It is such a pleasure to find that Imogen has found a guest who is an expert in his field and actually answers her questions in a reasonable amount of detail. Charging location and planning is more involved than I had imagined and I enjoyed hearing all about it!
I have a massive amount of respect for Ian. He's always been so open and transparent in all conversations I've had with him. Plus, in my experience Osprey are one of the most reliable networks in the UK with great kit and large parking spaces.
What a treat to hear someone in Ian Johnston’s position who is so clear in answering questions and giving explanations without the evasive waffle that so many senior people seem to go for 👍
It’s interesting that our new age governments want to see the EV Industry completely pay its way from the get go. It’s a shame they don’t know much history in that the oil industry was overtly subsidised in development, freight and supply with no additional government charges. This went on for the first 50 years of oil then the subsidies evolved to covert subsidies still continuing to this day. Vested interests certainly know how to protect their investments and stuff environmental externalities.
Subsidies can be both explicit and implicit in nature. In the UK whilst explicit subsidies have phased out in line with industry maturity they still exist, particularly in regards to remaining high risk financial / speculative areas, whereas implicit subsidies remain largely unaddressed (and before suggested tax does not cover them).
One of the best and most informative podcasts to date. Ian explains everything clearly and precisely and gets behind some of the big issues. It is encouraging that the Labour government is seen to be on the front foot of promoting the transition, and assisting with getting planning beauracracy reduced. It is fascinating that Rishi Sunak's 'promise' to put back ZEV to 2035 was an election gimmick and had no grounding in law! More of these please.
What a great interview. Really interesting to hear Ian debunking some of the warped media coverage on the topic of pricing and planning approvals. How can anyone justify the leap from £99 to £8700 for standing charges?!?! Mind blowing! Nice job Imogen.
Brilliant interview and subject, this shines a light on the complete rubbish that many press outlets, media channels and journalists have been pushing just to get clicks. Thank you imogen and Ian, and Everything Electric Show.
I learned more about the problems and opportunities around charging in this podcast than I have sifting through articles online. Impartial and extremely informative. Thank you!
Fantastic to hear Ian Johnston and someone who actually knows his business like the back of his hand. I now have a little more care for the high costs they have to pay to operate, which has pushed up prices. I hope that we can get to a point that these are well reduced in the future and we can see sub 50p per kWh soon.
@ our home electric in the UK standard price is around 30p per kWh. So 50p is what we had 3 or 4 years ago for rapid charging. Also petrol is around £6.50 per gallon.
Great episode with an extremely knowledgeable AND VERY REASONABLE guest! I get frustrated with people on the margins of the debate being ... ummm ... extreme. Ian Johnston and Osprey Charging seem remarkably sensible! What a pleasure and delight.
I appreciate the challenges Osprey and others face, however I’ve just charged at a Tesla Supercharger at 39p/kWh and the Osprey charger down the road is 79p/kWh. Hence I’ve never used them and never will unless I’m in a pinch. If one network is able to offer that service and price, others should be able to also…
Congratulation Everything Electric team for a very informative show. The costs of increase mentioned is mind blowing. So Imogen as an engineer you'll already know every action creates a reaction. You and your teams reaction to those horrendous cost increases must be to find out who instigated them and why and more importantly where does that money go, who profits from it. Could this lead to a podcast with Ofgem?
It would be good to see more interviews like this with articulate specialists who can explain (sometimes fairly complex) situations coherently and objectively, and without marketing hype. The comments on planning and permits would probably apply equally to so many aspects of infrastructure development, not just charging stations. Extremely interesting and informative, and could probably provide a few bullet points for Robert Ll's occasional rants.
Agree, this and the Greg Jackson one recently, have been some of the best interviews around of late - clear, informative and even aspiring as to what the future may look like.
What makes you think that those in the private sector are clear and honest? Look what Volkswagen and no doubt all manufacturers did to us recently. Never believe those who do what they do when the bottom line is to make money.
