I don’t currently drive an EV or a plug in hybrid but was quite intrigued to read this account of how bad the current state of UK electric charging network is.

I would of expected there to be a potential shortage of charging points currently but I wouldn’t of expected the lack of working electric points when you actually do find them.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/28/electric-cars-porsche-charging-network

I read that. Jeez. You really couldn’t make it up, I appreciate it is just happenchance but clearly they’re a committed EV early adopter and that journey must have stung.

The couple, who love their new fully electric Porsche Taycan 4S, which has a range of about 250 miles, contacted the Guardian to describe how difficult it is to recharge a car away from home. Their journey would have taken two and a half hours in a conventional car, they say.

Awww, the horror.

You will pay about £10 for 33kWh of electricity at a rapid charger – in most cases enough to drive about 130 miles.

Isn’t that about the same as it costs to drive in an average petrol or diesel car? I know it’s about emissions but charging the same as petrol/diesel isn’t going to encourage people to take the plunge.

Isn’t that about the same as it costs to drive in an average petrol or diesel car?

Yes but how much would it have cost if they had charged their car at home (£4.60) like 90%+ drivers could do?

Isn’t that about the same as it costs to drive in an average petrol or diesel car? I know it’s about emissions but charging the same as petrol/diesel isn’t going to encourage people to take the plunge.

It’s far, far cheaper to charge at home. The expensive chargers are like filling up with fuel on the motorway, you pay a premium but only use them when you really have to. Plenty of free public chargers about too.

I have an EV and as of yet have had to use a public charger. But wtf didn’t they charge the car overnight before going on the journey, thats what I do.

It does sound awful but all I could think was why didn’t they fully charge at home them top up at their destination?

The range of the car is just under their total journey so a full charge at home plus parking somewhere to recharge at Bournemouth, even if it’s only 25% or so would have made the journey easy. I have a feeling they haven’t had time to adjust to charging the car every night at home and planning stops to top up on longer journeys. It’s a different mentality to just driving until the fuel light comes on then a quick 10 minute refuel for ICE vehicles.

I admit that finding broken charging stations is annoying and needs to be addressed with the increase of electric car sales but it does seem to me like they are the type of people who run their cars to near-empty then complain when they get to the nearest petrol station at that time and find it closed (common in rural Wales). A quick adjustment to fully charging at home every night plus a bit of forward planning like booking a car park with chargers at the destination would lessen the problem.

Is this another one of these exaggerated articles as to how bad it is?

Yes chargers can be in use, yes some can be broken on arrival and yes some charge.

Previously I had a hybrid, I may have mentioned it, I now own a EV I have done for 3 weeks. My wife uses it for her commute to work 4 days a week, about 200 miles. It get charged at the beginning of the week and towards the end to be safe. Current range is around 160 miles in this cooler weather.

I have a home charged which takes it an age or charged from empty but we have several chargers around town, most are free.  It hasn’t cost me a penny to charge since I owned it. Due to lockdown amongst things I’ve not done a long journey yet but with some simple planning it shouldn’t be too difficult. The infrastructure has a long way to go, twisted articles like this one stop people shifting.

These threads pop up every now and then, they’ll be doing so more regular as we gradually shift to EVs.

Rapid chargers on their route

I have an EV and as of yet have had to use a public charger. But wtf didn’t they charge the car overnight before going on the journey, thats what I do.

Exactly. I know of several people with non-Tesla EV’s now and none have experience anything like this despite acknowledging the charging infrastructure is not where it needs to be just yet. This is a story of a couple of idiots not planning their journey, getting stung, feeling like chumps and looking to blame others. Everyone I know who’s bought an EV deliberated over it for some time and knew full well the charging infrastructure is not great currently, but will get better so they went into it with eye’s wide open and plan their journeys accordingly…and never leave home for a long journey without a full charge. Almost all of the journeys they do are well within the vehicles max range anyway and simply charge the car at home overnight every few days, so only an issue on the couple of times a year they go on a long journey.

Similar thing to people I’ve known in the past who had converted their cars to LPG and had to plan long journey’s to go via petrol stations that sold LPG.

Having now read the article it would seem they don’t even have a home charger.

