My takeaway is this. (1)If you need a daily shopper then home-charging is fine. That's how I run my Nissan Leaf. 120 reliable miles and it charges overnight on my driveway. (2) If you do long daily drives then you need a 250 mile range (Tesla Model 3?) plus home-charging. You have a full tank every morning and plenty of range to get you to a big charging hub. (3) If you don't have home-charging then the UK network isn't mature enough to give you peace of mind. PLUS it costs the same as filling with petrol. Summary - You absolutely need home-charging to make EVs worth the bother, or you'll have range-anxiety your entire life.
@@llchristubellwhatever....that's not his point.... .... His (completely valid) point is the general one...that, you need home charging for an EV to be worth even considering... currently......!! .... Otherwise they're completely not worth the stress, hassle, inconvenience.. and PRICE....!!!
I totally agree having an ev for nearly two years having a home charger is key and makes owning an ev cheap to run. With the price of the public chargers being ridiculously expensive they wouldn’t be as cost effective. I will say though that I do the airport run twice a year and using the main motorway network I have never had range anxiety. There are lots of chargers in most services and ones that only have a couple are being upgraded to have more at quite a good rate. I do have a born though and it has a summer range of 230-250. The one time I arrived as a services(cobham) that was fully in use I went on ABRP put in next closest (3miles) checked it had been used on the app recently and went there no stress just 1 mile detour each way of the motorway simple.
Your all not seeing the issue, if you even do have home charging and you need to suddenly go somewhere you just can't if you have just started charging the car?
You are quite right about a failed petrol pump as there are usually a 'dozen' available however they are also only 'in use' for, literally, *minutes* so the inconvenience is even less!
The difference with gasoline pumps is that when they break, it also doesn't take months to repair or even left abandoned. My local mall had a 50kwh charger that got knocked down last Dec 22 and no replacement yet. They cut the power and put 3 cones on top of the concrete base.
With a failed petrol pump here in Australia the petrol station puts an orange plastic cover over the bowser nozzle so you can see it's out of order. Here EV charges that are out of order have a big metal sign on them reading "out of order" It seems that in the UK with EV chargers they don't put a big sign on it reading out of order you have to try and connect with it to charge your car, or not. Its the same with motels and B&B's here for if they're full they hang a sign out reading No Vacancies or they have a large enough lighted sign which incorporates a lit No Vacancy sign. Often the Vacancy sign is at the bottom of the main sign with the word NO blacked out when there are vacancies and the word no lights in red when there's No Vacancies. But in the UK you have to go the reception desk to find out if they have a room or not. OMG what a backward country. Many EV manufacturers are now supplying cables to enable people to charge non Tesla EV's from Tesla Chargers, well they are here.
I'm not sure it matters who's responsibility it is to repair, The simple fact as far as the end consumer is concerned is that it's not useable. The infrastructure simply isn't mature enough yet. With the cost they expect people to pay, to charge, I'm shocked that companies aren't fighting to get new chargers installed.
I don't understand, it's broken so the repair man comes to fix it and bills the person who gets the revenue from it, isn't that how every other business is run in the world?
Exactly. Politicians are talking shit by saying, "you always have some bumps", but when it means that this bump in the road leaves you stranded and you need to get a tow truck, and book a hotel to be able to continue, WILL NOT RESONATE WITH DRIVERS.
It's not that the infrastructure is not mature, it's these companies cutting corners. Or because of council budget cuts from central government, councils decide they it's more important to have front line services paid for rather than a charger. It sucks. It should be "it's broke, it gets fixed". It should have been part of the costing or lease. But with so few EVs it feels like companies don't care.
@@Philltbag Councils refuse to work that way, they insist on a quote and then you cant start until authorised. This isnt just an EV charger problem; the local playground had DANGEROUSLY broken equipment for over 2 years before the council authorised repairs.
Putting in a 7kW charger is cheap, but putting a 150kW charger... that's another story. A house uses 30kW-ish average, so you're looking at 5 houses' worth of energy infrastructure per charger. Imagine 20 chargers, that's 100 houses' worth, you need underground capacitors and inverters and probably batteries - I mean look around at superchargers you'll see giant containers making buzzing noises nearby (some are diesel powered!). That costs millions to put in and you still experience a vast reduction in charge speeds if too many cars charge at once. It is just not economical to install so all these companies are going bankrupt, even at the ridiculous per kWh prices...
I’ve just done the same test where i live, both petrol station at 100% full working order, only 2 EV chargers for 30 miles, both out of order due to no signal.
I just finished a 5000 km road trip through South Africa in a borrowed VW Passat. SA is the most developed of the 54 countries on the African continent. I know SA very well, been coming here for many years. After six weeks on the road it is glaringly obvious that ICE vehicles will always prevail here. EVs in SA are as rare as rabbits In Antarctica, only the wealthy elite in Johannesburg and Cape Town can afford a handful of these. There is zero infrastructure and according to a Johannesburg Sun 2023 survey there are only about 1000 EVs in SA. If EVs are a non starter in the most developed country in Africa (SA has several large vehicle manufacturing plants) then the other 53 countries will always be ICE. The same for the Middle East.
I rented a Polestar 2 over Christmas and thought the car was fantastic! I did my first ever public charging in a McDonald's car park in west Leeds at an Instavolt charger in December 2023. I tapped my card and plugged in but the screen on the charger was broken and then the cable was stuck in the car for 45 minutes and did not charge. Went to a different Instavolt charger a few days later in Bradford and the charging session was fine. On the M1 at Leicester Forest East services, they don't even have any chargers. I love EVs but I want to be able to drive up to a charger, plug in and not have to plan anything. I want a similar experience on the motorways as I do with ICE cars.
4 years ago my company “pushed” me and 11 of my team into EV company cars from ICE. 5 of us went down the Tesla route whilst the rest went Legacy EV. Common complaints since from the Legacy EV drivers were centred around charging (queuing, multiple apps, multiple payment methods, third party charge operator website poor, having to credit funds before use, reliability of chargers) - The Tesla drivers never had an issue and the consensus is the Supercharger network is pretty great (personally in almost 4 years and 67,000 miles never had a broken charger and have only had to queue twice, both times in the last month at Gardano) - We are all pretty much on the cusp of selecting new vehicles again, the car list has a much greater selection of EV’s that last time but my realisation is to rely on anything outside of the Supercharger network would just be too much of a frustration. Until Tesla opens every Supercharger to Legacy or third party charger co’s get their act together the general message about EV’s and their desirability as an alternative is being damaged.
Agreed. Plus the high cost of public charging is not an incentive to make an EV the main vehicle in families sufficiently affluent to run more than one car.
I have only found a few chargers not working during my travels. If I am having difficulties, I usually call the number on the side of the charger and after a brief discussion, they will remotely reboot it. This has solved most issues and only once have I had to find a different charger. i very much agree that if a charger is not working it should be marked as such in the apps.
My first DC charging experience with instavault was a complete failure. Calling for assistance and reboot did not fix so had to wait and then move to the next charger. Someone then moved in and it worked ok. Next day a Tesla was having the same exact problem on the same charger...what can I say??
I completely agree with your rant about inaccurate maps! In my experience ChargePlaceScotland are the worst for this, I've been to 20+ chargers which the CPS app claims are working. When I've phoned up to report the fault, I've then been told "Sorry we know it's broken, it's been like that for weeks". There's absolutely no excuse for a network not to keep it's own online map/app up-to-date. I've politely approached a couple of councilors for help getting long-term broken chargers repaired but been ignored. Some councils really need to get their act together. My plea to anyone reading this is complain to the local council when a council-owned charger is broken - if enough of us complain then something might change!
Here in Portsmouth, they shut off all the posts and lamp post chargers in the public streets because even when they have been online for a few years now they only found out the other week that they have been wired up dangerously and thus need rewiring to fix
That and and your high speed chargers are: broken BP one, broken Geniepoint, taxi only in the P&R, one only available during Tesco opening hours and a pair by the Brittany Ferry port. When we visit family we make sure we are charged up on the way in and that we can get as far as somewhere on the A34/M4 on the way home. One thing Pompey does say is "here is how to safely run a cable from your house" -most other cities say "don't" which is already being ignored
You clearly have more patience than I do, I was anxious watching this. I'll stick with diesel and filling up once a week or even every 2 weeks. But a very useful video, thanks
My local Lidl has a Podpoint 50kW charger that has still yet to be commissioned after probably 2 years at this point. The one at the Lidl the next town over was destroyed by youths months ago, it still worked even with the broken screen but it's now been taken offline on the app. The 7Kw charger at Aldi is an old BP Pulse unit that's dead, and at the newer Aldi the 22kW chargers haven't been turned on yet after 6 months. The 150kW chargers in the retail park are in the bottom corner of the car park, and if it rains the bays flood because there's no drains, so you have to step out into a kerb heights worth of water. The main issue for us seems to be the lack of Chademo on new chargers. Sainsbury's ripped out the 7Kw Type 2 chargers and replaced them with 350kW CCS chargers, which is great and all, but the units they installed have Chademo at other sites so it was an active choice
Having watched a lot of videos on EV use i am sticking to my diesel for the foreseeable future. Loved the polestar 2 i test drove, but don't want all this hassle.
It's such a shame that the product is now there and getting really good, and the infrastructure is still awful. As this is nationally important infrastructure regulations need to impose a minimum service standard: if you operate a charging network there needs to be a requirement-to-work or face consequenses.