Great interview pointing out how we can achieve EV adoption acceleration in the UK. From a business viewpoint there must be many opportunities/ frustrations/ problems to solve, but please realise the UK is a long way ahead of many countries in EV and charging terms. I am based in Spain right now and both grants for EVs, permissions for planning and grid connection is sclerotic....easily 2 years for EV grants and much more for charging points. The market is characterised by government spending here, not private innovation - the net result is the chargers go in, break down and never get fixed as the grant has been spent. Don't beat yourself up guys, you are flying the flag for the work that you all do! Thanks and greetings from Spain.
Probably one of the most informative pod casts I have ever listened to well done. The one thing I don’t understand with regard to retail prices is how does Tesla manage to charge significantly less than all the other networks. I assume they are subject to the exact same site and supply charges as everyone else and yet they remain .20p to .30p kWh cheaper than their competitors.
It may be their storage batteries on site, the strategy is to buy power when it is cheap, store it, then charge more for it when people 'fill up' their evs.
@@robinbennett5994 I think you are mistaken there, Tesla want to make a buck wherever they can! Why else open their Supercharger network to other brands?
Rapid charging is simply too expensive, needs to be 20p -30p lower per kWh, this would increase adoption by customers who don't have driveways/home charging. Tesla seem to be able to manage it ?
You could make them 20-30p cheaper if you replaced the charger with a diesel generator. If nothing else it makes the point how ridiculously expensive the public charging network is.
Marvin, ma house my father inherited from his father burned down this week, because of you climate deniers. Just like the health insurance companies with their delay, deny, depose, you killed people over the last year in Spain, Brazil and now Los Angeles.
@@PeroniPeteTesla have by far the most chargers, and they’re always ultra reliable. The price varies depending on location and time, however I’ve never paid anything like 80c/kWh at a Tesla Supercharger.
It's already pretty easy to install at home - if you own the house. We need incentives for things like landlords, employers and hotels. Norway has a legal "right to charge" for tenants and employees, which shows the way forward.
@@robinbennett5994 We also have a "right to have a plug" in France ("droit à la prise"), you can install a charge point if you have access to a garage or a parking spot, even if you are renting. But it is far from being the case all over Europe. And last week I was at an hotel with only one charge point, while there were about 100 parking spots and many EVs. And of course the charge point was in use when I arrived, and not free before I left. Simple 7 kW charge points would be enough in hotels, and 11 kW just perfect, but not just one. It must be mandatory.
More people are working from home, so work park is home. Currently at the moment then realistically EV work for people that can home charge. There will be some exceptions but on channels then the vast majority are people that home charge.
@@malcolmsutton6740 3.5kW is not a trickle charge,. Trickle charge definition only maintains a battery charge balancing charge and discharge currents. 3.5kW is nearly 15 amps charge rate.(x how many cars?). A trickle charge would probably be below 10 watts just to maintain the cars monitoring electronics. 3.5kW is more than an electric kettle = quite significant
The one thing most people don't see is that charging an EV is not the same as filling a petrol/diesel tank. For a lot of people they charge at home on their drive and don't have to visit a public charger. Lot's of people don't have a driveway so they need to have charging available very close to their home but this doesn't have to be a rapid charger as they could plug in overnight and charge while they sleep. The other opportunities are hotels/b&b's (so when you are staying overnight you can charge while you sleep which will then reduce the necessity to charge en route) or at work places so you can slowly charge throughout the day.
This is the point I keep making to people who complain they don't have a place to charge at home. While their car may not be right outside their front door, it is parked _SOMEWHERE_ for several hours every night, so all they need (via the local council or landowner) is an electric supply to that location. Most drivers don't drive 200 or more miles every day, if they do than maybe current EVs will not work for them, but for everyone else it's already feasible.
I think it will be the case that charging at home will disappear in the same way that "dial up internet" has disappeared in the computer world. Once we have batteries that allow 500 miles between chargers no one will have any need anymore to charge at home. As with petrol you will fill up at Asda once a week when you do your shopping.
