Testing My Nearest 10 Electric Car Charge Sites - Uh Oh!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ม.ค. 2023
- I visited my nearest 10 rapid charging sites to see what the reliabiliy and availability in my area was. Let's see what we get out of 10 shall we!
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What's it in winter,batteries don't like the cold?
This is why I have recently gone from passionate EV advocate to “It works for me but not for everyone”. I love my EV and would never switch back to fossil fuel, but I see enough issues currently that mean I simply cannot recommend them to “normal” people at the moment. By normal, I mean those people who rightly expect to just be able to hop in their car, drive in any direction, see a charger and get a top up, without planning ahead, having “backup” chargers, and all the associated anxiety. We will get there, but we’re not there yet.
Totally agree As a recent adopter and having home charging the main problem I have at the moment is reduced range due to cold weather. With the heating off and the range showing 100 miles I would expect to get around the 80 mark. But the car suits my needs and it’s a great car to drive. So as they say it’s horses for courses.
Couldn’t agree more and it’s so sad to have to say that. I LOVE my EV but the anxiety of not knowing if there will be a working charger en route has meant I feel I have to warn anyone about the learning curve and the battery hit in winter. Can’t wait for warmer days again!
Yep. It's worse here in the US. I only recommend EVs as 2nd cars. Unless they want a Tesla. Although it sounds like the UK is closing the gap in the race to failure.
Even with the daft 2030 targets ICE cars will be around for another 15 years or so but I can't see anyone supporting this until charging for people who cannot charge at home is much better and better than petrol etc... To tease people off something the alternative needs to be better. The stick approach does not work as that just pisses people off. Sure the next gen post 2024 cars will be great with fast charging, cheaper, better range but they still need to charge at a convenient rate. 5mins or less should be the target for an Ultra Rapid charger and it will happen but in what timescale 20 years :-( at this rate
Never switch back to fossil fuel? You use fossil fuels today, and will do every day for the rest of your life.
Imagine, just imagine, going to 10 petrol stations and finding they have no petrol, the pumps are broken, or you had to wait 30 minutes to fill up. It would be classed as a national emergency.
It’s amazing what EV advocates will put up with. Tally up the time wasted over a year simply wasting time driving around, hanging about waiting for a charger, charging, if possible buying endless unwanted coffees and refreshments…u
I live in Norway now, the alleged EV utopia and even here it isn't that great because so much of the country is wilderness and rural.
Not bad if you only stay in one town or immediate localle, not so great if you want to go into the mountains etc.
I was in a garage last Friday and all the diesel pumps were out as there was none left.
@@andrewdickinson1649 Yeah, ONE station, not every station in the country.
Bottom line is if UK has around 85k petrol pumps, then we need about 1 million chargers to make it work based on charging time and range.
@@sandersson2813 I’ve got a Tesla and mostly charge at home tbh. When I charge on longer journeys it’s generally at SuperChargers and occasionally find 1 out of 8 chargers not working. Was travelling over Christmas and Tesla engineers were out fixing some 4 out of 16 charger location.. transformer issue. But then another engineer was managing queue. Then whilst queueing they fixed transformer and brought other stations online.
That is what you need for chargers is higher uptime and good and rapid servicing. Some networks are quite unreliable whereas others like Tesla, InstaVolt etc are pretty good and reliable.
I remember on the fuel issues last year or two over driving round to find petrol. Or say queues at Costco for 40 mins (I didn’t need to). So it does happen at larger stations I guess.
I get your point and there is still a lot more to do though.
This is what you see from all the EV moaners out there. Unless you can charge at home there are major issues. Unfortunately I have to agree with them. I usually charge at home but get concerned when I have to do longer trips. It’s all well and good pushing EVs on everyone but if the network isn’t up to it then it’s doomed. So the bloody government needs to pull its finger out
Why is it up to the govt to build and run a charge network? There's no such thing as a British govt petrol station network. The govt should impose fines on companies who fail to fix and deliver to certain availability metrics.
Definitely. Maybe they should be thinking of minimum service legislation for EV chargers rather than the rest of us 😉
@@nxsynjs maybe the government should run a majority of the charging station then we could pay them directly our tax money 😂
@@dogsdinner99 but, the Government does control the quality and safety of petrol pumps
@@nxsynjs the Government are banning the sale of new ICE cars in the not too distant future, so they absolutely should do more to drive EV charging infrastructure .
Great to see you getting back to the type of content you started out creating. We need more videos like this to get charging network operators to take action on reliability
Maybe you should have a charging network reliability scoreboard to shame the bad actors. Geni point seem to be bad escpecially near me at Morrisons.
Nothing will change. Why would it?? These pieces of kit are just not designed like petrol pumps with liquid. I’m afraid this is the reality and will continue to be the reality.
Would be an interesting follow up video to ask each of the charging companies whose chargers were not working, why were they not working and for how long had they been out of order. I am guessing it would result in a lot of squirming and pointing figures and others
Or complete lack of response beyond “we are aware of issues with that charger and an engineer will attend in due course…”
I had an issue with a "hors service" 50kW charger 150 metres from where I spent Christmas & the New Year in rural France. It has been out of service since late September 2022 and was previously out of service from October 2021 to April 2022.
Nobody will admit to what is obvious; it's on a byroad and they only get it working when the tourist season means the revenue they get from it justifies making it operational. My local 50kW chargers in Scotland are constantly in demand and are well maintained but ChargePlace Scotland are financed other than by the price paid by the consumer.
Allegedly, the problem for most commercial charger operators (except Tesla) is that the revenue from "competitively priced" chargers (compared with domestic rates) once the power is paid, does not begin to cover the maintenance costs of the 'network'.
Ionity seem to have "taken the bull by the horns" as far as that goes, but we'll have to face commercial & fiscal reality soon. EVs don't pay the commercial suppliers enough. EVs don't contribute to the Treasury (taxation) anything like petrol & diesel vehicles. Change is inevitable.
Rant over.
@@alcorpage Yep I agree for EV charging to be as convenient as petrol were all going to have to pay the piper more. EV ownership sure works better where the sun shines that's for sure.
@@michaeldawson6309 The bloody piper is being paid plenty thank you, its not cheap to use public charge points, far from it.
What reason is there for them to spend thousands of pounds on the repair?