Since 2016 I have used Tesla Supercharger 135 times, I have queued on one occasion (for less than 10 minutes), on two occasions the "pump" was slow and I moved to another. Not once have I had "nothing working" If Tesla can do it, using UK infrastructure, why not the other muppets? On one occasion the location I was heading to (Rugby) had a power cut, I got a notification on dash, SatNav re-routed, and a bit later power was restored and it re-routed back to Rugby. Does anyone else, other than Tesla, do that? Why not?
Big hubs on major routes have come on a long way. If you’re travelling a long way thats probably most important to you. Singletons or dual units locally that may be old, gridserve/geniepoint/BP pulse etc I’d try and ignore as much as possible. couple of times I’ve wanted something near a destination - St Ives and Isle of Wight. Former they didnt’ have anything so just charged up enough to get me back to camborne on the way out (but they now have some at the leisure centre and more opening soon). Isle of wight I popped out one morning to a mcdonalds for an instavolt top up.
Try finding one that really works around Holyhead, Anglesey! The one I know of hasn't worked for five years - but I have to add that I've not been there since covid struck. It was still listed on zap-map, though!
I used the AC one in the public car park in Sandown on the IOW whilst having a curry (a very nice curry ) on the high street nearby. When we went back after dinner, the DC one (still only a 50kw) was free so I switched to that and we went to the Pier for about half an hour and had a play around on penny falls machines, video machines ( the driving type ones) etc . That plus the 100% ( 273 miles wltp) range I started with in Ruislip did enough for the trip there and back and out and about across the whole island for the week. I did only get back with about 15 miles range though. That's fine when arriving home where you are guaranteed a chargepoint (albeit 7kw or a granny on a 3 pin).
Come to Québec, all the rapid chargers I’ve used in the last five years apart from one have worked flawlessly and the temperatures range from the -30's in winter to the +30's in the summer. 😮 ( I hope I haven’t put a curse on myself ) 😂
How many new chargers have been installed in that same area? I mean really new not the replaced ones. The government keep telling us how thousands of new chargers will be installed every year but Im not seeing them.
It is were are they putting these new chargers and are they replacing chargers that are just rubbish. I can not see how some chargers are such very Poor quality. Tesla ones do not seem to have any were near the down times of any other network. and they charge there cars faster etc. If you look at all the chargers gridserve have replaced last year it is a lot. but it does mean they have not started many new locations.
2:40 Depends on the nature of the contract. If the contract is to provide a charging service with a certain %age up-time then the charger company is at fault if it isn’t fixed. If the contract is just an install and maintain to order then yes, they might be awaiting a purchase order from the owner.
I find genie point the worst. There was one in West Cardiff that was offline November 2022. Last month it was still offline and then recently removed from the app's map. The actual unit is still in place though. I reported it twice. It was in a Texaco petrol station. The app is continuously showing locations off line.
I have a question for you, do you not have any more rapid chargers in your area? A year ago when I was contemplating ordering an EV, my locality (Salisbury) was a desert when it came to rapid chargers. Now we have 7 CCS connectors available and four in a Shell garage waiting for power.
Good video! I live on the other side of the pond. When I was in Northern England this past summer for a wedding, I drove around Manchester, Burnley, Liverpool, and Leeds. Did not see many charging stations, but did see plenty of electric vehicles.
I plan my holiday routes before setting off. We headed to Bude last summer and it’s a charger desert down there. The 2 charges were out of action at our holiday park. I did find one charger working in Bude centre. There’s another charger at the other end of town and it’s £1-49.PKH. It’s not good down there. But I do like InstaVolt and Podpoint. When travelling..
Nearly every video I see with Genie point they are never working, BUT the one in Shrewsbury at Morrisons does GO FIGURE!! and on the A5 the gridserve has been replaced with EVpoint, and Girdserve are installing 6 charger near by. Plus we have 2 old Instavolt, which only once found faulty. Welshpool though is now well served with 7 Rapids and they all work.
Before you even set off, I knew the worst points would be Geniepoint. Out of interest, are they suffering from the same problem as many car park payment machines since the 3G network switch off?
Frequently visit eldest daughter in Leighton Buzzard which requires my charging our Renault Zoe ZE50 for (winter range especially 😉) the return journey. Out of 5 rapid charging points visited and attempted to use, the only one working was at Tesco and I was 3rd in queue to use it. Previously even that charge point has been out of service on two occasions in the last six months. Seems to require some running around to find out if the different charge points are working as you mentioned, the apps don’t seem to update accurately enough. 👍
@@stuartburns8657 our previous diesel Skoda was unfortunately Euro 4. As we also need to travel to London it would be pretty costly to do so as often as we need. To be fair when using the charge points on the motorway we have not yet been let down, it seems the ‘legacy’ chargers in towns are the biggest issue from our experience and this is the experience indicated by EVM too. We have done a near 500 mile round trip in one day, with two charges on route (2nd a quick top up) which worked out fine, I more generally use the car locally and charging at home costs £4.12 for 100% charge from zero giving upto 240+ miles range which is more than adequate for our needs. 👍
Glad it working. We have the Euro6's and funny enough are travelling to London in a few weeks. As they're fully paid off, in good health, it'd be foolish to change given the low annual mileage we do
Pretty much a similar picture where I am. At least 2 sites nearby which have been faulty for ages, still faulty. Also not on the maps as they’ve been off for so long. One actually owned by Scottish power. Another nearby site supposed to be replacing a damaged unit with 6 new ones. Put in the ground 3yrs ago. Never powered to this day. I’ve been on my soapbox to the council and local councillors but to no avail.
Deep chuckle from here in France. The one in our village hasn't worked for at least a year but we have three more within five clicks, so no worries. We still charge at home for a week on reduced rates.
Loved when you laughed at "first" charger.. Imagine you are on a trip with family and got 10-15% charge left....Great news 😅 Other piint - would be nice to know the prices per kWh at those charges.
Used to have this experience back in 2018, 2019. Since then, with a newer car, and keeping to networks like Instavolt that always work, it's rare to have an issue, even on multi thousand mile road trips. You mentioned that you focused on the older chargers. Is it also possible that the Tesla has an issue with some CCS? Not that that wouldn't still be a legitimate gripe, but it might be less of an issue for others.
Octopus Energy aren’t too dissimilar to your first one - our smart meter stopped working but they have nothing in place to say “oh - we’ve had no readings for a fortnight - maybe there’s an issue”.
I take the point about the monitoring of chargers but in a site I charge at regularly I see people try a charger once and walk away if they think it isn't working. I always find the customer service staff at Chargeplace Scotland are very good and will often just do a remote power cycle on the charger and it works fine. It would be helpful if drivers would take 2 mins to report it and they may find it's easily resolved.
Rebooting a charger is not going to ensure reliability, coming from an IT background it needs investigating and possibly updating / replacing. Anyone with any sence should see that like Tesla do.
Really interesting video, thank you. I have never used lone chargers, or council run chargers. I wouldn't use a garage with a lone fuel pump, if they still exist, because there is always a chance of a queue or a failure. I wouldn't use council run chargers because they get funds to install, but they do not get ring fenced funds to maintain, so there is a good chance they are not working, and they will usually have ways of fining you for the slightest mistake. I have a list of large rapid/ultra rapid charger sites with multiple chargers throughout the country, just as I used to with fuel stations, and I stick with these. Consequently, if a few chargers are down, there are always others, and I hardly ever have to queue. I think this will be the way eventually, that big charger sites, privately owned and run, will dominate.
One thought occurred to me mid rant :D (which I do agree with) is, try their support number, they might get it working and maybe even for free! I've been driving an EV for a total of 2 weeks and only use CCS, but I have access to a Tesla Supercharger and so far it's amazing. I was surprised how average Zap Map is, the web version is kind of broken, so ok I use the app and I'm puzzled why they don't just have a simple thumbs up/down rating system for each charger for the last 24 hours.
I now have about a dozen and half rapid chargers or more within the mile to 2 miles around me in inner north London. Not using them much because the 5-7kW ones nearby are cheaper with the rapid I can see out my upstairs back window being the most expensive CPO!! Most of them are single units with very high utilisation which means cruising slowly around congested streets to find a free one; there are two twins and one MFG hub of four units with two in use as I type. BP Pulse seem to have replaced four or five old on-street units this last year which seem mostly to be working, one was dead for all but 2 months out of over 2 years and two were ex-council v.early ones that took a few years to get back online. Like your gripe, the second nearest to me isn't on either Zap-Map or even BP's own map so can't check if in use - probably easier to walk to it and look!! Two are inaccessible to EV's with a right rear charge port and one is probably a problem with a left rear flap. So, how many are working? One definitely isn't, most of the others are probably working, I certainly see several in use regularly, some have either the CCS or Chademo plug out-of-use, in summary better than a year ago although I've only actually used one recently - a distress purchase! [I plug in a lot at my partner's house] Obviously this is very different from your rural and small town experience, lots of chargers now but too many are single units, heavily utilised - much by Uber and other taxi drivers. My actual concern is slow expansion of 7kW and lamppost chargers and the pricing of slow charging - lamppost conversion is cheap and easy, hardly justifies high pricing to cover non-existent heavy capital costs. Onward to your next year's survey!
I was in NW London last month and ended up charging at an in-law’s house. That’s one benefit of wider adoption of EV and PHEV vehicles: more people you know will have places to charge when you visit them
It's useful to know what proportion of chargers are working. I've heard reports of some chargers with prices that are extortionate compared with charging at home. What are your observations and would you do a video on charger pricing please?
TBH I am surprised you did so well! The fact that the largest UK charging networks are owned by petrochemical companies makes me doubt if it's in their interest to have effective & efficient charging!
I found that because there so many charging companies and charging unit manufacturers, there are problems in sourcing parts and engineers who know how to fix these! Ionity in particular have this issue as they have very old units now. So what we need is fewer charging unit varieties.