I missed that bit. So they pay what, £80,000 for a car then don’t pay the few hundred quid for a home charger.

agree idiots, anyone else worried at the prospect of a silent car doing 0-60 in under 3 seconds? At least with ICE cars you can hear the boy racers ragging them behind you. Not knocking EV’s but do they really need to accelerate that fast?

“would have” no need to thank me 😄

Not knocking EV’s but do they really need to accelerate that fast?

I suppose not but they all can and would need restricting not to.

So they pay what, £80,000 for a car then don’t pay the few hundred quid for a home charger.

From what I’ve read, because you have to own (or taken lease,subscription etc) an EV to qualify for the OLEV grant, it seems there is often a bit of a gap between getting the car and getting a home charger fitted. Altho, most intelligent people would have organised 3 pin plug charging to fill the gap or as a last resort.

Looking on ZapMap there are 7 rapid chargers in and around Bournemouth, 4 of them are out of action.

I had the charger 3 weeks before the car, but mine went through work. And the company we deal with I still had to do the OLEV grant myself so I know what is involved to get one.

I had the charger 3 weeks before the car, but mine went through work. And the company we deal with I still had to do the OLEV grant myself so I know what is involved to get one.

Yeah I was a bit surprised at the number of people who seem to be getting the charger after the car (speakev forum etc), considering there is often quite a few weeks between ordering the car and delivery, in which you could presumably organise the charger.
I got mine 12 months before the car, but then I knew I wouldn’t qualify for the grant.

At least with ICE cars you can hear the boy racers ragging them behind you. Not knocking EV’s but do they really need to accelerate that fast?

All new ones have a noise added to them under 30mph as from this month. Won’t matter anyway as even it’s a petrol car accelerating to that speed, by the time you’ve heard it you’ll doing a backflip over the roof.

From what I’ve read, because you have to own (or taken lease,subscription etc) an EV to qualify for the OLEV grant, it seems there is often a bit of a gap between getting the car and getting a home charger fitted

Indeed there is. I waited 2 months after mine was fitted for the car to arrive.

Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.

I read as they did Kent to Bournemouth, then when heading back with 40ish miles left went to go and charge and used the (normally woeful) sat nav to find one.

EVs are becoming more mainstream, it’s not unreasonable to go where the car is suggesting rather than plan out a journey on different apps. Failure more with their dealer for not giving them decent info and Porsche for minimum effort EV route guidance.

Classic LOMBARD

The ability to buy an £80k car but zero common sense.

Not knocking EV’s but do they really need to accelerate that fast?

Not really no, Tesla helped create the EV market, part of the way they did it was not only competing with Petrol cars but surpassing them in terms of acceleration, it makes good headlines and builds interest amongst the hardcore petrolheads who seem to be the most vocal detractors when it comes to EVs.

That said, because of the way EVs work with near instant torque and no gears they’re easier to make do 0-60 in a heartbeat than say 200mph.

Now the big players like VW and BMW are going into EVs in a big way, they’re making normal-ish cars with normal-ish performance that run on electricity.

The new Škoda EV due next year (which I’m considering for myself) does 0-60 in about 7 seconds, same as my Superb but is limited to 100mph. It’s got a range of 300ish miles, but I don’t know how real world that is. As luck would have it even 200 miles at 70mph takes about 2hrs 45mins or 45mins longer than the range of my bladder.

Failure more with their dealer for not giving them decent info and Porsche for minimum effort EV route guidance.

If you ran out of petrol would you blame the dealer and manufacturer?

It’s on charge now no big journey tomorrow planned but it’s ready if need be.

They could have charged at many on the way, the several in Bournemouth there is more than 7 but they didn’t plan to hard or I doubt even look to hard.

I’ve got an eGolf (100 motorway miles is doing well) so am quite familiar with how to plan real-world journeys and find decent chargers.

But if you’ve just bought a new car, pop your destination into the sat nav and it says “you’ll need to charge, want me to route you to a charger?” at what point are you supposed to know that you should download an app on your phone to find one instead?

Thinking ahead to when ‘leccy cars are getting towards the mainstream

I assume that you could charge a car like this from a standard 13A connection, albeit slowly, which means that you could charge when at the destination using their power.