@@marviwilson1853 Dial up internet was replaced with better, cheaper, constant wifi connection at home, we didn't stop using wifi at home. Home charging is still cheaper and more convenient than charging anywhere else, and I see no reason that would ever change.
@@marviwilson1853 Batteries will never "allow 500 miles between charges".... Because they don't NEED to. They WILL (continue to) out-range the driver and charge quickly..... WHILE the driver is accomplishing the task for which they made the journey. You're close! You actually gave PART of the answer.... "Fill up at Asda when you shop". NOW extend that to.... Drive to meet a friend in town, at the gym, at a restaurant, at the local shopping centre, etc.... *And charge sufficiently while you're there to MORE than offset THAT journey* (Both ways) Or, Commute to work (What's the average commute?) and charge WHILE WORKING sufficient to return home *Then back to work the next day* (Essentially shifting the "start point" for the "charging day" from "Home 19.00" to "Work 09.00") still "24 hours", but a different range. Anyway, MOST commutes will require once per week charging for most vehicles. Even Business users can make it work. My case. Not an EV driver.... But..... Field Service Technician Home based. Expected to attend 3-5 customers per day on average. To achieve that target, my company wants me working an area, with MINIMAL travel and MAXIMUM "time on site". MAXIMUM travel time should be 60 miles/ 1 hour..... Because Travel time is INEFFICIENT. The AVERAGE would be let's say 15 miles (Probably less) So the average 4 calls, including travel to the first and to home would be 75 miles. (3 miles/ kWh? that's 25 kWh for "steady state") I *should* stop for a 1 hour lunch break. I'm going to assume that increasingly, the places where i stop, usually on major routes, or urban areas, will have "charging opportunity" (As you said.... "Asda", etc) As I go to the store, grab a sandwich, use the facilities, and sit in the car for.... 45 minute total, an 11kW charger would provide a very useful top up, or a "Supercharger across the road" would leave me on 80% from 20% in most cases...... and that's without the potential of "destination charging" *while I work* . . I would not need or Want a "500 mile battery". I am occasionally tasked with driving to Manchester (or Similar) for a Tech Support call. 220(ish) miles each way. 3-4 hours (I WILL hit at least one rush hour! You Can't *average* more than 65mph even with "enthusiastic" driving in the early morning) I routinely stop for 30 + minutes on the way up and 45 on the way down (Knackered by then). Even That is sufficient to obtain enough to cover the journey. It's a "Non-problem"
Repair of faulty chargers is an issue especially where there aren't many chargers. In locations where it's quite a few miles between chargers when one goes down it's a Big problem In Aberdeen it's much improved in the last couple of years but with e.g. Charge Place Scotland when one goes down if it needs a visit it's often weeks until it's fixed, I've seen chargers out of use for months, one for over 6 months, weeks is PAR for the course, months not unusual !
I feel there should be penalties for companies that own the chargers but don't keep them in working order. Same thing happened in the USA, chargers were installed, then vandalized or broke of their own accord, and now take up space that should house a working charger.
That was one of the best podcasts that I've watched, Imogen is a great interviewer and Ian was very clear and open with his answers. It was interesting to hear him say that range anxiety and lack of infrastructure concerns have largely been overcome now, whenever my many doubting friends go on about range anxiety I just say that the only people who think it's a problem for EVs are ICE drivers who know nothing about owning an EV.
Wow! what a great informative podcast, and from me, as someone who lives on the other side of the planet, (NZ). I am so impressed with Osprey and Gridserve in the way they are cutting through the red tape to make things happen in a more timely fashion. Our new government is of the same thinking, they have come up with a 'fast track' system to get things done, like roads and railways etc, before we all die of old age! We did a 5 week visit to the UK to see my old homeland for one last time in June 2024, I was amazed at how many wind turbines we saw off in the distant ocean, and also as a contrast, in your face, on the side of the motorways too! very impressed. When we visited Scotland to see Nessie, the locals told us they have more wind than all of Europe combined, I had to chuckle, but there is definitely more wind up there than in Hampshire. We saw less evs there compared to NZ even though the percentage of sales is more in the UK, but you have to keep in mind the total number of vehicles on the road over there. We have a lot of Korean and Chinese evs plus Teslas of course, Euro is too expensive in comparison. I own an MG ev, and very happy with it too. We are fortunate in that over 80% of our power is renewable, which helps. Hope one day these companies will come to the NZ market to push things along a bit more.