Our local unmanned tesco petrol station regularly doesn't work.. the BP next to it always works. Perhaps expecting anything to work without anyone checking is the problem 🤔
Because of the uncertainty of single or double chargers actually working then I have always planned my journey so as to use a large hub but this has meant me having to drive a much longer route just to be sure I can charge. Just not good enough so I am contemplating going back to an ICE car.
The Osprey charger in Bridge Street Car Park in Skipton is one of my favourites. It's just right in distance from Nottingham for my motorbike, always works, I rarely have to wait, there's cafes and shops, and I can get right out from there to the nice roads in the Dales.
MFG have put up a lot of new charging areas with 6 charging points on each garage forcourt not cheep but very good all 150 kw chargers and you are limited to 1 hour stay
If you venture is bit further south you will find lots of chargers in the Rotherham area that have had, and repeatedly have had, their charge leads chopped off.
Im annoyed becouse is not a standard size of cell in use. All models with different size and because of that the price of cells is still expensive at oem
my solution would be to buy an ICE car, but seriously I use electro verse which tells you if the charger is in use, faulty or otherwise and the bonus is you only need one card
The rapid chargers in Guiseley (the Osprey ones at the retail park) are inaccessible after 8pm as they close the gates. When I asked the council about this, they stated that the chargers are there as a convenience for shoppers using the shops, not the general public 🤦🏻♂️ The Ionity chargers at Skelton Lane services at Leeds on the M1 have been running at less than half their advertised rate for over a year now. I went to Peterborough last week and tried a couple of different sites, to try and avoid paying service station prices for food while I charged. I tried a Shell and BP charge stations and had problems at both so ended up wasting an hour driving around and then going to the services anyway. When people ask me if they should get an EV, I tell them yes, but ONLY if you can charge at home.
Yes there are occasions when a petrol station has pumps out of order, however you haven't far to drive to find another. I live in a rural village and there is a petrol station then within 5 miles they are 2 more. I have never found any if any out of action. Plus it takes me about 5 mins top to refuel, pay and depart. I don't need a smartphone, several apps and normally 1 plastic card to pay. Keep your EVs by all means but don't force me to give up my form of transport.
I would be totally frustrated if I had to go through all this charging stress if I bought an EV. Yesterday I rolled into a local service station in my 2006 Golf TDI with about one eighth of a tank remaining. It took less than 3 minutes to fill it up and that tank will take me about 900 km around town and 1000 km on the open road. There are 6 EV charging stations (that is 6 “bowsers”) in my town of 150,000 people and 40 listed petrol stations. I’m told by my Tesla owning neighbour that 2 of the public EV chargers are not working. He got a quote for rooftop solar and a wall battery terminal thing for the Tesla and it was $16,000. His wife is furious and has gone back to driving her 20 year old Ford Telstar every day.
I checked the zapmap yesterday for my area in north Cornwall and most chargers don't work. Worse than a few years ago. We now use a kia soul charged at home and don't even bother to go beyond its short range.
Although what you say about remote monitoring is generally correct; I have been in a situation where my ADSL connection was broken, but the BT monitoring equipment insisted it was working. The engineer finally came out and admitted he could SEE with his own eyes (and test equipment), that the module was not working - at the exact same time his remote feed was showing data passing through it. My only long range foray this year, was a 270ish mile visit to Manchester - all the chargers I encountered worked - but both of the locations around Manchester had payment issues - different brands of charger, different TYPES of charger, and on different networks - were refusing credit or debit cards, and only working with membership/Electroverse RFID cards. The semi-functional AC charger (BE), located in the Manchester Metro car park - had an additional issue; it claimed to be a 22KW AC charger, but was only giving 3KW; I expected to come back 3 hours later, to a fully charged car, but came back to one with 73% charge - bearing in mind my ancient EV can just about manage 90 miles on 100% - and it was 80 miles to my planned recharging stop. At this point, an FYI to people who might use these chargers. These bays are for EV CHARGING; if you cant get the charger to work, park somewhere else, as leaving your car sat there NOT charging - will get you a ticket; an Audi Etron was being ticketed at the same time I was fighting with the shared charger to allow me to use it - this cars' driver obviously didnt have a BE or Electroverse card to use. Also, a shoutout to the wanker who parked his ICE Honda Civic in the only EV charging bay not in use at a BP garage, just because it was 3ft closer to the Amazon lockers than regular parking - AND LEFT THE ENGINE RUNNING, UNATTENDED.
Geniepoint have been woeful in maintaining their chargers in west cumbria. However there's better news, an 8 charger instavolt in Whitehaven and a 16 charger osprey in workington. I would add that we charge on cheap rate overnighy at home now except for the occasional long journey.
It seems to be becoming easier perhaps get trust the whiff of an iffy charging location vs a reliable one. I am hopeful that rollout of hubs such as Sainsbury’s in a similar style to Tesla is the way forward. Councils should go all in on fast chargers, as you say, that would be a big help if reasonably priced.
Each EV vlog i see confirms my thought that this is still someway off being reliable, convenient and affordable. I'll give it another 5 years in my ICE and review! Can you imagine if you had to pay for fuel with a shell/BP app or whatever!
We had the same situation here in France until a year ago. But things have changed so much recently, rapid chargers are popping up like mushrooms and tobe honest, it's very easy to travel anywhere today in an EV. Most of the networks are now very reliable
Out of the fast chargers I have around 4 have never been turned on after been installed(no idea why) and we have other 5 that work. · in gas stations that are always full and the other 2, quite affordable, reliable and usually empty are in the parking lot of mcdonals. Great for the car, not so for my diet. I've been eating there once a month lately when I visit that restaurant twice a year or less before having to charge.
We have only one local authority run rapid charger in our town and it wasn’t working last year when you did the video, and a year later it still isn’t working. I’ve contacted the council numerous times and the only reply I ever get is to say my enquiry has been passed to the relevant department.
Fuel pumps being broken seems to be on the increase. I don't recall it being so common even a few years ago and wonder if there's a lack of maintenance to improve profitability, or many pumps were installed at a similar time (due to some reason that obsoleted previous pumps) and are now reaching end of life.
Our local Tesco Extra has just replaced all its petro/Deisel pumps with brand new pumps. That's 20 brand new pumps that are always busy at 5 minutes per refuel. Imagine the number of chargers needed to handle the same throughput.
The first one (Silsden) I've used a few times in the last month without issue, so you just got unlucky there.😊 I had free charging at all those GP chargers for possibly 2 years so can't complain, but I guess ultimately BMDC made a bad choice going with GP. The osprey chargers in Skip are fantastic, so cheers for pushing for that. You seemed to be suggesting it was all council, but I got the impression from the council that the chargers were GP responsibility, hence whoever bought the network from Engie slowly replacing the chargers (which as you know were only installed max 5 year ago).
Thank you for being honest. It has felt like we are being blamed for being inflexible (now we're just being blamed for being poor and not having a drive). Have pestered Leicestershire but they give no hoots
We live in a country where the establishment tells us to put up and shut up, leading to we middle class scraping by and many more vulnerable people being unable to heat and eat. I’ve only thrice used public chargers in the 9 years we’ve driven EV, but great content, great points and a great public service sponsored by SmartHomeCharge I can’t get installed in Rural Shropshire. Maps being reliant on user reports, not system logging map updates is something that winds up we IT competent folks!
The problem is corporations and billionaires hogging the money. It never trickles down and every successive generation gets poorer and poorer, it can't go on like this forever it isn't sustainable. Especially with automation coming in and people needed to reskill to keep employment. The UK has some excellent standards but actual practices of fixing things and keeping services running we are a massively incompetent country. The Government even saying this week don't expect the potholes to be all repaired there's no money. Hold on a minute but you quit HS2 to free up money for road infrastructure investment, so where is the money?
Im convinced the UK needs to just have Tesla do it. Their V4 chargers are great and their software is the best anyway, as well as their prices tend to be lower than the rest.
Thanks for this, I'm potentially getting an Ev in 8 months, but I'm fighting my housing association and council for access to home charging, so may need other options, and being disabled I'm limited in these. Keep up the rants.
Why are you getting an EV with no home charging? I saw a story about a person being tricked into getting an E V under mobility program. Was a complete disaster for her.
I live in Germany and never seen a broken charger so far. Plus, the prices are really good. I am not sure how can this huge difference between Germany and UK be explained.
It’s always good to get it off your chest. I used a charging map which stated there was on at a services on a motorway and when in France and I got there to charge and it was not built they had only just started digging,
Get "Dave takes it on" to do some consulting and advice on those charging inferstrucure problems.. Great videos it's right, this 2024 and some chargers are unusable..
@@tatata1543 This is our 3rd car, so we don't take it on long journeys. For shopping trips or to our local waterfalls, nothing has been over 100 miles yet. For long trips, we use our Mazda.
So true. The price may be plummeting on used EVs but the lack of decent charging locations really puts me off. Look forward to big changes in a years time eh? 😂 Hopefully the EVangelists watch this video and understand what the ICE people are complaining about!
This isn't their biggest complaint though. The anti-EV brigade have pivoted now to child exploitation in mining minerals. The oil companies are doing a great job in steering the narrative.
@@justincase9471 fossil fuel 10x more likely to catch fire Guess how many ice fires last year. Go on. Ok I'll tell you. Not counting arson 100. Yep. 100. Oh BTW that is the per day figure. But media reports every single EV fire (and many that aren't (like Luton for example) while ICE fires are so commonplace it's not newsworthy. 100 a day. Every day.