It would seem rather cheeky to just assume that you can charge using their electric bill, so I assume the car itself can calculate the amount of electricity consumed, and convert that into a cost. It would them seem appropriate to get where you’re going, plug in, given your host the £5 or whatever it cost – rounding up of course, and then heading home with a full charge.

That in itself feels like a short term workaround as I imagine with the “smart grid” technology that will be with us eventually the electricity bill could be diverted from the host to the owner automatically, saving that very British conversation “oh, don’t worry about it its only a few pounds” whilst silently thinking “those cheap freeloading **”*s – pay all that money for a fancy electric car but then we pay to charge it!” 😉

what point are you supposed to know that you should download an app on your phone to find one instead?

I’m not sure have too mine shows any chargers nearby and on route too, it draws a pretty blue circle around the range. When I had my hybrid I downloaded the app as an extra, something I heard from other hybrid users and on here too.

I blame the Porche salesperson. They were sold a car without home charging provision and without being informed about all the apps they’d need to download to find chargers, check whether they are working before driving to them and whether they are already occupied.

It’s a learning process and sales people need to make sure that people leave the showroom with all the information they need.

I’ve been travelling aroud Europe electrically for three years now and have yet to run out. The most time wasted was where a 7kW charger turned out to be only 3kW – that was three years ago, there are loads more fast chargers now. The stangest was having to buy a Polish SIM for my phone in Poland because I couldn’t download the app with a French SIM. The nearest to picking up a big rock and throwing it at the charger was somewhere near Toulouse. I’m surprised more recalcitrant chargers aren’t vandalised because when you are in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, it’s raining and you’re faced with a 30kmh crawl to the next charge point it’s very tempting.

About a month ago we did a bizarrely similar day trip from Dorking to Bournemouth and back in a brand new Tesla model 3. Charged to 90% at start (apparently this is the max charge or something similar to that) and off we set. Think we were down to sub 60% by Rownhams so stopped for a 50 min charge at the only charging point which got us back over 60%. Got down to Bournemouth 20mins later and, using the app, could find no charging points anywhere near the beachfront. Went to one at Madeira road car park but need to register by phone and nobody answered so gave up. Made it back with sub 10% charge.

In summary, loved the car and the blistering acceleration (quite a difference to my Yeti!) but the day was marred by the need to figure out whether we had enough charge and i hadn’t expected a 100 mile each way trip to be particularly challenging distance for a modern electric car

I blame the Porche salesperson. They were sold a car without home charging provision and without being informed about all the apps they’d need to download to find chargers, check whether they are working before driving to them and whether they are already occupied.

Assuming the dealer never mentioned these I’m still don’t think you can blame the dealer. There is no necessity to have a home charger, if you’re buying a car surely you look at it’s capability and if it meets your needs before purchasing? Planning a journey in a car should involve a little thought. They remind me of the people who would turn up a Kielder 100 on fumes asking where the nearest garage was, they would look total bewildered when you told them it’s mikes away. Pity the dealer never warned them to check before driving to rural Northumberland.

I blame the Porche salesperson.

As you don’t know what the salesperson told them about or not and how much the buyers listened/took advice that is a bit of a stretch but you carry on.

I’ve got to say that I’ve read the article a couple of times and nowhere does it explicitly say that they don’t have a home charger. It does imply though that they have “ contacted the guardian to describe how difficult it is to recharge a car away from home”. Implies that they charge at home no problem?

That’s an aside to the story. They might have been a bit unprepared for the trip but it is a tale of not working charge points. I do find it remarkable how often you hear of chargers not working when an electical charger cannot be that complicated a machine. Hardly any moving points apart from hose?

I’ve friends with electric cars and when they are beyond hone charging range that all have tales of charging woes (except Tesla owners) and until the reliability of the infrastructure improves I’ll wait with my Dino juice cars

Her husband drove around the next day to find a charger then there is this.

Linda says she now knows why most drivers charge their cars at home overnight and avoid using the public network.

They either don’t have one are just refuse to use it. As I say we have one but I’ve yet to use it because we have access to free chargers around town.