Such an interesting interview, lots of information I had no idea about - particularly around public charging and the costs levied on the charging companies. Imogen is a great host and although it was an almost hour long it went at a good pace without feeling rushed.
One of the best interviews that I have heard on the subject. I've been driving EV for 11 years from the solo (and free) Ecotricity days until now. I used the Osprey chargers at Chesterfield Football club some weeks ago, very easy to use. Now I understand the high prices!
Retail parks can also be excellent sites for destination charging. Their car parks are unused outside of business hours and they could be used for long stay EV charging as cheap prices. Retail parks also need to look at their ANPR policies so that EV drivers can charge out of hours confident that they will not be penalised by ANPR systems.
It's a great point and maybe the future. All really works when we have a 500 mile single charge battery. Then we would think about "refuelling" as we do now with petrol cars. Once a week at ASDA while we do our weekly shopping. Supermarkets have always been in the petrol game so electric charging would seem to be of interest to them. As with petrol, price competition between super markets should keep prices competitive. One can imagine every parking space with a charger. Maybe a covered roof with solar panels.
I was thinking more in terms of the people who live within walking distance of ASDA and who haven’t got off street parking. They could leave their cars overnight at a cheap 7kW charger.
@@roppenheimer12 It's a great idea for now although how many people who have an EV and who live within walking distance of supermarkets who also don't have home charging I'm not so sure. For me, our approach to charging should not be based on todays technology but on what is coming.
Thanks Ian and Imogen a great podcast. Gives a great insight into the constraints and economics of setting up a charging network. Sounds as if there might be an opportunity or two for the installation and operating costs to reduce but I have a feeling it will be transferred elsewhere.
Great interview, what would have been nice to hear is why there is such a disparity between Rapid charging stations within the UK, as little as 40p kWh, as much as 90p kWH. At the lower end rapid charging is a little cheaper than petrol or diesel. At the upper end it is almost twice as expensive.
Parity point with the average petrol car is 72p for the average long-range EV and 60p for the all EV average. With the parity point shifting upwards as battery densities rise and BEVs become even more efficient. p.s. Community charging (such as Shell ReCharge community charging ) is now starting to be offered across the country as low as 20/25p per kWh (typically at 11kWh speeds).
@GruffSillyGoat I disagree parity point is about 50p kWh with the current cost of fuel. My car averages 3.5 miles per kWh across the year which isjust over 14p a mile. My last car a petrol averaged about 15p a mile and petrol is a bit cheaper now.
Encouraging information for the future charging networks in UK. I would be grateful if you could find a similar spokesperson when you are in Australia later this year. I hear nothing of private investment in charging networks here, especially in the West where I live. Most of our public charging is still in back alleys and not in destination areas like shopping centres. Thanks Imogen.
Just on public charging cost, I perfectly accept it will be more than charging at home, but many rapid chargers charge so much, it works out more expensive than a car running in Dino fuel. It needs to be lower than that, regardless of the type of charger.
I would have thought the opposite actually based on economies of scale. It has always been the case in economics that if you buy more of something then you get it cheaper. The amount of power going through a public charger per day compared to a domestic home must surely make the wholesale price of electricity cheaper. You would not need to add much to the KwHr price to recoup installation costs over many years of use. The whole thing should be nationalized anyway.
First who still believes petrol comes from Dead dinosaurs. Second charging at home can be 5-10x cheaper! It’s madness how complicated and expensive it is to charge out and about! I would never buy electric car if I did not have ability to charge at home, Tesla been only exception
@@DersimLondon Could not agree more. I would only buy an EV if I could pay for power as I do at home. I might even have a case for asking for even lower public charging prices given economies of scale.