As someone from the area. Would love to know where these chargers are. Skipton, yep main car park. And while picked up some of the places you were passing. No idea on the chargers. So lets have a name & shame & praise & reward please. @EVM
Thanks for slogging through your local charging "opportunities" and confirming what the glossy EV adverts omit to mention. Public charging is Russian Roulette. And its nearly always slow compared with diesel/petrol filling up.
I’ve had an EV for 18 months now with home charging. I wouldn’t get one without it. Appreciate lots of people do this and it works for them, but for me, the moment you move away from cheap home charging, the benefits case for an EV diminishes substantially. The few times I’ve had to public charge have been hit and miss, just like this video. Again, lots of people do this a lot and it works for them. I just don’t like the range anxiety without the certainty I can always find a working charging station. Whilst I love my EV and won’t go back to ICE, I can sympathise with people who just wont consider one until we have better infrastructure, more range, faster and cheaper charging and of course cheaper cars. We have a long way to go here.
Very interesting, i must do the same in my area. What about any news sites in that year? Given how many are going in you would expect a couple of new sites as well?
Do they supply second story flats? Because that's where I live. I'd probably need somewhere in a region of 120 foot long cable. I don't think I supply them. Then I'd have to run it across a Garden and a pavement ?
I honestly would have enjoyed watching you visit and film every single machine to show if they where operating as we have finally got an ev and we frequently travel from Newcastle to London in our diesel chugger, so it's vital for me to learn 👍🤞
Depending on your EV (range) and any manufacture charging loyalty card you have I have a recommendation for the journey from Newcastle to London. In a Genesis GV60 ( motorway speed range 253 miles ) which has a Shell Recharge Loyalty card ( gives discounted charge rate to Ionity and Shell Recharge Network 58p/KWh ). Newcastle to Haringey just inside M25 is 290 miles via this route. Newcastle to Skelton, Leeds to use Ionity. 100 miles Skelton, Leeds to Coachway, Milton Keynes, 143 miles. Ionity chargers. Coachway, Milton Keynes, to Destination. 47 miles. Then re-trace the return journey. If destination charging is available you could probably get to Skelton on a full charge missing out Milton Keynes in the return leg. Good luck on whatever route you select.
Charging price a problem too. Here in Hoyland Common, Barnsley, Rapid charging is 69p upwards per kwh, that's not going to convince the many 1000s in the area without home or business charging to swap to EV, the ordinary fast chargers aren't that much cheaper either. I drive a Skoda Superb estate which has the huge loading space I need to carry all my business stuff around, there doesn't seem to be much in the EV world that would suit and what there is would be way out of my price range on an average income. The powers that be, don't seem to be busting a gut to change anything, shame as I'd swap in a heartbeat if I could.
You say that destination chargers in Supermarkets are the answer but not at 46ppkWh. I converted a car to electric for a project and loved doing it. However while testing the ac charging I called into Tesco and found they charge something like 46p per kWh. This is bonkers! My car does between 2.5 and 3 miles per kWh so If I charged at that price all the time it would have been cheaper to leave the diesel engine in it! Why would anyone use a slow ac charger in a Supermarket if they are going to be charged so much? It makes no sense at all.
BP pulse 1 of 3 working,Gridserve 2 from 5,Osprey 2 from 5 just appalling service.Only been electric for 3 months and regretting making the jump to electric at the moment.
How come this doesn't happen with Tesla Superchargers? Why do they have a 99.96% reliability rate? Could it be because they make all their own chargers with their own parts? And monitor their network 24/7/365? And have techs in all towns or nearby towns and cities that get dispatched as soon as the problem happens and know which part to take with them already? And from all that, have learned and improved their chargers over time so they rarely go down? Just a thought for other providers. It's not rocket science.
Did I miss the bit where you name the providers whose chargers didn't work? Can you let us know who the culprits are please; that would help a lot for the future when assessing whether to drive a few miles to one of theirs with a risk of failure as opposed to opting for a potentially more reliable brand a little further away. Ta!
It's not just about wether they are working or not! It's about how fast they are charging and how much it costs to charge! Should be the same charging rate and price across all chargers
Sorry...The electric charging sytem not close on being perfect....Why would one even think about going electric....Your input just confirms my thinking...
Heads up EVM, your Smart homecharge link isn't being picked up as a full URL within youtube (at least on the website). So you might be missing referrals
A small town in rural Oxfordshire this morning. Parked in the municipal car-park. Surprised to see two chargers, both ICEd! Then realised the chargers were out of action, fenced off with road-works plastic. Then noticed there was actually a complete row of TEN! Looked like they’d not been used for years. The suppliers had obviously given up as all their decals had been removed, leaving plain white fridge-size boxes. Ten spaces in a very busy 70 space car park and not an EV in sight [apart from mine]. So I’m sure they’d be ICEd even if they were working. It’s a quaint town where few of the ancient terraced houses have parking so as 2035 draws near there’ll be lots of the citizenry grateful for ten public chargers. But someone on the council’s obviously got well ahead of themselves. Let’s hope they can find the funding to resurrect these two at a time as demand increases.
Sort of destroys the whole idea behind EV's, doesn't it? Reduction in CO2?? *Having* to use two vehicles, both of which actually do produce CO2 (during manufacture and use - check out the Advertising Standards Authority poo pooing the idea that EVs are 'emission free'). It's like the wind energy con... wind turbines MUST have conventional backup to work when the wind doesn't blow and EV drivers 'must' have an ICE vehicle for when range is an issue! lol
You know I drive around a lot and hardly ever and that’s only because they’re updating the station has seen a gas station out of service. I will admit once in a while when the pumps at a station might be out of service but all the rest work.
I'm now wondering how this compares with the main rapid charge provider here in Scotland, which is the state-backed Chargeplace Scotland network that is maintained by local authorities?
It’s now way way cheaper to avoid CPS as they have hiked their prices and imposed maximum 40 minute stay times on any “fast” (ie 22kW and above) charger. Where I used to use them a lot around the Stirling area I haven’t used them in two years and it appears from when I drive passed the two charge hubs in Stirling that very few people seem to use the faster units at 59p/kW, even the 7kW units at unlimited stay time but 39p/kW are mostly unused now. My EV is a Mini so around 110 miles range at this time of year and that is way more range than I need even for the longest 60 miles round trip to Glasgow Airport I ever take after a full charge on my home charger.
@@timoliver8940 Thanks Tim, that is useful to know. Much the same applies to my situation with my Fiat 500e, which is good for 170+ miles in the summer and as little as 120 miles in winter, but has yet to venture outwith this in any one round-trip journey after 2 years of ownership.
@@briangriffiths114 I’m fortunate to also own a 2023 D250 Defender that (if I am careful to stay near the speed limit!) can get between 35 and 39mpg at motorway speeds and has 550 miles worst case range, so that gets used for longer trips and does serious off-roading every other weekend too and the Mini is pretty hopeless for that!
Thanks for the update. So an improvement on working ones. But we also need more. You even said that it saved you time not going to the three ones far away. While I'll have to admit there is a new bank of five 50kW BP units nearish to me. But the cost is astronomical. Maybe it's time to try the council again to give planning for converting my front garden into a drive. But they seem obsessed with keeping the grass (well it's mud as people park and use it for turning) verge. It also doesn't help they hate cars. It's so bad they moved the voting location from a place with a carpark to one with no parking to discourage team blue voters as more team red ones are less likely to have a car! But the official line is it's greener so you walk. So if the weather is bad then turnout is low. I have to drive past it anyway. I seem to have gone off topic with a rant! 😂
Do the chargers have a hotline number on it? Did you ever try to contact the support number? Did they tried to reboot the charger or did they just say we know it's not working? A few times when I called the support here in Germany and they rebooted the charger it worked afterwards. I'm surprised you didn't mention the support.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Who thought the Megane was going to reverse into him?? :)
My takeaway is this. (1)If you need a daily shopper then home-charging is fine. That's how I run my Nissan Leaf. 120 reliable miles and it charges overnight on my driveway.
(2) If you do long daily drives then you need a 250 mile range (Tesla Model 3?) plus home-charging. You have a full tank every morning and plenty of range to get you to a big charging hub.
(3) If you don't have home-charging then the UK network isn't mature enough to give you peace of mind. PLUS it costs the same as filling with petrol.
Summary - You absolutely need home-charging to make EVs worth the bother, or you'll have range-anxiety your entire life.
Mg4 long range. I do a 180 mile journey from home, and arrive at a hotel with over 20%.
lots of EV cars can do 250+ miles now, not just a Tesla
@@llchristubellwhatever....that's not his point....
.... His (completely valid) point is the general one...that, you need home charging for an EV to be worth even considering... currently......!!
.... Otherwise they're completely not worth the stress, hassle, inconvenience.. and PRICE....!!!
I totally agree having an ev for nearly two years having a home charger is key and makes owning an ev cheap to run. With the price of the public chargers being ridiculously expensive they wouldn’t be as cost effective. I will say though that I do the airport run twice a year and using the main motorway network I have never had range anxiety. There are lots of chargers in most services and ones that only have a couple are being upgraded to have more at quite a good rate. I do have a born though and it has a summer range of 230-250. The one time I arrived as a services(cobham) that was fully in use I went on ABRP put in next closest (3miles) checked it had been used on the app recently and went there no stress just 1 mile detour each way of the motorway simple.
Your all not seeing the issue, if you even do have home charging and you need to suddenly go somewhere you just can't if you have just started charging the car?
You are quite right about a failed petrol pump as there are usually a 'dozen' available however they are also only 'in use' for, literally, *minutes* so the inconvenience is even less!
The difference with gasoline pumps is that when they break, it also doesn't take months to repair or even left abandoned. My local mall had a 50kwh charger that got knocked down last Dec 22 and no replacement yet. They cut the power and put 3 cones on top of the concrete base.