Great video Andy. Loving your channel and thank you for sharing. I picked up an EV in October and had this for 2 months. In that time, I realised that local journeys/and round trips of no more than 150 miles are simple with a home charger were ok. However, travelling over Xmas and being directed to chargers along the 320 mile journey, challenged me. Public chargers in car parks where you have to pay for parking, lack of visibility on whether a charger is working. Rural locations only having 22kW chargers. Sadly, all the above was too much and I’m changing to a PHEV. Here in the UK, we’re not yet ready to support longer distance traveling…… yet! Keep up the great work👌😊👍
Seriously considering doing the same. PHEVs shouldn't be need or even an option but I've an EV with a modest range and over the past three years it's become increasingly difficult to get anywhere and back where I I e to rely on public charging. I've taken to driving with thick gloves and icey feet to save power and give myself more rerouting options. But it's getting worst. I love driving my car but I'm keeping local and perhaps I'll use an ICE hire car this summer when I holiday if I can't bring myself to buy a PHEV
@@barryhaeger4284 🤣🤣🤣👍I was telling a good friend that I was fed up of driving in freezing conditions. If I kept the heater off on a 170 mile trip, I could save 10 miles of battery use. I’m all for reducing my carbon footprint, but there also has to be a benefit. Went for a PHEV for the BIK amount as a company car. It’s a difference of around £120 a month and for me, you can’t put a price on home comforts👍
I did the same changed my 40kwh leaf to cupra phev. 25 real ev miles & over 30 in summer does me 90% of the time for work and rural road trips in Scotland petrol 400 mile tank.
I've had loads of good journeys with the rapid network but the one that really annoyed me was at Mollies Diner, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol. The chargers can charge two vehicles at once, albeit it reduces the speed. However, the instructions state that to stop the charge you simply press the red button. This is the emergency stop. In fact you should stop the charge by using the screen on the charger which leaves the other vehicle still charging. Of course the other user pressed the red button so when I came back to my car it had charged for 5 minutes!
Wow. There’s bad design, but that is ridiculous!
That charger was designed by a moron that's for sure. Clearly not a real engineer as engineers usually do things right.
One way round this is to set your charger limit from your car, that way when it reaches that said limit the car will disconnect it's self.
@@jasonsaddington7821 how does that stop the other person from pressing the emergency stop button instead of the on screen stop button
@lee x it don't I guess lol, was so just letting people know,how to disconnect their charge .
A very useful video which highlights the current and worsening public EV charging network.
As you demonstrated, the number of failed chargers just increases the queue at the few that work.
In the six months I have owned my EV as a result of its relatively low use - less than 1,700 miles in six months, 99% of charging is carried out at home.
However as an exercise I checked local to me in North West London, half the chargers didn’t seem to exist, the only working close to me in a McDonalds were both occupied, when one became free I couldn’t even get my car into the bay, then when the other came free it was, from memory 66p per kWh! Fortunately with my brand of car they have a tie up with Ionity reducing the cost to a more acceptable 25p.
I will be up your way in March near Harrogate, so looks like I will have to charge at the Ionity on the M1 services near Leeds. But for EV’s to become the norm, it shouldn’t be necessary to have to plan ahead where you are going to ‘fill up’.
Your video is one of the few demonstrating this growing issue. Well done!
I live in Southsea, Portsmouth. Portsmouth is a city squashed into an island, very densely populated and homes with off street parking are rare. Our council are forward thinking and install street chargers wired to street lamps. Residents fill out a form on the council website and they install a charger as near to our homes as possible. This is how I’ve run EVs for four years as my personal and driving school cars.
We also have a Tesco in the city with 4 destination and a rapid charger and a few other rapids dotted about. I’ve never really had a need to use a rapid near home because the street lamp chargers work so well. There have been a few broken chargers but pestering the council and the charger company gets them fixed.
So all good so far. I’ve owned 2 Leafs so far. A 30kWh and a 40kWh. Great cars. Long journeys were a challenge but planning ahead worked. Then, I picked up my Tesla Model 3 a month ago. Tesla gave me lots of free electricity at Superchargers. There’s a Supercharger site 4 miles from home. The difference and ease of use from the non Tesla network is enormous. Fast charging, rows of chargers and no mucking around trying to get the charger working. Legacy manufacturers need to build networks as good as the Supercharger network if they want to sell lots of EVs. It’s one of the reasons I bought a Tesla and a reason I’ll stick with it for a long time.
I own an EV, but if it was our only car in the family, I wouldn't have an EV.
The biggest problem with EVs in one sentance. Most people find them impractical as an only means of transport so you end up needing two cars. This has to be worse for the enviroment than only running one ICE vehicle.
@@michaeltilney1298 But if you had 2 cars before and changed one to EV?
@@jammymark This is what I did, although I didn't buy an EV to save the planet because quite frankly, they won't. It's a huge lie. No, I bought one to save money, which it does. (At the moment).
@@michaeltilney1298 Crazy, I have had a single EV for 6 years now, not impractical and do not need another car?
@@bellshooter They work for some and not for others. Pleased yours works for you.
Great video EVM! I love real-world journalism like this. Simple test, totally random timing, zero bias and incredibly interesting results!
This is pretty much what I've found when trying to do a public charge. Most don't work (or are running slow) and the ones that do work generally have 2 or 3 people waiting.
Worst one I have found so far was Bristol and Bath science park. There was a whole big row of chargers. Great, I thought. Apart from one ICEd space they were all free. Me and another guy arrived at about the same time. Both faffed with their app for 10 minutes or so (they were App payment only). I tried charging - nothing. The other guy was now trying a second charger... and a third.. and a fourth - nothing. Eventually we both left having tried every charger and not one was working, I wasted over an hour at that site.
Heading east along the M4, I tried 2 more stations - both had long queues. Luckily I had enough range to get to Chievely services where both rapids were working, albeit at nowhere near the advertised rate.
Add to that the cost of public charging and I am seriously considering going back to a petrol car :(
I have an id3 I charge at home and simply would not take this car beyond its minimum range - I havent yet put my Diesel on sale, and if I do, it will be getting replaced with another diesel or petrol. The "Network" is non existent, slow, broken and stacked with people waiting to charge (with no visible means of knowing who is next most of the time)
I'm going to ask a question that no one seems to want to answer me, but what is an ap? What does it do and how does it work, I've heard of aps but no idea what they are.
