve had an EV for nearly 7 years now and we’re lucky enough to be able to charge at home easily. A couple of years ago we had a few months in between homes and I think Iost about 5 years off my lifespan stressing about where/how to get the car charged and we do have the ChargePlace card.

I have to say though, as patchy as it can be in Scotland, Northern Ireland was orders of magnitude worse. Included one charger that requied you to download an app and prepay onto it BUT THERE WERE MULTIPLE APPS FROM THE SAME COMPANY, NONE OF WHICH WAS OBVIOUSLY THE RIGHT ONE.

Apart from all that though once you get a routine with an EV it’s grand.

It’s quite common for users to have the odd glitch when first getting used to the system. However most people soon get set up with a system that works reliably for them.

I’m also currently having problem with the CPS system which I use very rarely (last week was the first time in a year). Multiple messages to customer support and requests for a password reset have so far got a single “we’ll look into it and get back to you in 48h” response. The past year in England – vast majority charging overnight at home – has been flawless however. In England all the commercial chargers we’ve (rarely) used are just contactless touch and go.

I’ve never used a charger of any description that didn’t tell me the charging rate and so does my car.

No, charging is not normally this hard. G last two public charge sessions added 60 miles in 4 mins (at a fast IONITY charger) and 45 miles in 1.5 hrs (at a free 7kW charger while we were in town) – both sessions just one tap of a card and we’re off. For both of those sessions I used a charging card and also have multiple accounts set up for various providers.

What IS frequently an issue though is people struggling with an EV with no experience, no set up etc like the OP. We frequently use hire cars at work for business trips and every so often someone gets given an EV which usually results in similar tales of how hard it is to use an EV. Add in that the car should be returned “full” and it’s then even an issue to charge back up at the end of the journey, just when people want to throw the keys back and go home after a long day(s) away.

I think that there should be some form of standardised “how to” guide with hire or courtesy EVs along with a charge card that gets worked into the final bill. Plus dropping the “return full” requirement for EVs as the hire place can charge them back up to full at their own convenience.

That sounds like a terrible first time, I can’t say I’ve ever experience anything like that.  My experience of charging when out and about (Ref. sample of probably 20 individual charges in England, Wales and France)

Pull Up, Plug in

Tap Card

Charge starts (Charge rate and time to complete displayed on Car, Charger and app.)

Go for coffee/wee

Come back, car done (20-80%)

Unplug, drive away.

That’s an unusually bad experience. For Tesla at a Tesla supercharger, it’s as simple as plug cable into car and that’s it, everything happens automatically and your registered card gets billed when done.

Last non-Tesla charger I used was Instavolt fast charger at Tremadog on Saturday. I didn’t have the app so used a card (contact not contactless, for some reason that didn’t work). Very straightforward.

Before my home charger was installed I used the Shell fast chargers in the local Waitrose via the app and the BP fast chargers at the local petrol station via that app. No problems other than sometimes having to wait to use them.

Nothing like any experiences I had when we had EVs, the cars showed the charge, the machines showed the charge, the machines all had cables, I used the card supplied with the vehicle at the chargers, an app or Scotland the charge Scotland card. All machines told you what they accepted.

Home charging is great, until like this morning when a fox had pissed on/scent marked my cable and I didn’t notice until I got in the car and wondered where the smell was coming from (it was my hands which I’d already held the steering wheel with). They like to crap there to, not on the cable itself but where I walk between car and garage door when using the charger, not great in winter when it’s still pitch black and I can’t see where I’m treading

Just in the process of driving our Tesla 1000’s of miles across the UK and France; it is by far the most relaxing and easiest long distance trip we’ve ever had in a car. Lots of lovely stops and it’s only taken a few minutes to plan charging, once you get used to it, EV charging can be a very pleasant experience:)

Our friends had an electric Toyota as a courtesy car for the weekend while their ICE car was getting work done.

Did the garage who supplied the car not explain, or did you friend not listen?

And IMO if the courtesy car was ’empty’, they should’ve rejected it immediately and demanded a charged one.

Agreed that souds terrible, but it’s more likely that your frined ‘isn’t ready’ of didn’t really want an EV… so it doesn’t work for them.

It’s like one of my patients who has a brand new Nissan Leaf, but hates it because it’s so expensive to charge (at garage chargers).. She lives in a top floor flat. The flats have no charger.

THat’s not “EVs being bad” – that’s user error!!

I think Vs only make sense if you have homecharging abilities.

DrP

Not a statistically valid study, but a disproportionate number of these horror stories seem to involve CPS.

I think it’s important to understand what Charge Place Scotland actually is.
They don’t own, install or maintain any chargers. They are a centralised front end for billing of thousands of separate owners.

I could add the charger on the side if my house onto CPS and open it up for public use and CPS would do all the billing and administration n for me and just send me a payment every month.
The upside as an EV driver is that there are chargers everywhere that you can use with the one card and receive a single monthly invoice.
The downside is that the type, quality and level of maintenance of those chargers varies wildly as it’s down to the individual owners of those chargers.
It’s a legacy of the Scottish Government driving EV adoption and on balance it’s way more good than bad.