@@DersimLondon - why does owing Tesla make a difference, their network is open to other makes of EVs at many locations with lower charging rates, even without membership (their just even more cheaper with membership).
isn't there a part of the puzzle missing here? isn't the price of electricity artificially linked to the most expensive way of generating it? (running gas turbines)... please correct me if I'm wrong.
Worth remembering that the same people pointing their fingers at EVs for car factory closures are very often the same people who pushed through brexit which has made the UK far less desirable as a manufacturing base.
@ruislipresident-v7p you can’t just dismiss actual consequences of the stupidity of Brexit as “haha get over it”. It just makes you sound like a cretin.
What I really want to see is provision made for EV's towing caravans and trailers. Currently, I have to abandon my caravan in the lorry park at most services on the motorway, and then drive the wrong way up the one-way system, to get back to the chargers in the main carpark. Otherwise, I would have to leave my caravan at the lorry park, leave the services via the exit onto the motorway, go to the next junction, double back to the services, and charge in the carpark. This would use up an additional 20 to 30 miles of range before I get to charge. Not good when towing reduces my 300 mile range to 100 miles anyway. The only way I can circumvent this, is by travelling very early in the morning, and hogging a number of spaces with my caravan, whilst I un-hitch to charge my car. Some serious thought needs to be applied to the layout of these places.
Hooray! Someone has finally asked and had answered WHY the kWh cost on a fast or a rapid is what it is. Coincidentally the article on the BBC website this morning about EV adoption in Norway demonstrates that EV adoption is driven best by carrot & stick, rewarding EV adoption & disincentivising ICE. One of the easiest levers to pull is to make electric “fuel” the same as or cheaper than fossil fuel per mile. So the reason for change becomes financial rather than environmental.
I loved this podcast. Such positive news and what I really wanted to hear and can pass onto my friends who are curious but need that push to get them over the start line.
This was a really great interview. It's true that we don't need even provision of chargers everywhere, but there are blackspots. If I drive to the Hebrides for a holiday (which I have done a few times in the past), where is there an ultra-rapid charger in the outer Hebrides (there isn't one)? Or Skye? or Fort William? Or Kintyre? On Anglesey? Or the Llyn Peninsula? Where are there enough ultra-rapid chargers in Cornwall for the number of EVs there in peak holiday season? These are some of the gaps that need filling.
Unfortunately here in Australia I’d say charging infrastructure is worse now in many respects than it was when we bought our Tesla five years ago! There are a HUGE number of additional EVs on the road, and the rollout of additional chargers has simply not kept pace. Driving a long distance now at holiday time is very risky unless you’re happy to join a queue. It’s unfortunate that so many more brands have arrived, yet none of these new brands are investing in charge equipment. Tesla is the only car company that is doing this- and demand for their chargers is often such that we face long queues at busy times.
Johnfrancis, I see all of that empty roof space as having tremendous value! Over the developed regions of the Earth, there is a tremendous amount of roof and parking lot and other urban space that would be appropriate for solar panels. And, the energy produced would be used in the immediate area of the chargers. And, they would mesh with home and utility scale batteries and also car charging.
Here in France it's now obligatory to install solar panels on any new carparks larger than 100 spaces (from memory?) ... Why? Shade, simpler to wire, simpler to maintain. There's a glut of companies now that will build a farmer a free barn, as long as they can cover it with panels! Local riding centre just did it, free covered exercise yard and in 20 years' time the lot is his. (Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse, but figures suggest they'll still be 80% efficient, that'll be a big fat cheque from the grid regardless!)
Easy to pay is still one of the main challenges here in Belgium today. Too many apps/cards limiting where you can charge even when a free charger is available.