I was told to ap the doctor not phone them, no one in the surgery would tell me what it is or what to do
@@andrewgage6942 App or APPLICATION, it's what they call software for mobiles/tablets, although it's spreading to pretty much all platforms. It's a bit of software you download from your phone/tablet appstore.
@@andrewgage6942 The problem is, particularly the older generation do not have or are not reliant on smart phone. But maybe they don’t want us oldies to have them .I’m a retired computer engineer so am okay but do not want to be reliant on a smart phone. Surely a credit card should do??
@@trevorwilliams736 to me, a phone is for making phone calls, I don't want a phone that, I don't know what they can do, I got my phone over 20 years ago, it still works, I've replaced a battery since I have owned it, it's easy to use, no fancy gadgetry, it displays the time and date, the phone number, I can store numbers on the phone, that's it, simple and easy, it's not that I don't want a technical phone, I had one, it was the most expensive phone I've ever had, just to make a phone call. As for credit cards, I don't like debt, what's wrong with being able to pay in cash? I want to know what I have, not run up debts
This is why, after getting more and more frustrated with ownership of a Tesla, when I just replaced it I got a diesel. Unfortunately I just can't justify buying an EV that isn't a Tesla right now until the networks get better. The cars are getting great, but they're useless with a dead battery.
I can charge at home, I have a Hypervolt, but we do semi regular long trips to Scotland (600 miles ish round trip) so we rely on a charge network that isn't consistently broken
I went from two EV’s - as an early adopter - back to one and a petrol car for this reason. Needing to travel from Surrey to the North of Powys to see fam and Leeds to see the youngest I got sick of massively long journey times through broken chargers and lack of infrastructure in Wales!! Better is needed - I love the EV driving experience but the infrastructure is way off what is required for most users!!! Totally agree we need a loud industry voice on this issue!!
You're lucky. I live in a terrace house in Cornwall with no chance of home charging. There is only one rapid charger within ten miles of my home and no other chargers available to the general public (i.e. you need to be a customer of where the AC chargers are sited). EVs are thus totally unworkable for me. While on a campsite last year, I met with caravanner towing with an EV that didn't have enough range to tow his caravan to the campsite, do a few days local sightseeing, and tow the caravan back to the first set of chargers on his way home and so ended up committing two days of his holiday to the 70 mile round trip to the nearest working rapid chargers. That was a rude awakening for him and his family -- so much that he said he'd switch back to an ICEV or get an ICE second car for towing.
I always drive into a parking space in a supermarket, not because I can’t reverse park, I reverse into a space everywhere else, but in a supermarket I’m shopping, and shopping goes in the boot… and it’s far easier and convenient to put the shopping into the boot when you don’t have to squeeze between parked cars or hope the car in the opposite space has left you sufficient space to get into your boot. I would say folks who reverse into spaces in this situation are the odd ones…
You proved my point Andy, I have a hybrid, but want an EV, but will probably wait another 4.5 years b4 I go for it, I can't charge at home, and the infrastructure is just not up to the job.
Over the New Year period, I had to visit a few different stations over the space of a week. 1 rapid was working.
2 side by side rapids at a local council building were powered down.
1 rapid at my parents shut itself down when I tried to scan my car.
The next night, both destination chargers at the same location shut down mid charge.
In East Kilbride (John Wright sports centre) there's a rapid that was knackered for months.
In Glasgow (Newton Street), it's a rapid hub, and nearly every unit has a fault of some description, with at least 3 units broken at any one time.
Still the most reliable chargers I've used have been Pod Points at Lidl. Never had an issue with them being down, but they do tend to be busy, especially when the local CPS chargers are so unreliable.
This is a true representation of what we see in our area (South East). The ones that are working now usually have 3-4 people waiting in a queue! It’s just gone crazy and gets very frustrating. Very glad to have home charging. I really worry that this will just get worse as EV’s grow in popularity. My other issue is they really need to install rapid 50KwH charging and not the 7.2/11 or 22w chargers . These faster chargers would save the queue’s!
Totally agree with you. I’ve had my Model 3 for three and a half years, and it is getting worse instead of better. Visiting somewhere without a supercharger or destination charging is much too stressful.
I wouldn’t recommend an EV to anyone that can’t charge at home at the moment, and even those who can, if you spend much time holidaying in any of the many areas of outstanding natural beauty in the U.K., you’ll likely be some distance from a working charge point 😞
I enjoyed my..our.more my wife's Model3, but its too stressful. Too.. crappy quality compared to other similar priced Combuation Engined cars, and the range anxiety was a killer. Back in a much cheaper to own Combustion Car, BMW 330i, I hate to say it.. but I love it.
@@realMaverickBuckley I absolutely love my 3, the only thing that could have me back in a dinosaur would be public charging 😞
I often do not reverse into a parking lot at a supermarket either if I know I need EASY access to my boot. It can be quite hard to put all your shopping in your boot if it's facing another car that might have parked too close to your boot. Hope I make sense.
Yep agree with this
I agree. I only reverse into a space if I don't require access to my boot. The big shop is always done by driving in forwards.
This is why Tesla has such an enormous advantage. You’ve got to be enormously dedicated to run anything else.
Even Tesla SuCs are very busy now so even this USP is vanishing
A recent trip from Scotland to South Devon involved several charger queuing sessions or defective stations on motorway service areas. Picked up a parking fine for exceeding the 2 hour limit (successfully challenged it) and one service station manager escorted me over the service road to charge on the opposite side of the motorway. Luckily the pub we stayed at had an outdoor socket for keeping me topped up.
Better 10 destination chargers than 1 rapid charger. It spreads the risk for defects. In the Netherlands there are hardly any rapid chargers away from the motorway. In cities and towns it's all AC chargers, but there's quite a lot of them.
Pretty much my recent experience of rapid charging. Been an EV driver for 7+ years now and it definitely getting worse as many more EVs on the road. Many chargers do not work or are much slower than advertised. I wrote to Instavolt recently about a poor experience at 2 of their charge sites. One old 50kW did not go above 25kW even though I had low SoC.. (My car can take 50kW up to 90% SoC) Then a newer 120kW site the next day with did not go above 70kW as another car using CCS on the other side so power is split. For 75p/kWh!! Price the same on both the old slow one and the new faster one. RIP off pricing for poor "not as advertised" speeds. But at least they worked! As most rapids are getting a hammering as they are in constant use they seem to break down an awful lot.