The down side with home charging is for many people it’s not actually possible. Live in flats?
On street over subscribed parking etc?

There’s a very good chance in a city centre you can’t get your car within 500m of a socket you’ve access to.

That may or may not be the case here but it’s a huge barrier to uptake of EVs.

Her husband drove around the next day to find a charger then there is this.

See I took that as saying once charged, he decided to do a bit of research to see how bad the problem is locally.

I wonder if the car in the story hadn’t been a porsche, the comments would have been different. It sounded to me just a story about how poor the infrastructure is – not sure the couple needed a complete analysis of their personalities and intelligence.

wonder if the car in the story hadn’t been a porsche, the comments would have been different. It sounded to me just a story about how poor the infrastructure is – not sure the couple needed a complete analysis of their personalities and intelligence.

It’s only poor infrastructure if you live in the real world. Plenty of people here saying it’s fine.

I want an electric car. I keep an eye on things when I’m out.. currently no danger I’d bother. 50:50 on it being occupied or broken locally

It will get better but as above it’s barriers. As I have perfectly working cars with a good life span in them I’ve put the money I would have spent into solar panels and a battery for the house. Just seemed a less one dimensional use of my money and will soften the ev use in future.

I wonder if the car in the story hadn’t been a porsche, the comments would have been different

Probably.

My misunderstanding on the home charger.

Rereading the article another factor is the speed they must have been driving – you too, nuke. You have a choice between spending time driving and spending time charging and sometimes the best option is simply to drive at a speed that gives you the necessary range. Both the Tesla and Porsche would do that return without a charge, just roll along at the same speed as the trucks.

We never charge more than once in a 200 mile trip even with a Zoé 50. The usual strategy is for that kind of trip is to let the battery drop to about 40% and then recharge to 90%, then adjust driving style to keep the miles left indicator at 40km more than the miles remaining on the GPS.

And I stil blame the sales people, they are too keen to sell cars to fully inform people about all the compromises they’ll be making. They sell a supercar and fail to inform the new owners that if they have any sense they’ll sometimes be driving at 56mph and the passenger will spend a significant part of the journey using various apps and reading user comments on recent use of charge points.

You can override the Tesla charging limits both at home and at charge points as I understand it. There’s no reason not to charge to 100% on a home charger immediately before a long journey. It’s leaving the battery full that’s not good, an occasional 100% shouldn’t be worried about. However hanging around on a fast charger beyond 90% is wasting time.

About a month ago we did a bizarrely similar day trip from Dorking to Bournemouth and back in a brand new Tesla model 3. Charged to 90% at start (apparently this is the max charge or something similar to that) and off we set. Think we were down to sub 60% by Rownhams so stopped for a 50 min charge at the only charging point which got us back over 60%. Got down to Bournemouth 20mins later and, using the app, could find no charging points anywhere near the beachfront. Went to one at Madeira road car park but need to register by phone and nobody answered so gave up. Made it back with sub 10% charge.

There are three Tesla Superchargers between Dorking and Bournemouth. Did you use the in-car nav? It should have routed you via one of them if it felt the car had needed charging to accomplish the journey. I assume the car was an SR+ because a Long Range or Performance could have done that 200 mile trip without charging.

Dorking does seem sparse on rapid chargers.

It’s only poor infrastructure if you live in the real world. Plenty of people here saying it’s fine.

Not really no, people including EV say it needs improved. It does but with a bit forward thinking, such as charging your car enough the day before means you help the situation.

I assume a lot of people are skim reading, they live in Kent (and presumably have a charger there) and were visiting Bournemouth.

The car had plenty of charge to get there (so wouldn’t have recommended stopping) but it left them with 40-odd miles left for the return trip and the navigation sent them to ones that weren’t working.

Had a look on zapmap and it seems lots of local ones down there are “chargernet” that seems to have folded and the council have appointed a new company to replace and run them.

Yes, they could or should have planned better but when your new £80k car cheerfully tells you it’ll navigate you to a charger, at what point are you supposed to know do use a random 3rd party app to check charger status instead? Do you look up petrol stations before you visit to make sure they have fuel in stock?