Does Belgium have regulation to simplify the charging of apps/cards? The UK has sought to head this issue off in two ways - introduction of regulation (that came into force last year) that all new and existing rapid/ultra-rapid chargers must offer contactless debit/credit card payment, and the adoption and roll-out of the Park and Charge standard where the car provides the payment details to the charger directly. Further, although not coming into force till later this year the same UK regulations mandate payment roaming and open payment and information standards (OCPP and OCPI), meaning one will no longer be tied to a particular payment service for chargers; say turning up at a Tesla charger but paying via Octopus's Electroverse (or whatever preference the driver has for payment).
I love my EV and charge exclusively from home. I also have solar panels which pay for me to fill my battery. I certainly wouldn’t be interested in an EV if I couldn’t charge from home. Even if the infrastructure meant plenty of convenient chargers I still wouldn’t be tempted - never enjoyed visiting petrol stations and that was just for a few minutes so anything making that a longer experience is a big negative for me. I expect a lot of people who do not have the luxury of home charging will think like this. Forcing this take up will cause a lot of resentment, we need to tolerate a mix. I can’t see an easy way to solve this.
Interesting and informative piece, had a bit of a nightmare with broken and 'under maintenance' chargers this weekend, one of them an Osprey charger but at least it explains the breathtaking costs of rapid charging and the difficulties just getting charge sites established. Thanks for the video.
Nice to hear confirmation of the need for charging related to housing. Osprey charging in Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset is a local case. Thanks for the design these homes have no home charging but there is demand for EVs. Thanks 😊
I was shocked on my last trip from MID Wales to South Coast just how many chargers have had their cables cut, Kidderminster 3 charging spot found unusable. Even in Hereford at the HQ of Polar all 8 charges had lasted there cables cut clean off. What's the industry doing about this?
I'm awaiting delivery of our disabled sons motability EV van this week - eek (been waiting 6 months). In the meantime, I've been educating myself on charging, the network and even popping along to see where chargers are, on the major routes we tend to use and have installed an EV charging point at home. I have found you do have to 'tune out' the naysayers, as there are so many.
Mid Wales is a nightmare. All the A roads are very busy in the summer, especially the holidays. One look on Zapmap shows how many rapid there are between Welshpool and the coast. Almost none and still very few destination chargers at the beach towns.
There's still the misconception that only fast DC charging matters. It makes more sense to have a slow AC charger outside a cinema theatre or supermarket than 32 super fast DC ones on the side of the motorway. I like the example of expending more in places you wouldn't have visited if not for the charger, I've found myself doing that too
Sadly with onboard chargers in most UK delivered cars being 7kW single phase, destination charging at opportunity locations (gym, supermarket, restaurant complex etc) will always be ‘a bit too slow’. It’s a real shame that 22kW isn’t standard across all cars. All the recently upgraded destination chargers in Dorset (Mer units, double headed type2) are 22kW, yet very few cars can utilise that.
@@dorsetengineering exactly, 22 kw AC chargers are common in my area but almost no car accept that. A pity because that's the sweet spot for speed while shopping. I spent about 30-40 minutes shopping, 7kw may fall short but the 50kw or 100kw DC that I find some places overshoot and we don't want to reach 100% and then remain idle until you finish shopping or eating
Why would I plug in at the cinema for ££££ when I can charge at home for next to nothing? How would slow charging at a cinema help me drive from Newcastle to Cornwall? The charging network is tailored to who has EVs at present and how they use them. It's tailored to people who already have home charging. Because people who don't have home charging by and large don't have an EV.
We need both. In particular more low powered chargers outside cinemas etc for those who cant charge at home, will get people used to Always Be Charging (ABC) so doing 2 hours at the cinema, an hour at the supermarket, 3 hours at the mall, etc, rather than taking the petrol model of one single visit.