With a failed petrol pump here in Australia the petrol station puts an orange plastic cover over the bowser nozzle so you can see it's out of order. Here EV charges that are out of order have a big metal sign on them reading "out of order" It seems that in the UK with EV chargers they don't put a big sign on it reading out of order you have to try and connect with it to charge your car, or not. Its the same with motels and B&B's here for if they're full they hang a sign out reading No Vacancies or they have a large enough lighted sign which incorporates a lit No Vacancy sign. Often the Vacancy sign is at the bottom of the main sign with the word NO blacked out when there are vacancies and the word no lights in red when there's No Vacancies. But in the UK you have to go the reception desk to find out if they have a room or not. OMG what a backward country.
Many EV manufacturers are now supplying cables to enable people to charge non Tesla EV's from Tesla Chargers, well they are here.
I'm not sure it matters who's responsibility it is to repair, The simple fact as far as the end consumer is concerned is that it's not useable. The infrastructure simply isn't mature enough yet. With the cost they expect people to pay, to charge, I'm shocked that companies aren't fighting to get new chargers installed.
I don't understand, it's broken so the repair man comes to fix it and bills the person who gets the revenue from it, isn't that how every other business is run in the world?
Exactly. Politicians are talking shit by saying, "you always have some bumps", but when it means that this bump in the road leaves you stranded and you need to get a tow truck, and book a hotel to be able to continue, WILL NOT RESONATE WITH DRIVERS.
It's not that the infrastructure is not mature, it's these companies cutting corners. Or because of council budget cuts from central government, councils decide they it's more important to have front line services paid for rather than a charger.
It sucks. It should be "it's broke, it gets fixed". It should have been part of the costing or lease. But with so few EVs it feels like companies don't care.
@@Philltbag Councils refuse to work that way, they insist on a quote and then you cant start until authorised.
This isnt just an EV charger problem; the local playground had DANGEROUSLY broken equipment for over 2 years before the council authorised repairs.
Putting in a 7kW charger is cheap, but putting a 150kW charger... that's another story. A house uses 30kW-ish average, so you're looking at 5 houses' worth of energy infrastructure per charger. Imagine 20 chargers, that's 100 houses' worth, you need underground capacitors and inverters and probably batteries - I mean look around at superchargers you'll see giant containers making buzzing noises nearby (some are diesel powered!). That costs millions to put in and you still experience a vast reduction in charge speeds if too many cars charge at once. It is just not economical to install so all these companies are going bankrupt, even at the ridiculous per kWh prices...
I’ve just done the same test where i live, both petrol station at 100% full working order, only 2 EV chargers for 30 miles, both out of order due to no signal.
I just finished a 5000 km road trip through South Africa in a borrowed VW Passat. SA is the most developed of the 54 countries on the African continent. I know SA very well, been coming here for many years. After six weeks on the road it is glaringly obvious that ICE vehicles will always prevail here. EVs in SA are as rare as rabbits In Antarctica, only the wealthy elite in Johannesburg and Cape Town can afford a handful of these. There is zero infrastructure and according to a Johannesburg Sun 2023 survey there are only about 1000 EVs in SA. If EVs are a non starter in the most developed country in Africa (SA has several large vehicle manufacturing plants) then the other 53 countries will always be ICE. The same for the Middle East.
I rented a Polestar 2 over Christmas and thought the car was fantastic!
I did my first ever public charging in a McDonald's car park in west Leeds at an Instavolt charger in December 2023. I tapped my card and plugged in but the screen on the charger was broken and then the cable was stuck in the car for 45 minutes and did not charge.
Went to a different Instavolt charger a few days later in Bradford and the charging session was fine.
On the M1 at Leicester Forest East services, they don't even have any chargers.
I love EVs but I want to be able to drive up to a charger, plug in and not have to plan anything. I want a similar experience on the motorways as I do with ICE cars.
4 years ago my company “pushed” me and 11 of my team into EV company cars from ICE. 5 of us went down the Tesla route whilst the rest went Legacy EV. Common complaints since from the Legacy EV drivers were centred around charging (queuing, multiple apps, multiple payment methods, third party charge operator website poor, having to credit funds before use, reliability of chargers) - The Tesla drivers never had an issue and the consensus is the Supercharger network is pretty great (personally in almost 4 years and 67,000 miles never had a broken charger and have only had to queue twice, both times in the last month at Gardano) - We are all pretty much on the cusp of selecting new vehicles again, the car list has a much greater selection of EV’s that last time but my realisation is to rely on anything outside of the Supercharger network would just be too much of a frustration. Until Tesla opens every Supercharger to Legacy or third party charger co’s get their act together the general message about EV’s and their desirability as an alternative is being damaged.
You should tell them for your own safety you demand an ICE vehicle.
@@bradsmith9189for their own safety they should select a Tesla, the world's safest car.
Tesla Safe? 😮 Never heard any Ice driver roasted because the doors won't open.
I had an Opal Omega diesel that had a complete electrical failure and I couldn't get out of the car.
Agreed. Plus the high cost of public charging is not an incentive to make an EV the main vehicle in families sufficiently affluent to run more than one car.
The price they charge at these rapid chargers is insane. More expensive than diesel.
Only reason I plan to get a model 3 over a polestar… Tesla is so much cheaper when it comes to public charging
@@iambenmitchell They've got to be subsidised by Tesla. Business electricity isn't that cheap.
I have only found a few chargers not working during my travels. If I am having difficulties, I usually call the number on the side of the charger and after a brief discussion, they will remotely reboot it. This has solved most issues and only once have I had to find a different charger.
i very much agree that if a charger is not working it should be marked as such in the apps.
If they can remotely reboot it, why can they not remotely see that it NEEDS rebooting?
Agreed. Or you should be able to reboot it yourself with a button on the charger. @@hamshackleton
My first DC charging experience with instavault was a complete failure. Calling for assistance and reboot did not fix so had to wait and then move to the next charger. Someone then moved in and it worked ok. Next day a Tesla was having the same exact problem on the same charger...what can I say??
@@hamshackleton Because they can't be bothered to do something about it.The problem is the people controlling these crap items need REBOOTING.
I completely agree with your rant about inaccurate maps! In my experience ChargePlaceScotland are the worst for this, I've been to 20+ chargers which the CPS app claims are working. When I've phoned up to report the fault, I've then been told "Sorry we know it's broken, it's been like that for weeks". There's absolutely no excuse for a network not to keep it's own online map/app up-to-date. I've politely approached a couple of councilors for help getting long-term broken chargers repaired but been ignored. Some councils really need to get their act together. My plea to anyone reading this is complain to the local council when a council-owned charger is broken - if enough of us complain then something might change!
Here in Portsmouth, they shut off all the posts and lamp post chargers in the public streets because even when they have been online for a few years now they only found out the other week that they have been wired up dangerously and thus need rewiring to fix
That and and your high speed chargers are: broken BP one, broken Geniepoint, taxi only in the P&R, one only available during Tesco opening hours and a pair by the Brittany Ferry port. When we visit family we make sure we are charged up on the way in and that we can get as far as somewhere on the A34/M4 on the way home. One thing Pompey does say is "here is how to safely run a cable from your house" -most other cities say "don't" which is already being ignored
You clearly have more patience than I do, I was anxious watching this. I'll stick with diesel and filling up once a week or even every 2 weeks. But a very useful video, thanks
As a fellow computer technician for decades, I absolutely concur with your frustration! 😭
My local Lidl has a Podpoint 50kW charger that has still yet to be commissioned after probably 2 years at this point.
The one at the Lidl the next town over was destroyed by youths months ago, it still worked even with the broken screen but it's now been taken offline on the app.
The 7Kw charger at Aldi is an old BP Pulse unit that's dead, and at the newer Aldi the 22kW chargers haven't been turned on yet after 6 months.
The 150kW chargers in the retail park are in the bottom corner of the car park, and if it rains the bays flood because there's no drains, so you have to step out into a kerb heights worth of water.
The main issue for us seems to be the lack of Chademo on new chargers. Sainsbury's ripped out the 7Kw Type 2 chargers and replaced them with 350kW CCS chargers, which is great and all, but the units they installed have Chademo at other sites so it was an active choice
Having watched a lot of videos on EV use i am sticking to my diesel for the foreseeable future. Loved the polestar 2 i test drove, but don't want all this hassle.
It's such a shame that the product is now there and getting really good, and the infrastructure is still awful.
As this is nationally important infrastructure regulations need to impose a minimum service standard: if you operate a charging network there needs to be a requirement-to-work or face consequenses.
Since 2016 I have used Tesla Supercharger 135 times, I have queued on one occasion (for less than 10 minutes), on two occasions the "pump" was slow and I moved to another. Not once have I had "nothing working"
If Tesla can do it, using UK infrastructure, why not the other muppets?
On one occasion the location I was heading to (Rugby) had a power cut, I got a notification on dash, SatNav re-routed, and a bit later power was restored and it re-routed back to Rugby. Does anyone else, other than Tesla, do that? Why not?
Big hubs on major routes have come on a long way. If you’re travelling a long way thats probably most important to you. Singletons or dual units locally that may be old, gridserve/geniepoint/BP pulse etc I’d try and ignore as much as possible. couple of times I’ve wanted something near a destination - St Ives and Isle of Wight. Former they didnt’ have anything so just charged up enough to get me back to camborne on the way out (but they now have some at the leisure centre and more opening soon). Isle of wight I popped out one morning to a mcdonalds for an instavolt top up.