I stick with Instavolt and they haven’t let me down yet. I was getting a bit cocky about this charging away from home but your video clearly shows the need to plan A,B&C options (probably D,E&F too!)
Same here, Instavolt do seem to be very reliable. We now avoid anything else such as BP Pulse as they are just too hit-and-miss.
Agree 100%. Instavolt, Osprey and Gridserve are the only networks I use. If Instavolt can manage to be reliable, why do the others fail so badly?
@@Richard-io9xe I don't get it either. Perhaps because many of them are specialists in other areas such as BP moving into a new field that actually competes with their existing business, you could postulate that it's actually in their long-term best interests to see the EV market fail? Others such as MER just seem to be a sick joke.
0.77p kwh, is expensive
@@entity_dragons2013 Yes, yes it is. But I'd rather spend a few extra quid than waste my valuable time trying to reprogram broken chargers. I just want to plug in, swipe my card and charge. It's all about priorities I suppose.
Pertinent video.
Government and lobby groups are forcing the pace on EVs when they're just not ready yet.
When the lease on my Leaf ended, I bought a used diesel Mini. Fabulous car! Cheaper to buy and run than an EV, 650 mile range, 70 mpg, zero range anxiety.
I love EVs, but they've got a long way to progress to get beyond the enthusiast sector.
Sort out a single connector for starters!
I make an effort to plan journeys with stops at either Gridserve Charging hubs, MFG Hubs or Ionity, ideally 6 or more chargers and also try and avoid peak times as much as I can. I realise many people don’t have that flexibility. The old charging infrastructure is no longer fit for use and the charging hubs are too spaced out but I believe the infrastructure as a whole is improving but has a long way to go.
it's gridserve or instavolt for me. I've never had an issue with Instavolt and the new gridserve installs are wonderful
Gridserve installations seem to go downhill quickly after installation. Swansea 4 out 6 350kw chargers broken, some have same issues like blank screens for months. Charging speed is also often just 30kw - and it's not my car or the weather as it's charged quicker when colder etc. Severn View also has 6 350kw and never had anything like a fast charge there - always seems to be under 50kw. My suspicion is the underlying power available onsite isn't anywhere near good enough to support these
@@Medved290 I must be the only EV driver that has had a bad experience with Instavolt, everyone else seems to love them. I get quarter of the advertised speed and they are expensive.
This is what I do. Mostly overnight charging at home or on destination chargers, but try to travel away from main routes if I'm on a long journey.
Seems like only tesla can do reliable fast chargers. Maybe the government should employ tesla to do all the charging stations for all makes
Morrisons genie points are gods way of showing you he has a sense of humour .
The EV chargers at Leicester Forest East M1 services have been covered for the past 2 weeks. Gridserve advise that this is at the landlords request due to site power limitations. No information as to when this will be sorted but at least the maps are up to date.
Not great for a prime motorway location. I used to have issues when it was Ecotricity, so disappointing that Gridserve haven’t been able to turn them round!
I had a similar experience when taking my daughter to Heathrow before Christmas. You need to send this video to your MP . . . In fact we all need to send this to our MP's.
Before these idiots push the NetZero onto us this needs fixing
Really relevant vid EV Man. I get the sense that things are getting worse not better. I speak as someone insulated from this issue by my home charger and having a Tesla.
I live not so far away from you and I got rid of my Nissan Leaf because of this issue. I can't charge at home due to where I live (a flat) so was reliant on public rapid chargers. They are so unreliable up here. Even when they did work it was expensive. But the unreliability of the network is what caused me to sell my EV.
It's almost like companies don't care when the charger goes offline. Glad you shone a spotlight on this situation.
Sorry to hear that. I also used to rely quite a bit on rapids in my area with the old (non-Tesla) EV since otherwise I'd be getting up at stupid hours to park it in council car parks overnight at max 3.5 kW and walking to and fro. My sleep patterns were messed up.
Getting a bigger battery car solved that by allowing me to charge far less often but also our council installed lots of 22 kW AC fast chargers at the roadside around town, so suddenly the options increased tenfold for where to charge. Even though my EV only supports 11 kW at 3-phase it's surprising how a 2½ hour charge can get you ~130 miles of extra range.
I really hope more councils get on board and enable charging on-street in existing parking spaces (with new signage). I recommend people research government grants available for councils and ask their councillors if they've considered installing chargers.
Our new posts are all from Mer btw. They're so far 100% reliable and it's been 6 months with a fair bit of daily use all over town.
@@nettlesoup They need to do something. I begged the council for on-street chargers (that I understand Govt funding was available at that time) but they just didn't seem bothered. They had installed a token rapid charger, had had their MP photo op, and lost interest thereafter. So I got a petrol car.
Frustrating.
Of course they don’t care. It’s not viable for them. It’s the way we our government is run in the uk
I have done a similar survey for the city of St Albans at roughly 3 month intervals for 18 months. I would say that your findings are pretty similar to mine.
Thank you for a great insight to the problems of available local chargers. I appreciate not all are the same.
My step into the EV world will wait a bit longer for now.
Great informative video, cheers. I live .25 miles from one of the sites you visited. My EV gets delivered next month, my home charger was fitted last year. If I hadn't have been able to have a home charger, that car would have been ICE.
I have an EV on order. Suits me as I mainly charge from home. However, I am really concerned that the Government is quick to announce a tax on EV's and push for all new cars to be EV's by 2030.... yet severely lacking on a supporting public charging infrastructure or indeed any plan as far as I am aware.
It’s up to the market, not the government. The government didn’t build filling stations in the 1920s, the market did that. However, the government should not have mandated a date for cutting off sales of ICE cars either.
@@richardsmith579 Nope, the Government is accountable and it is their directive to electrify and have a supporting infrastructure in place to support this. Read: www.gov.uk/guidance/electric-vehicle-charging-infrastructure-help-for-local-authorities
Wow 🥺 Now do the same thing with the 10 nearest Tesla Superchargers 😂
I'm guessing that 10 Superchargers will easily be covered with just one or two sites ;-)
I enjoyed the tour around the area where I used to live before ending up in Poland. Our next car might well be an EV, however I needs would be met charging at home with the distances we need such a car. An honest review of the situtaion, very interesting.