It’s just unfortunate that the OP got stuck with one of the bad ones first time out.

Buy a Tesla.

They use CCS , so do most new cars so it’s not at all like USB-C, micro etc etc.  If it’s any consolation I had to use a fast charger a couple times over the weekend, and it went as smooth as you like.

Many Charge Place Scotland units are now being converted to accept credit/debit card payment.  In some ways the fact they didn’t is a legacy of the early stage of introducing the system when it was free!  I’ve generally found the call centre staff could fix most problems with varying degrees of apathy and understanding!   it is totally stupid that each “network” wants its own system.  As you’ve discovered there is no risk of the cable being stolen as it is locked to the car (and the charger).

I’d put your problems down to the garage or the recipient of the courtesy car not asking the most basic question about recharging.  I’d be amazed if the Toyota didn’t show its charge status if you know how.  I’ve only noticed one charger that didn’t seem to show any status on the LCD.  You’ll probably have noticed chargers come in many sizes, from a bollard to a phone box.  In general the bigger the box the faster the charge.  The one you used is essentially designed for you to leave the car charging whilst you go about the rest of your life (imagine parking your petrol car at the petrol station and coming back to find it filled up for you).

Petrol/Diesel seems trivial by comparison.  But imagine you had never seen someone use a pump and then get in an ICE can and need to refill it.  You need to know how to open the flap (some are push and pop, some have a lever near the driver etc), then possibly unlock the cover, then which of the blue/black/green nozzles.  In some places you will fill and pay, but in some you need to provide a card to start the machine.  Then you need to fill it to your desired level – which is measured in L not miles, or even Gallons despite everyone describing cars in mpg.  Then you go inside and they expect you to tell them a pump number – which half the time you can’t see from the till.  Then you drive off (possibly having left your filler cap on top of the pump – although after about 60 years of motoring most manufacturers found a solution for that).

Is it identical in other countries?  No you’ll need to know what the fuel you want is called.  In some places unmanned stations are common.  In some you’ll cause alarm and confusion if you touch the pump and try to self serve (indeed there are still a few rural stations in the UK where they fill your tank).  In the US who speak the same language they will expect you to know which RON you want.   None of it is insurmountable, but I’ve seen plenty of foreign EV’s charging in scotland this summer so it can’t be that hard either.

You’ve had a bunch of first time user issues because the vehicle handover was poor.  But now you know how it works – will it be anywhere near as hard next time?

My promise of a 48h response from CPS was sent by them on Friday evening, so that’s 60h now without a peep. OK that’s over a weekend but that would be little comfort if I was stuck somewhere unable to charge. It’s 6 days since I started trying to fix the problems (initially by attempting password reset). It seems pretty shambolic.

The upside as an EV driver is that there are chargers everywhere that you can use with the one card

That’s great provided you have the card. If you just roll across the border without a card the issues will start. I only knew about the card because I’m a compulsive googler but even then we didn’t have time for it to arrive before we left. Moral of the story – if you get an EV in the UK and there’s the slightest chance you may go to Scotland at some point – get the card anyway.

if you get an EV in the UK and there’s the slightest chance you may go to Scotland at some point – get the card anyway.

And pay 12 quid for the privilege. Ridiculous.

Just glanced at the reviews for the CPS app on the Apple store. Not very reassuring!

Did the garage who supplied the car not explain

They were originally only supposed to have the car for Friday only and it was fully charged. My friend phoned the garage on Friday afternoon to be told their car wasn’t ready and just to keep the electric car until today so no charging instructions were given

A few months into EV ownership here, and recent Alps + now Outer Hebrides tours. My first experience in a demo Leaf a few years ago was very much like the OPs, and meant I binned the idea of an EV for 4 years.

Now, with a bit a chatting with EV pals so I was prepped before purchase meant things were very smooth for public charging. Was quite stressed doing the first one though! Setting up Octopus Go with new Ohme home charger and VW was another interesting experience, but it all works now in a very plug n play manner.

Yeah, the CPS app is a bit flaky (you really need the card). And some of the chargers are old, slow, knackered and sometimes with a weird order of doing things. But as mentioned, a hell of a network really.

2 things in favour of CPS from recent experience –

1) A charger I needed to use was not working, so I called the number on the charger and they were fast, effective and extremely helpful at rebooting the charger remotely and getting everything to work.

2) Outer Hebrides CPS charging is apparently free everywhere. That’s not what the app said, but 7, 22 or 50kw chargers used all over the island and each time was charged 0. Nice!

Oh, and OP, if you think CPS is bad, don’t use BP chargers. Jesus wept!

Quick addition referencing @poly – to add to highly variable petrol filling experiences across Europe, in the US, it’s even worse! First of all you have to go in and pay first (WTF, yes it is as confusing as it sounds for lots of reasons!), and then to really get the squeaky bum going – diesel pumps are **** green.