Try finding one that really works around Holyhead, Anglesey! The one I know of hasn't worked for five years - but I have to add that I've not been there since covid struck. It was still listed on zap-map, though!
I used the AC one in the public car park in Sandown on the IOW whilst having a curry (a very nice curry ) on the high street nearby. When we went back after dinner, the DC one (still only a 50kw) was free so I switched to that and we went to the Pier for about half an hour and had a play around on penny falls machines, video machines ( the driving type ones) etc . That plus the 100% ( 273 miles wltp) range I started with in Ruislip did enough for the trip there and back and out and about across the whole island for the week. I did only get back with about 15 miles range though. That's fine when arriving home where you are guaranteed a chargepoint (albeit 7kw or a granny on a 3 pin).
Come to Québec, all the rapid chargers I’ve used in the last five years apart from one have worked flawlessly and the temperatures range from the -30's in winter to the +30's in the summer. 😮 ( I hope I haven’t put a curse on myself ) 😂
How many new chargers have been installed in that same area? I mean really new not the replaced ones. The government keep telling us how thousands of new chargers will be installed every year but Im not seeing them.
To be fair, they did not say they were working. 😜
It is were are they putting these new chargers and are they replacing chargers that are just rubbish.
I can not see how some chargers are such very Poor quality. Tesla ones do not seem to have any were near the down times of any other network. and they charge there cars faster etc.
If you look at all the chargers gridserve have replaced last year it is a lot. but it does mean they have not started many new locations.
It is always nice to see an update from you on how things are going on the other side of the Pond.
2:40 Depends on the nature of the contract. If the contract is to provide a charging service with a certain %age up-time then the charger company is at fault if it isn’t fixed. If the contract is just an install and maintain to order then yes, they might be awaiting a purchase order from the owner.
Wow.... 1 year ago!! Ferk!! I saw that video and time certainly flys!!
I find genie point the worst. There was one in West Cardiff that was offline November 2022. Last month it was still offline and then recently removed from the app's map. The actual unit is still in place though. I reported it twice. It was in a Texaco petrol station. The app is continuously showing locations off line.
I have a question for you, do you not have any more rapid chargers in your area? A year ago when I was contemplating ordering an EV, my locality (Salisbury) was a desert when it came to rapid chargers. Now we have 7 CCS connectors available and four in a Shell garage waiting for power.
Same here my local 10 would now have 4 new sites one with 16 sockets.
Good video! I live on the other side of the pond. When I was in Northern England this past summer for a wedding, I drove around Manchester, Burnley, Liverpool, and Leeds. Did not see many charging stations, but did see plenty of electric vehicles.
I plan my holiday routes before setting off. We headed to Bude last summer and it’s a charger desert down there. The 2 charges were out of action at our holiday park. I did find one charger working in Bude centre. There’s another charger at the other end of town and it’s £1-49.PKH. It’s not good down there. But I do like InstaVolt and Podpoint. When travelling..
So these were the ten nearest rapid chargers a year ago? How many new chargers have been installed in the area in the last year if any?
Some local chargers to me get their cables cut within days of getting replaced. It's happend that frequently, they've just removed the whole unit now.
Hmm cables that criminals can sell for cash who would have thought that might happen.
Nearly every video I see with Genie point they are never working, BUT the one in Shrewsbury at Morrisons does GO FIGURE!! and on the A5 the gridserve has been replaced with EVpoint, and Girdserve are installing 6 charger near by. Plus we have 2 old Instavolt, which only once found faulty. Welshpool though is now well served with 7 Rapids and they all work.
Before you even set off, I knew the worst points would be Geniepoint.
Out of interest, are they suffering from the same problem as many car park payment machines since the 3G network switch off?
Frequently visit eldest daughter in Leighton Buzzard which requires my charging our Renault Zoe ZE50 for (winter range especially 😉) the return journey.
Out of 5 rapid charging points visited and attempted to use, the only one working was at Tesco and I was 3rd in queue to use it. Previously even that charge point has been out of service on two occasions in the last six months.
Seems to require some running around to find out if the different charge points are working as you mentioned, the apps don’t seem to update accurately enough. 👍
Yup, hanging onto our lovely diesels thank you!
@@stuartburns8657 our previous diesel Skoda was unfortunately Euro 4. As we also need to travel to London it would be pretty costly to do so as often as we need. To be fair when using the charge points on the motorway we have not yet been let down, it seems the ‘legacy’ chargers in towns are the biggest issue from our experience and this is the experience indicated by EVM too.
We have done a near 500 mile round trip in one day, with two charges on route (2nd a quick top up) which worked out fine, I more generally use the car locally and charging at home costs £4.12 for 100% charge from zero giving upto 240+ miles range which is more than adequate for our needs. 👍
Glad it working. We have the Euro6's and funny enough are travelling to London in a few weeks.
As they're fully paid off, in good health, it'd be foolish to change given the low annual mileage we do
Pretty much a similar picture where I am. At least 2 sites nearby which have been faulty for ages, still faulty. Also not on the maps as they’ve been off for so long. One actually owned by Scottish power. Another nearby site supposed to be replacing a damaged unit with 6 new ones. Put in the ground 3yrs ago. Never powered to this day. I’ve been on my soapbox to the council and local councillors but to no avail.
Deep chuckle from here in France. The one in our village hasn't worked for at least a year but we have three more within five clicks, so no worries.
We still charge at home for a week on reduced rates.
Loved when you laughed at "first" charger..
Imagine you are on a trip with family and got 10-15% charge left....Great news 😅
Other piint - would be nice to know the prices per kWh at those charges.
Used to have this experience back in 2018, 2019. Since then, with a newer car, and keeping to networks like Instavolt that always work, it's rare to have an issue, even on multi thousand mile road trips. You mentioned that you focused on the older chargers. Is it also possible that the Tesla has an issue with some CCS? Not that that wouldn't still be a legitimate gripe, but it might be less of an issue for others.
Octopus Energy aren’t too dissimilar to your first one - our smart meter stopped working but they have nothing in place to say “oh - we’ve had no readings for a fortnight - maybe there’s an issue”.
Old person in a flat. No phone. No home charging. What they gonna drive for the next 30 years?
Er.......
....this is a very confused comment.....isn't it......'peter'...!?!!
I got my Leaf in 2016. A number of stations are now offline, or have been removed, or have been changed to a private Carrier.
I mostly charge at home.
I take the point about the monitoring of chargers but in a site I charge at regularly I see people try a charger once and walk away if they think it isn't working. I always find the customer service staff at Chargeplace Scotland are very good and will often just do a remote power cycle on the charger and it works fine. It would be helpful if drivers would take 2 mins to report it and they may find it's easily resolved.
I sort of agree, but there are networks where I've never had to report a charger not working. That's very good customer service.
Rebooting a charger is not going to ensure reliability, coming from an IT background it needs investigating and possibly updating / replacing. Anyone with any sence should see that like Tesla do.
Really interesting video, thank you. I have never used lone chargers, or council run chargers. I wouldn't use a garage with a lone fuel pump, if they still exist, because there is always a chance of a queue or a failure. I wouldn't use council run chargers because they get funds to install, but they do not get ring fenced funds to maintain, so there is a good chance they are not working, and they will usually have ways of fining you for the slightest mistake. I have a list of large rapid/ultra rapid charger sites with multiple chargers throughout the country, just as I used to with fuel stations, and I stick with these. Consequently, if a few chargers are down, there are always others, and I hardly ever have to queue. I think this will be the way eventually, that big charger sites, privately owned and run, will dominate.
One thought occurred to me mid rant :D (which I do agree with) is, try their support number, they might get it working and maybe even for free!
I've been driving an EV for a total of 2 weeks and only use CCS, but I have access to a Tesla Supercharger and so far it's amazing.
I was surprised how average Zap Map is, the web version is kind of broken, so ok I use the app and I'm puzzled why they don't just have a simple thumbs up/down rating system for each charger for the last 24 hours.
I now have about a dozen and half rapid chargers or more within the mile to 2 miles around me in inner north London. Not using them much because the 5-7kW ones nearby are cheaper with the rapid I can see out my upstairs back window being the most expensive CPO!! Most of them are single units with very high utilisation which means cruising slowly around congested streets to find a free one; there are two twins and one MFG hub of four units with two in use as I type. BP Pulse seem to have replaced four or five old on-street units this last year which seem mostly to be working, one was dead for all but 2 months out of over 2 years and two were ex-council v.early ones that took a few years to get back online. Like your gripe, the second nearest to me isn't on either Zap-Map or even BP's own map so can't check if in use - probably easier to walk to it and look!! Two are inaccessible to EV's with a right rear charge port and one is probably a problem with a left rear flap. So, how many are working? One definitely isn't, most of the others are probably working, I certainly see several in use regularly, some have either the CCS or Chademo plug out-of-use, in summary better than a year ago although I've only actually used one recently - a distress purchase! [I plug in a lot at my partner's house]
Obviously this is very different from your rural and small town experience, lots of chargers now but too many are single units, heavily utilised - much by Uber and other taxi drivers. My actual concern is slow expansion of 7kW and lamppost chargers and the pricing of slow charging - lamppost conversion is cheap and easy, hardly justifies high pricing to cover non-existent heavy capital costs. Onward to your next year's survey!
I was in NW London last month and ended up charging at an in-law’s house. That’s one benefit of wider adoption of EV and PHEV vehicles: more people you know will have places to charge when you visit them
It's useful to know what proportion of chargers are working. I've heard reports of some chargers with prices that are extortionate compared with charging at home. What are your observations and would you do a video on charger pricing please?
TBH I am surprised you did so well! The fact that the largest UK charging networks are owned by petrochemical companies makes me doubt if it's in their interest to have effective & efficient charging!