You're not alone! I live in the USA, and we have a network called "Electrify America", which has similar reliability issues. Electrify America deals mainly with CHAdeMO and CCS (J-1772 enhanced) vehicles. The Tesla network here is actually quite good, and they are just barely allowing non-tesla vehicles to charge at their stations, with an integral adapter available at certain charge points. Tesla charges non-Tesla customers ~20-25% more per kWh, than Tesla owners. You can purchase a "membership", which allows you to charge at their normal rate, but you must purchase ~130 kWh per month or more, to compensate for the cost of the membership, and actually save money. Where I charge mainly at home, and have enough range to travel intercity, I just don't fast-charge often enough to justify the membership.
For people with no charging at home , 7kw -22kw ac charging is required in car parks , approx 20 of these will be much better than one fast dc charger. Fast chargers should be now in multiples at main roads but as you see one charger in one area that fails is 100% fail rate.
Also the local economy benefits from cheaper longer charging times. Plus 20 means that 15 are most likely to be working too :-) Also a lower load on the local electricity supply infrastructure that at times is a problem for multiple RAPID chargers.
I used to say always have a plan B. Nowadays I say always have a plan B, C, D, E & F!
I'm not going out to check but the 10 rapid chargers within a 5 mile radius of my home will most likely be working - 2 Instavolt at a McDonalds, 1 at a sports centre, 2 Swarco in the public car park at the local council offices and 1 PodPoint at a Lidl are all reliable. There is an odd Geniepoint at a Morrisons that I have seen in use but it often blocked by other vehicles. There are 4 Gridserves at the motorway services, 2 each side, but they will be busy.
When we stayed in Caenarfon on holiday we had to drive a 50 mile round trip and wait over an hour to start charging. All of the chargers in a 30 mile radius other than that one were broken. It was worse then than it was years ago.
The more people like you that name and shame the networks and companies, the more we may see these things get better!! Good video
Yes, the public charging infrastructure is inadequate and getting worse it seems. Having had a Tesla Model S for nearly 5 years, I was relatively spoiled at first, with the combination of home charging at £0.05 / kWh off-peak, and the supercharger network (which was then exclusive to Tesla cars) for longer trips making ownership a pretty hassle-free and cheap experience.
Now the ‘cheap’ home charging is £0.12 /kWh off-peak and £0.40/kWh at other times, which is a very different proposition. This and the growth in Tesla ownership, plus the policy of opening up the supercharger network to non-Teslas, which I selfishly don’t agree with, has made it all a much more stressful experience - not helped by the idiot who crashed his Range Rover into Tesla Park Royal at 120mph in August, killing one passenger and seriously injuring himself and another passenger. Apart from the personal tragedy, this wiped out all 24 charging points for many months, leaving west London, where I live, woefully short of superchargers, with queues at both Westfield and Uxbridge a common occurrence. According to the Tesla app, they have just got 8 of the Park Royal chargers back in action, but still the days of breezing up at any time and finding unoccupied, functioning superchargers seem to be in the past.
As for public chargers, I’ve been largely sheltered from the woes others are reporting, but on the few occasions I’ve tried to use them, it’s been a similar story of disappointment - either not working, or already occupied with others waiting, slow charging, and overpricing.
I certainly couldn’t recommend a non-Tesla with no home charging as a viable combination, and I’m not surprised at the level of resistance to the transition amongst the general public. The oddest thing for me is the attitude of the charging providers to ensuring chargers are functioning, Tesla excepted. Would Shell or BP tolerate the loss of sales that would results from hundreds of petrol pumps being unusable at any given time? Are they just trying to keep people in ICE cars for as long as possible, because they are more profitable?
Very good points, all of them
With regards to the attitude of the charging station operators, I'll beginning to become a conspiracy theorist, if you take the old adage of follow the money they must be receiving money but installing them m&s making a profit from selling electricity at them.
It's disappointing to hear about the deterioration in service level and availability at Tesla superchargers, as I currently drive on non Tesla and am actively looking at purchasing a model 3 but perhaps your comments are swaying me towards getting a PHEV!
@@barryhaeger4284 If its to be your only car, and you do some long journeys now and then, I'd go with a PHEV. I have EV and Diesel, but I wouldnt use the EV for anything longer than a round trip of 160-180 miles. I wouldn't have an EV for free if I didn't have a home charger either...
@@GHOOGLEMALE Me too and I have an EV
I doubt much will Improve. This should be the time all chargers work and are maintained. If they can't do it now, what hope is there.
My son who is 15 commented to me that the Genie Point at Keighley doesn’t support contactless payments. Get over to East Yorkshire, pretty good availability in the towns over here. We think there are more problems caused by all the different ways of paying then the chargers themselves!
Last summer in the Netherlands, loads of different chargers and they all worked with just the Shell Recharge card.
I've used 3rd party chargers that DID have contactless but which didn't work. I questioned it and "its never worked" so although available on the stall they've never bothered to connect it and/or no mobile network coverage. Another con to force punters to get their monopolistic membership card.
I've had my i3 for nearly six months now, and love it. I'm in a fortunate position where I can charge at work (10 miles from home), but the public network just isn't suitable for those without home or workplace charging. Having recently made journeys from here in Hampshire to Birmingham, London & Edinburgh have required military levels of planning! Primary, secondary and tertiary charge locations per phase, extra time allowance for waiting or a diversion and than the inevitable having to download yet another app for another provider in an area with no signal all keep the heartrate high!
EVs are defiantly not a solution for all, yet, but defiantly not suitable for no one.
How does the UK network reliabilty compare with Norway? Love to know where the point of failure is with the chargers. Need an insider of a charging company to spill the beans. Are these charging stations using 4G connections? If they failed over to free vend when charging is operational but connectivity to the network is down bet they would get fixed mega quick.
Excellent video. Well worth doing and highlighting this issue. Would be interesting to see what other peoples feedback is. The excuse used to be that these chargers were not used very often and so they didn't get repaired, due to the cost of upkeep. But that clearly is just not the case now. You would have thought these companies would want to actually make some money back on their investment. Why is it the Tesla ones are so much more reliable? If I understand correctly they actual plug units themselves are fairly dumb and the main infrastructure is in a separate main unit. Whereas generally the other chargers seem to put everything into the charging unit themselves? Could be wrong
Usually the Tesla chargers are more likely to work and even better if not using the CCS plug. For some reason CCS plug is less reliable than Tesla proprietary plug.. go figure
Supermarkets are the one place I don't reverse in as it's easier to load shopping into the back of the car. If you reverse in you have to lug your shopping around the car and the vehicle in the bay behind may have parked too close for you to open the tailgate.
The lease of our Tesla M3 is coming to an end and we where thinking of changing to another manufacturer but the supercharger network will probably keep us with Tesla. We’ve done a 1600 and a 1200 mile road trip so far and never had any issues with the superchargers. The only time we had a problem on one of the trips was in Scotland near the Isle of Skye when we had to use a public charger. But you can see the superchargers getting busier, given the amount of Tesla’s they are selling it will probably soon become a problem as well.
Great video... Simple but factual.... The network is crap & the Government don't care.
Drive in not reverse in! How are you meant to unload your trolley!
Way better than I managed back in early 2020 coming down the A96. 2 working of 9 (I wanted to find them all as some were well hidden) and back then I only had one working rapid within 20 miles of where I live.
Why I'm a smug Tesla owner (now that there are superchargers within 80 miles).
You don't realise how many chargers don't work until you get an EV.
I live in a tiny village in Northern Spain ... all 50+ kW chargers within 12 miles (around 20 km) of my house are working ... they include:
- An 8-stall Tesla Supercharger site (150 kW).
- At that same location various 100 kW chargers of different CPOs (charge point operators)
- At 1km from my house 3 50 kW chargers (in 2 locations at a hotel and gas station both different CPOs)
- 1 60 kW stall at a golf club ... you might not know about it if you aren't a member (as I am), though it is open to all public ...
- At the very limit of 20 km from my house there are 4 180 kW stalls (all working) with a couple of 50 and a 60 kW nearby (200 meters away - other CPOs)
- 15 km in the other direction two 180 kW stalls.
All of the above sites are usually unoccupied ... i.e., I drive by the gas station almost every day and usually both chargers there are free (even though there's a great restaurant there too). I've never seen both occupied at the same time.
My main issue is that I can charge at home, so I don't need HPCs so close by! ... I need them at 200 km (or more) distance ... and that is where things get dicey and they are often 50 kW.
Also, the amount of 22 kW and slower chargers in the area is very limited with usually only one per site ... so no destination charging there because they are often taken up by PHEVs ... there's still a lot to improve and I'm kinda not looking forward to this coming summer vacation and any road trip we might be making in our EV ... I now see EVs daily here on the road (from Teslas to Leafs and many others), where about 6 months ago (when we got our car), it was still fairly unique to see an EV.
Well done Andy!
This was a good idea.
I agree with pretty much all of your opinions on every video except the one about backing into car parking spots. I always park nose first into spots. If you consider most hatchbacks the driver occupies an almost central position in the car. As long as you're careful and very slow in backing out (which you should also do when inching forward as well) then it's no more or less dangerous. The problem isn't the parking direction but the lack of driver awareness. I generally find it far more irritating waiting for idiots to reverse into a spot and having 20 goes before they get it right. Causes major congestion. Just imo.
Same.
Plus the boot is easier to get to. I wonder if all those people who prefer backing in have never gone grocery shopping or put a stroller away. They must be childfree or their wives/partners/husbands do all that.
Btw I have no children, but can actually think outside the box.
I agree backing into shopping car parks in daft, how the heck do you unload the shopping trolly ? Also the gap between the car behind is sometimes not a lot.
It’s this, along with the rapid charging cost, that made me give up my EV, and I’ve gone back to a petrol hybrid. So much less hassle and time wasted, plus when out on a long trip, it’s cheaper too.
As for my local chargers, we only have 2 rapids within 20 miles, and one of them, a Geniepoint, has been broken now for weeks, just shows red lights on the side.
Another good informative video Andy. I'll keep my Prius for now 👍
So for once the daily mail would be telling the truth
Funny this video coming out now, last few days I’ve been thinking of doing the same thing, check all the rapids in my city and posting results, now know this is a uk wide thing and doesn’t appear to be isolated places. Maybe we need a good few of us to agree a time and date to go and report back all at once so we can demonstrate a country wide problem. Won’t change if we don’t rub it in faces, name and some too might be required.
Totally agree; I am up for it. Mathematically we do not need to record all of the chargers all of the time to get an accurate picture. Why not approach ZapMap to coordinate this ‘national survey’. They send a monthly newsletter out nation wide, they have the computing power to collate and present the data, they would benefit from the publicity and the results would give the local councils and central government the facts they need to improve services. I hereby volunteer to assess my local chargers AND to do data inputting free of charge.
I had good luck doing a couple of airport runs, no problems at South Mimms, charged three times in a few days, enough free chargers.
But then I tried the Beaconsfield services. Six Ionity and three Gridserve CCS, and there were queues, I waited 20 mins. But they all worked.
When planning permission is granted for a wind turbine there is normally a condition requiring it be removed if its not working for more than a certain time period. I think its time for something similar for chargers. Companies that allow public chargers on their property need to start writing reliability conditions into their lease. Say 90% up time over a rolling 6 months or they have to give up the site to another company.
I live in a terraced house in Swansea. I always use public chargers and I've yet to have an issue, other than having to wait, in just over a year of EV ownership.
Chargers do need better signage, and some form of queueing system. I'm an outgoing middle aged guy and don't mind getting out of the car to ask people if they're waiting. It must be very scary for people more timid than me
You are right - Charger rage is just round the corner without proper queuing systems
What I find incredible is that fundamentally an electric car charger isn’t that complicated, why are they so unreliable, why do they keep breaking?
I have 6 slow AC chargers on my street, when they work they are great but they break regularly and take months to fix.
I have brand new (< year) Mer rapid and two 7kw in a supermarket at the end of my road, these were brilliant for about 6-7 months but since late November have been powered off more than they’re on. Mer fixed them last week and they’re powered down when I checked last night.
I’m not sure what the SLAs are on these things when they get installed but can’t be very good.
Rapids aren't that simple. You have a massive power conversion system to convert AC into DC. While the circuit to do this is pretty simple, the stress the components are under is not. You have liquid cooled cables. So that involves a pump and fluid mechanics. You have screens, payment systems and worst of all you have the public using them. You have ground isolation tests to ensure you don't have a live 400V chassis. You have CANBUS communication with the vehicle. Mostly they're exposed to the environment but they haven't undergone comprehensive testing because - time and cost.
6:00 I always reverse into a parking spot apart from at a supermarket if I'm doing a big shop. I need access to the boot then, so driving in makes sense, so I can get to the boot with my shopping trolly.