I found that because there so many charging companies and charging unit manufacturers, there are problems in sourcing parts and engineers who know how to fix these! Ionity in particular have this issue as they have very old units now. So what we need is fewer charging unit varieties.
Our local unmanned tesco petrol station regularly doesn't work.. the BP next to it always works. Perhaps expecting anything to work without anyone checking is the problem 🤔
Because of the uncertainty of single or double chargers actually working then I have always planned my journey so as to use a large hub but this has meant me having to drive a much longer route just to be sure I can charge. Just not good enough so I am contemplating going back to an ICE car.
The Osprey charger in Bridge Street Car Park in Skipton is one of my favourites. It's just right in distance from Nottingham for my motorbike, always works, I rarely have to wait, there's cafes and shops, and I can get right out from there to the nice roads in the Dales.
MFG have put up a lot of new charging areas with 6 charging points on each garage forcourt not cheep but very good all 150 kw chargers and you are limited to 1 hour stay
If you venture is bit further south you will find lots of chargers in the Rotherham area that have had, and repeatedly have had, their charge leads chopped off.
People stealing them for the copper?
Sadly yes.
Im annoyed becouse is not a standard size of cell in use. All models with different size and because of that the price of cells is still expensive at oem
my solution would be to buy an ICE car, but seriously I use electro verse which tells you if the charger is in use, faulty or otherwise and the bonus is you only need one card
The rapid chargers in Guiseley (the Osprey ones at the retail park) are inaccessible after 8pm as they close the gates. When I asked the council about this, they stated that the chargers are there as a convenience for shoppers using the shops, not the general public 🤦🏻♂️
The Ionity chargers at Skelton Lane services at Leeds on the M1 have been running at less than half their advertised rate for over a year now.
I went to Peterborough last week and tried a couple of different sites, to try and avoid paying service station prices for food while I charged. I tried a Shell and BP charge stations and had problems at both so ended up wasting an hour driving around and then going to the services anyway.
When people ask me if they should get an EV, I tell them yes, but ONLY if you can charge at home.
Yes there are occasions when a petrol station has pumps out of order, however you haven't far to drive to find another. I live in a rural village and there is a petrol station then within 5 miles they are 2 more. I have never found any if any out of action. Plus it takes me about 5 mins top to refuel, pay and depart. I don't need a smartphone, several apps and normally 1 plastic card to pay. Keep your EVs by all means but don't force me to give up my form of transport.
I would be totally frustrated if I had to go through all this charging stress if I bought an EV. Yesterday I rolled into a local service station in my 2006 Golf TDI with about one eighth of a tank remaining. It took less than 3 minutes to fill it up and that tank will take me about 900 km around town and 1000 km on the open road. There are 6 EV charging stations (that is 6 “bowsers”) in my town of 150,000 people and 40 listed petrol stations. I’m told by my Tesla owning neighbour that 2 of the public EV chargers are not working. He got a quote for rooftop solar and a wall battery terminal thing for the Tesla and it was $16,000. His wife is furious and has gone back to driving her 20 year old Ford Telstar every day.
I checked the zapmap yesterday for my area in north Cornwall and most chargers don't work. Worse than a few years ago. We now use a kia soul charged at home and don't even bother to go beyond its short range.
Although what you say about remote monitoring is generally correct; I have been in a situation where my ADSL connection was broken, but the BT monitoring equipment insisted it was working.
The engineer finally came out and admitted he could SEE with his own eyes (and test equipment), that the module was not working - at the exact same time his remote feed was showing data passing through it.
My only long range foray this year, was a 270ish mile visit to Manchester - all the chargers I encountered worked - but both of the locations around Manchester had payment issues - different brands of charger, different TYPES of charger, and on different networks - were refusing credit or debit cards, and only working with membership/Electroverse RFID cards.
The semi-functional AC charger (BE), located in the Manchester Metro car park - had an additional issue; it claimed to be a 22KW AC charger, but was only giving 3KW; I expected to come back 3 hours later, to a fully charged car, but came back to one with 73% charge - bearing in mind my ancient EV can just about manage 90 miles on 100% - and it was 80 miles to my planned recharging stop.
At this point, an FYI to people who might use these chargers.
These bays are for EV CHARGING; if you cant get the charger to work, park somewhere else, as leaving your car sat there NOT charging - will get you a ticket; an Audi Etron was being ticketed at the same time I was fighting with the shared charger to allow me to use it - this cars' driver obviously didnt have a BE or Electroverse card to use.
Also, a shoutout to the wanker who parked his ICE Honda Civic in the only EV charging bay not in use at a BP garage, just because it was 3ft closer to the Amazon lockers than regular parking - AND LEFT THE ENGINE RUNNING, UNATTENDED.
Geniepoint have been woeful in maintaining their chargers in west cumbria. However there's better news, an 8 charger instavolt in Whitehaven and a 16 charger osprey in workington. I would add that we charge on cheap rate overnighy at home now except for the occasional long journey.
1st call Geniepoint, had you said what network I’d have guessed it wouldn’t work. Geniepoint are useless.
It seems to be becoming easier perhaps get trust the whiff of an iffy charging location vs a reliable one. I am hopeful that rollout of hubs such as Sainsbury’s in a similar style to Tesla is the way forward. Councils should go all in on fast chargers, as you say, that would be a big help if reasonably priced.
Same problem with a Podpoint near me... shows on their map but it hasn't worked for more than 2 years as their App says it doesn't exist!
Each EV vlog i see confirms my thought that this is still someway off being reliable, convenient and affordable. I'll give it another 5 years in my ICE and review! Can you imagine if you had to pay for fuel with a shell/BP app or whatever!
We had the same situation here in France until a year ago. But things have changed so much recently, rapid chargers are popping up like mushrooms and tobe honest, it's very easy to travel anywhere today in an EV. Most of the networks are now very reliable
I’m lucky that my nearest six EV chargers are run by motor fuels group, at a manned petrol station. 100% functioning so far.
Out of the fast chargers I have around 4 have never been turned on after been installed(no idea why) and we have other 5 that work. · in gas stations that are always full and the other 2, quite affordable, reliable and usually empty are in the parking lot of mcdonals. Great for the car, not so for my diet. I've been eating there once a month lately when I visit that restaurant twice a year or less before having to charge.
We have only one local authority run rapid charger in our town and it wasn’t working last year when you did the video, and a year later it still isn’t working. I’ve contacted the council numerous times and the only reply I ever get is to say my enquiry has been passed to the relevant department.
Fuel pumps being broken seems to be on the increase. I don't recall it being so common even a few years ago and wonder if there's a lack of maintenance to improve profitability, or many pumps were installed at a similar time (due to some reason that obsoleted previous pumps) and are now reaching end of life.
Our local Tesco Extra has just replaced all its petro/Deisel pumps with brand new pumps. That's 20 brand new pumps that are always busy at 5 minutes per refuel. Imagine the number of chargers needed to handle the same throughput.
The first one (Silsden) I've used a few times in the last month without issue, so you just got unlucky there.😊 I had free charging at all those GP chargers for possibly 2 years so can't complain, but I guess ultimately BMDC made a bad choice going with GP. The osprey chargers in Skip are fantastic, so cheers for pushing for that.
You seemed to be suggesting it was all council, but I got the impression from the council that the chargers were GP responsibility, hence whoever bought the network from Engie slowly replacing the chargers (which as you know were only installed max 5 year ago).
Osprey at Rawtenstall new hall are great quick and easy yesterday 25 minutes simple and 8 units to chose from
Thank you for being honest. It has felt like we are being blamed for being inflexible (now we're just being blamed for being poor and not having a drive).
Have pestered Leicestershire but they give no hoots
We live in a country where the establishment tells us to put up and shut up, leading to we middle class scraping by and many more vulnerable people being unable to heat and eat.
I’ve only thrice used public chargers in the 9 years we’ve driven EV, but great content, great points and a great public service sponsored by SmartHomeCharge I can’t get installed in Rural Shropshire.
Maps being reliant on user reports, not system logging map updates is something that winds up we IT competent folks!
The problem is corporations and billionaires hogging the money. It never trickles down and every successive generation gets poorer and poorer, it can't go on like this forever it isn't sustainable. Especially with automation coming in and people needed to reskill to keep employment. The UK has some excellent standards but actual practices of fixing things and keeping services running we are a massively incompetent country. The Government even saying this week don't expect the potholes to be all repaired there's no money. Hold on a minute but you quit HS2 to free up money for road infrastructure investment, so where is the money?
@@fartknockersThat’s the good news boss. You ain’t seen anything yet…..
middle class no less !!!!!
Im convinced the UK needs to just have Tesla do it. Their V4 chargers are great and their software is the best anyway, as well as their prices tend to be lower than the rest.
Thanks for this, I'm potentially getting an Ev in 8 months, but I'm fighting my housing association and council for access to home charging, so may need other options, and being disabled I'm limited in these. Keep up the rants.
Why are you getting an EV with no home charging?
I saw a story about a person being tricked into getting an E V under mobility program. Was a complete disaster for her.
I live in Germany and never seen a broken charger so far. Plus, the prices are really good. I am not sure how can this huge difference between Germany and UK be explained.
I've never seen a Tesla charger not working in the UK
It’s always good to get it off your chest. I used a charging map which stated there was on at a services on a motorway and when in France and I got there to charge and it was not built they had only just started digging,
Get "Dave takes it on" to do some consulting and advice on those charging inferstrucure problems.. Great videos it's right, this 2024 and some chargers are unusable..
I have a Tesla model 3 LR, for 3 months. I live in the USA, in north Georgia. No plans to use a public charger, at home charging is great. Love my EV!