As a garage door guy, that’s a quality door you have. Insulated, sealed and street appeal.
I've started saying to people who ask me about EV ownership to only buy one if they can charge at home or at work. In our town we have seen a tenfold increase in chargers in the last 3 years that's coincided with massive uptake in EV ownership. Sadly many are not working, some I've never seen working.
I've seen a bunch appear at a Shell near where I work.. Been waiting ages for them to work, I think they're waiting for a grid connection.
I give people the same exact advice. They're only viable if a) you can charge at home/work. And b) you don't regularly need to travel further than the MINIMUM range (in winter) of your car. If, at any point, you're relying on the public charging infrastructure, you're going to wish you never bought the car. Granted, some areas of the country are better than others for public charging, so YMMV.
As EV owners know, charger anxiety is real, because you never know what issues you are going to potentially run into when you get there.
- the charger indicated on the map is no longer there for whatever reason (i.e. construction work, this has actually happened to me)
- the charger is off/out of order for lack of maintenance or vandalism (it was vandalized because if was out of order, not vice versa)
- the charger is off-line/faulty due to a communication glitch elsewhere
- the charger fails handshake with your car BMS (firmware glitch or compatibility issue)
- the charger refuses to charge because of a payment method error down the line
- the charger works but is in use by someone who uses slow A/C charging
- the charger works but it's windy and raining cats and dogs
- the charger is located in an unlit and unfriendly area
This is quite a list and I probably forgot a few scenarios. Fortunately I mostly charge at home or at work, but if you are on the move....
Councils need to do way more too. Huge new supermarket + McDonalds was approved for planning permission near me, literally next to a motorway junction. Two ev chargers. Councils need to force more ev chargers at the planning stage
Thanks for yet another informative and level dialog about the shortfalls presented to early adopters of EVs. Sadly the issue will only get addressed once MPs are faced with the issue on a daily basis - something to distract them from their passion: the lining of their own pockets.
Why o why o why has the government in particular the transport minister not got this in hand. Will we wait until the time arrives 2035 and then horror of horrors. What on earth is wrong with the charging network. Let's be reactive as usual. Not proactive. Because frankly it's not a big enough problem.
YET.
This is exactly why I replaced my Model 3 with a petrol car. I don’t have a driveway and the stress of this made owning an EV painful. One other thing is I often found I had to do a software reset when the CCS timed out. You might have got some of those units to work that failed on comms or authentication.
Guessing you didn’t have Tesla superchargers anywhere close by? It’s the best charge network by far.
No superchargers in your area?
Tesla has the only reliable network, automatic routing, plug and play, it just works.
Hopefully they'll open it up to other EVs soon, it would do everyone else a big favor since these third parties can't seem to get their act together.
80 mile round trip.
Thanks, as homeowner with no home charging this has cemented my decision it's not a good time to give up normal fuels.
Hi from OZ, In Albury/Wodonga we have Tesla SC and two ChargeFox stations. One CF is on the top level of a multi deck car park, with no overhead cover. The second one is . . . . . . At the Tip!
The next closest are (2) 30 and 40km south or 60Km north. Feel the pain!
Hi A good video and a very valid point. In my area the local supermarket has provision for 4 chargers 1 is almost always connected to a silver Leaf which I guess belonges to an employee the others are often bieng used. Our local council offices have a row of chargers and these are all working fine the lesure center has 1 charge point including a rapid charger This is the oldest charger in town but is also OK. Luckily the company I work for have installed three double chargers but they are for employees and you need to be registered in order to use them. We are near the A11 which is a major route out to Norfolk and Suffolk the local service station Shell installed a row of 4 double Rapid chargers a year ago BUT they are still not commissioned so unusable which is crazy as there is a good shop with costa coffe and a burger king etc a great stop off which is used by trucks as an overnight and has great potential. Its not even signposted very well as its on what used to be the old A11 before dualling. Park and Ride into Cambridge has chargers (never tried these) but you are time restricted so I guess you have to come back on the bus within the time limit which is madness. Its a very patchy network right now.
Newhaven, an international ferry port, has two rapid chargers in an obscure car park which have been out of service for about six years. The county town of Lewes 8 miles up the road from the port has had a broken Rapid for about the same time - both Lewes District Council. The next closest is Uckfield, ten miles from me, where the Shell is usual faulty and a new set of Ionity chargers were vandalised within days of installation - though these were quickly fixed. There's a field in Uckfield where a large Gridserve is going in, but two years on, there's still problems with paperwork :(
I've just seen a report where new EV registrations last month were ten times greater than the number of new public chargers installed.
Yep, daughter has this issue with her Hyundai Ioniq 28kWh when she’s out and about. Fortunately she charges at home for her 55 mile round trip commute to work.
The Gov’t should facilitate a much more streamlined process for charging infrastructure. They instead, facilitate fossil, and fill their own coffers. They can’t even support a gigafactory, crucial for British auto manufacture…for which they gave assurance.
Teslas are stress free. Hopefully we’ll see another price drop.
Great content. More of this please.
As a proponent of EV's it's very honest of you to show this, so good for you! For anyone to think that EV's are the answer to anything means that you're not thinking straight, I just know this in every fibre of my being that they are a dead end even before they start. Can't wait for Rolls Royce EV owners to have to deal with this, will be hilarious!! Just to say that you said no one is objecting to the cars anymore, just the poor network, this is totally wrong, 'us' on this side hate the cars & the batteries FIRST & always, the poor network is last.
Great video, been thinking about an ev van for work but I'd really struggle if this was the case.
Unless your using it for local work and charge at home forget it would be my advice and I have an EV
Very interesting. Thanks!
Oh god, I've just looked around the Skipton area, plagued by Geniepoint - which for me has surpassed BP for worst reliability - wish I could share with you some of my closest 10, which are mostly Instavolt, Osprey and MFG. Needs sorting though, if I was to plan a day out I'd choose somewhere with better provisions 😛
So on a cold slow Sunday morn thought I’d check the same in the local area. I live in middle off nowhere about 11 miles from Lincoln. Out of 8 Rapid chargers in a 12 mile radius there were 8 rapid chargers. 3 were out of order , one which as far as I can see from zap map has been down for 2 months .
So that is 62.5% working !
One thing I found out was the company ‘Charge point’ seem to be on quite a few different charge networks which work fairly well when it comes to payment using their app . Even found a new bunch of 22 kw chargers by them in a car park in centre of Lincoln which I’d not seen before
I have to say I agree while heartlessly that the amount of ev owners has shot up lately. Yesterday at the York outlet centre all the charging bays were full when we arrived whereas 18 moths ago things were much quieter so charge networks really need to speed up their rollout of more chargers especially destination chargers
I agree that the charging network needs to expand and be more reliable. No question.
The issue for me is the time it takes to charge an EV. A petrol or diesel vehicle takes five minutes to refuel; an EV takes 30-60 minutes. What do you do in that time?
I recently drove an electric Mini 241 miles. The claimed range is 145 miles; after one hour and twenty minutes on a fast charger, the range was 110 miles. To complete that journey took three charges at a cost of £56. That's way more expensive than petrol or diesel would have been for the same journey.
I drove an electric Fiat 500 from Derbyshire to Oxfordshire, a mere 92 miles. I charged the car at McDonalds, just off the M1 in Leicester. Fifty minutes added to my working day, not good.
I'm not an EV hater, I don't do hate. I'm just a realist. The facts are that EV sales are at a record high, but the infra-structure is inadequate to sustain that growth in sales. EV's are great if you have a regular daily commute or you just use it for shopping and you have a home charger. If your job takes you to far-flung corners of the UK and you live in a block of flats where a home charger is not feasible, then there is a problem.
Just for the record, I don't own a car, I just drive other people's as a trade plate driver. Pushing sixty years of age, I have only ever owned two cars. I ride a folding bicycle and use public transport.
Love and peace.
Good content again , I have found in Northampton then only ones that I have problems with is Genie point they never work here and I only charge on public chargers as I cannot have a home charger .
We don't yet have a charging option at home (we live in the south of France in an old building with no exterior outlets), so we use public chargers 100%. In our town of 10,000 inhabitants we have 2 stores that have chargers (LeClerc store has 2 units with two 22kw plugs each, and a DC CCS in progress of being built...LIDL has 1 unit with two 22kw plugs and 1 DC CCS unit in service) and our town (Oloron Sainte-Marie) has 2 units (one at town hall, one at the train station) with two 22kw plugs each. Normally we use LeClerc, but the other day Freshmile network was down so neither LeClerc nor LIDL was working. The two from the town (SDEPA/Mobive network) were also both down. Luckily, we weren't desperate but it's definitely of concern. We're trying to get a plug installed in our parking area but this is France and things take ages (it's going on 4 months now waiting for studies/approvals/etc). So this problem is not unique to the UK. Granted, this has only happened once in the 1.5 years we've lived here, but if the networks aren't reliable it's hard to be an EV advocate. Oh, the Freshmile network came back on later in the evening so I was able to charge.
I've got an MG, but my luckily nearest Tesla chargers are open to other makes. I usually charge at home, but I have used the Tesla charges occasionally and they were fine. :-)
I enjoyed playing spot the charger I've tried recently watching this. Skipton Morrisons was the first I was confident about 😂
I have had more problems at Geniepoint chargers than any other. On three occasions the helpline finaly got the charger to work. With more EVs on the road, finding a working charger available is becoming more difficult.
Did a 265 mile round trip today and stopped 5 times at service stations (wee and food) and all were working, only one site was fully occupied.
I've been relatively lucky over the last year or so.
Mate have you had that prostate looked at!
I had an EV a couple of years ago, loved it. I wouldn't have another one though because of the networks... the level of failure seems almost deliberate.
Glad you’ve done this type of video, as in the last 5 years of owning an EV, it is getting worse, and the prime example is Leeds Skelton Services with the IONITY Chargers.
Three years ago or so, no one there or perhaps a Porsche or Jaguar.
Now all the chargers are in constant use and on Boxing Day and the 30th we had to wait to charge.
Even this site now is in constant use and therefore more strain in its components, so therefore the odds of these units failing starts to increase.
I think as always the blame comes from government
Loved playing "I know where he is!" 😂 Hello from the middle of "the village" 👋
I've had similar problems to you over Christmas. One charger was not working but after pressing the red reset button it rebooted and was fine. Another I called them up and they did a remote reboot and it was fine. And something always worth trying if you get authentication or connection failure is to pull out the cable and put it back in again. I've done that a couple of times on chargers people have said aren't working and they did for me with a bit of a waggle to get make a good connection. That having been said, the charging infrastructure is moving at a pathetically slow rate. Where I live there are two rapid chargers within a 7 mile radius and one of those is in a furniture store car park that you can only use whilst shopping in their store. Almost makes me want to get a Tesla
Useful to know, but in over 130 times I've used Tesla / Supercharger I've never had to do a plug-wiggle/re-plug ... I can only remember 2 or 3 times when the charge was "slow" such that I moved to another stall for normal speed. I can't understand why Tesla can achieve this and 3rd party brands not.
You should have highlighted the sites that were not working, especially the ones that had apparently been down for months. Not 'network bashing' but truth to power. They may be getting subsidies from local councils or have put the charger in as part of some quid pro quo deal. Time for Zap Map to have a 'naughty step' filter and possibly a network rating for reliability. Tesla are good because Tesla owners have paid for the network as part of the cost of the car. Most Tesla sites have more than 1 or 2 chargers as well.
Good video, I have a home charger but every time I have had to use a public charger it either was not working or would not accept my cards or none available on site as full up with other cars. Had to phone the charger helplines on numerous occasions, with most unable to sort out the problems. One even had 'this number is not recognised' when I had entered the number of the helpline on the charger!!
Now perhaps I have been unlucky but the whole public charging experience has been a nightmare.
The car has been great with a good range although significantly less during this cold period.
I have decided this cannot go on and changed my EV for a petrol car.
The public charging network is a joke and I don't see it improving anytime soon
Now when I go on a longer journey I don't have the 'charging anxiety' when I reach my destination. What a relief!!!
My nearest public charger (Geniepoint at a BP station) has been out of action for over three weeks now. The next nearest (M&S Type 2) only works occasionally and is often blocked by non-EV cars. As for Octopus Electroverse I have yet to find a charger that accepts this payment method. So I will continue to only charge at home and limit journeys to the range of my car until there is some sign of this situation becoming a lot better.
I live in Northern Ireland and in my area there is just 2 rapid chargers and one of them is faulty from over a year. There is 5 type 2 chargers but just 2 works. In Last Year The council removed one charging point because it was more handy for them than repair it.