What happens on long journeys?
@@tatata1543 This is our 3rd car, so we don't take it on long journeys. For shopping trips or to our local waterfalls, nothing has been over 100 miles yet. For long trips, we use our Mazda.
This is why people are a bit scared about buying one
So true. The price may be plummeting on used EVs but the lack of decent charging locations really puts me off. Look forward to big changes in a years time eh? 😂
Hopefully the EVangelists watch this video and understand what the ICE people are complaining about!
This isn't their biggest complaint though. The anti-EV brigade have pivoted now to child exploitation in mining minerals. The oil companies are doing a great job in steering the narrative.
I would be more concerned about EV batteries catching fire.
@@justincase9471 fossil fuel 10x more likely to catch fire Guess how many ice fires last year. Go on. Ok I'll tell you. Not counting arson 100. Yep. 100. Oh BTW that is the per day figure. But media reports every single EV fire (and many that aren't (like Luton for example) while ICE fires are so commonplace it's not newsworthy.
100 a day. Every day.
@@RTR1879Don't know about that. As 1st world citizens, we all benefit from exploitation, be it our cheap clothes, food or electronics.
As someone from the area. Would love to know where these chargers are. Skipton, yep main car park. And while picked up some of the places you were passing. No idea on the chargers. So lets have a name & shame & praise & reward please. @EVM
Thanks for slogging through your local charging "opportunities" and confirming what the glossy EV adverts omit to mention. Public charging is Russian Roulette. And its nearly always slow compared with diesel/petrol filling up.
I’ve had an EV for 18 months now with home charging. I wouldn’t get one without it. Appreciate lots of people do this and it works for them, but for me, the moment you move away from cheap home charging, the benefits case for an EV diminishes substantially.
The few times I’ve had to public charge have been hit and miss, just like this video. Again, lots of people do this a lot and it works for them. I just don’t like the range anxiety without the certainty I can always find a working charging station.
Whilst I love my EV and won’t go back to ICE, I can sympathise with people who just wont consider one until we have better infrastructure, more range, faster and cheaper charging and of course cheaper cars. We have a long way to go here.
Very interesting, i must do the same in my area. What about any news sites in that year? Given how many are going in you would expect a couple of new sites as well?
Great video... Thanks. Some progress over the last 12 months.
Until the population who dont want an EV are forced to have one and cant charge at home.
@@davidlewis4399 We can only see... ? And that won't happen in our lifetime. Even after 2035... ICE will be around for 30 to 50 years.
Do they supply second story flats? Because that's where I live. I'd probably need somewhere in a region of 120 foot long cable. I don't think I supply them. Then I'd have to run it across a Garden and a pavement ?
No you'd be better off not getting an EV. If you can't charge at home don't bother. If you can they're great.
I honestly would have enjoyed watching you visit and film every single machine to show if they where operating as we have finally got an ev and we frequently travel from Newcastle to London in our diesel chugger, so it's vital for me to learn 👍🤞
Depending on your EV (range) and any manufacture charging loyalty card you have I have a recommendation for the journey from Newcastle to London.
In a Genesis GV60 ( motorway speed range 253 miles ) which has a Shell Recharge Loyalty card ( gives discounted charge rate to Ionity and Shell Recharge Network 58p/KWh ).
Newcastle to Haringey just inside M25 is 290 miles via this route.
Newcastle to Skelton, Leeds to use Ionity. 100 miles
Skelton, Leeds to Coachway, Milton Keynes, 143 miles. Ionity chargers.
Coachway, Milton Keynes, to Destination.
47 miles.
Then re-trace the return journey. If destination charging is available you could probably get to Skelton on a full charge missing out Milton Keynes in the return leg.
Good luck on whatever route you select.
Charging price a problem too. Here in Hoyland Common, Barnsley, Rapid charging is 69p upwards per kwh, that's not going to convince the many 1000s in the area without home or business charging to swap to EV, the ordinary fast chargers aren't that much cheaper either. I drive a Skoda Superb estate which has the huge loading space I need to carry all my business stuff around, there doesn't seem to be much in the EV world that would suit and what there is would be way out of my price range on an average income. The powers that be, don't seem to be busting a gut to change anything, shame as I'd swap in a heartbeat if I could.
I have yet to have been able to make a Genie Point charger work. In fact after four different ones I avoid them like the plague.
You say that destination chargers in Supermarkets are the answer but not at 46ppkWh. I converted a car to electric for a project and loved doing it. However while testing the ac charging I called into Tesco and found they charge something like 46p per kWh. This is bonkers! My car does between 2.5 and 3 miles per kWh so If I charged at that price all the time it would have been cheaper to leave the diesel engine in it!
Why would anyone use a slow ac charger in a Supermarket if they are going to be charged so much? It makes no sense at all.
BP pulse 1 of 3 working,Gridserve 2 from 5,Osprey 2 from 5 just appalling service.Only been electric for 3 months and regretting making the jump to electric at the moment.
How come this doesn't happen with Tesla Superchargers? Why do they have a 99.96% reliability rate?
Could it be because they make all their own chargers with their own parts?
And monitor their network 24/7/365?
And have techs in all towns or nearby towns and cities that get dispatched as soon as the problem happens and know which part to take with them already?
And from all that, have learned and improved their chargers over time so they rarely go down?
Just a thought for other providers. It's not rocket science.
Did I miss the bit where you name the providers whose chargers didn't work? Can you let us know who the culprits are please; that would help a lot for the future when assessing whether to drive a few miles to one of theirs with a risk of failure as opposed to opting for a potentially more reliable brand a little further away. Ta!
It's not just about wether they are working or not! It's about how fast they are charging and how much it costs to charge! Should be the same charging rate and price across all chargers
Sorry...The electric charging sytem not close on being perfect....Why would one even think about going electric....Your input just confirms my thinking...
Heads up EVM, your Smart homecharge link isn't being picked up as a full URL within youtube (at least on the website). So you might be missing referrals
A small town in rural Oxfordshire this morning. Parked in the municipal car-park. Surprised to see two chargers, both ICEd! Then realised the chargers were out of action, fenced off with road-works plastic. Then noticed there was actually a complete row of TEN! Looked like they’d not been used for years. The suppliers had obviously given up as all their decals had been removed, leaving plain white fridge-size boxes.
Ten spaces in a very busy 70 space car park and not an EV in sight [apart from mine]. So I’m sure they’d be ICEd even if they were working. It’s a quaint town where few of the ancient terraced houses have parking so as 2035 draws near there’ll be lots of the citizenry grateful for ten public chargers. But someone on the council’s obviously got well ahead of themselves. Let’s hope they can find the funding to resurrect these two at a time as demand increases.
My belief is still EVs for home charging only. Keep your ICE for long distances
Sort of destroys the whole idea behind EV's, doesn't it? Reduction in CO2?? *Having* to use two vehicles, both of which actually do produce CO2 (during manufacture and use - check out the Advertising Standards Authority poo pooing the idea that EVs are 'emission free'). It's like the wind energy con... wind turbines MUST have conventional backup to work when the wind doesn't blow and EV drivers 'must' have an ICE vehicle for when range is an issue! lol
I do long journeys in my EV without issue. Only use the big hubs and an EV has been my only car since 2013 now.
You know I drive around a lot and hardly ever and that’s only because they’re updating the station has seen a gas station out of service. I will admit once in a while when the pumps at a station might be out of service but all the rest work.
I'm now wondering how this compares with the main rapid charge provider here in Scotland, which is the state-backed Chargeplace Scotland network that is maintained by local authorities?
It’s now way way cheaper to avoid CPS as they have hiked their prices and imposed maximum 40 minute stay times on any “fast” (ie 22kW and above) charger. Where I used to use them a lot around the Stirling area I haven’t used them in two years and it appears from when I drive passed the two charge hubs in Stirling that very few people seem to use the faster units at 59p/kW, even the 7kW units at unlimited stay time but 39p/kW are mostly unused now. My EV is a Mini so around 110 miles range at this time of year and that is way more range than I need even for the longest 60 miles round trip to Glasgow Airport I ever take after a full charge on my home charger.
@@timoliver8940 Thanks Tim, that is useful to know. Much the same applies to my situation with my Fiat 500e, which is good for 170+ miles in the summer and as little as 120 miles in winter, but has yet to venture outwith this in any one round-trip journey after 2 years of ownership.
@@briangriffiths114 I’m fortunate to also own a 2023 D250 Defender that (if I am careful to stay near the speed limit!) can get between 35 and 39mpg at motorway speeds and has 550 miles worst case range, so that gets used for longer trips and does serious off-roading every other weekend too and the Mini is pretty hopeless for that!
Thanks for the update. So an improvement on working ones. But we also need more. You even said that it saved you time not going to the three ones far away.
While I'll have to admit there is a new bank of five 50kW BP units nearish to me. But the cost is astronomical.
Maybe it's time to try the council again to give planning for converting my front garden into a drive. But they seem obsessed with keeping the grass (well it's mud as people park and use it for turning) verge. It also doesn't help they hate cars. It's so bad they moved the voting location from a place with a carpark to one with no parking to discourage team blue voters as more team red ones are less likely to have a car! But the official line is it's greener so you walk. So if the weather is bad then turnout is low. I have to drive past it anyway. I seem to have gone off topic with a rant! 😂
Do the chargers have a hotline number on it? Did you ever try to contact the support number? Did they tried to reboot the charger or did they just say we know it's not working? A few times when I called the support here in Germany and they rebooted the charger it worked afterwards. I'm surprised you didn't mention the support.
One of the other annoying things is chargers that are on a map as publicly accessible but are behind locked gates or are actually private.