Really interesting to understand the underlying costs and the levers that can be pulled to improve public charging prices. Also great that CPOs are largely all on the same page 🙂
I’m a great fan of Osprey, but this is a very informative insight into to costs behind the Public Charging infrastructure - maybe skip to near the end to know more
@@jeremydavies4620 tesla are likely not making money on their supercharger business using it as advertising and brand building component, remember free long distance superchargering. Also as they have plenty of cash they not paying lots of debt interest unlike Pure ev charger companies that have to borrow money at market interest rates plus risk premium since long pay back period so lot of money being sunk in that take long time to pay ax outline in this podcast margins are not good as utilisation is not were it needs to be, but over tome a bet is being made that change later this decade.
For a public charger that is in use 24 hours per day, 365 days a year it adds peanuts to the price of the KwHr. He is being very misleading to justify their profiteering and talking about the Ukraine War - oh deary me!!!!
That was a very good interview, thanks. My only question is, considering the costs are as explained, why do Tesla charge so much less than others: example Tesla is 62p, IONITY 74p, GRIDSERVE 79p (trip planned 14Jan at 1850hrs - Cheshire to Eurotunnel). There’s a 27% price difference?
It was touched on very briefly about low wattage charging for people without the ability to charge at home. That is the area that see no real growth. A few pilot schemes but nothing major and nothing in the numbers required. In my area in a small town being doubled in size by 2500 new houses, the new houses get chargers, 1 rapid and 5 fast plus a lot of houses with drives but houses without drives being built are in the hundreds a handful of chargers don’t scratch the surface. There is an existing housing estate with no private parking, all is common, nothing has been added and it’s a mile walk to the handful of chargers in the new build. Building regulations should have been sorted 5 years ago. Local government should be putting in what is required and getting appropriate charging infrastructure included in housing estate planning.
@ I need a daily charge or 2, running 3 evs. So that would mean doing at least a weekly shop a day. All we have are small shops and a small Tesco metro. My personal charging requirement isn’t the issue. The issue is that we need to charge almost every car once a week (maybe more). Overnight charging seems to be the best and that requires a lot of 7 or 11 kw chargers. In my area 1 public 11kw charger per 1000 houses with half of them brand new is pathetic, predicable and incredibly stupid.
Brilliant video with the right questions and right understanding answers. Thanks for producing this video.. one thing on the price of public charges. Can't we just generate our own uk electricity and get the prices down or even store it battery farms to help price reductions. What is Tesla doing to keep thier charges lower and others are not..
Finally went electric with a Tesla model y. Best car I’ve ever owned. All my fears have been squashed after only 6 months of ownership. Home charging is key. If you can set up a simple home charging station like I did it’s simple, inexpensive and so convenient. I’ve only used a public super charger 4 times in 6 months. 3 times on a road trip and once just to show my daughter how. I charge at home for a couple dollars a day 99 percent of the time. The Tesla chargers are great and super fast when needed.
And some people think a standing charge of 50p per day is outrageous! With a standing charge of £8600 and capacity charge of £19000 per year, sounds like a recipe for battery-based DC chargers to flourish...
I have just run the SMMT stats for PARC & NEW SALES YOY for last 5 years for BEV, PHEV, Light Goods & Heavy Goods, however the data does not define what is business and what is personal, which is a fundamental equation required to quantify investment for Chargers for either Domestic or Commercial markets regardless of location. It is a supply and demand requirement.
With the UK having a week's worth of gas supplies the other day, can the national grid support all the new charging infustucture? We may be able to install more chargers but can we power them?
Well.... The Fact that the UK used more energy from wind and solar than from Gas in the last 12 months should help. We should also consider that a very substantial percentage of the Gas used would have been for Heating, not Electricity generation. It's moving in the right direction (AND we shut the lat Coal plant in September, so that's great!)
It never ceases to amaze me how little everybody, and most concerning the charging networks themselves, understands about where public chargers need to be. You keep forgetting that unlike ICE cars, EVs can charge pretty much anywhere there's electricity, which means charging is already available EVERYWHERE in cities. The biggest thing that keeps people from buying EVs is the fact that there is no charging in the places they want to travel. In other words, the chargers need to be installed in REMOTE locations, out of the way places and especially places where electricity is otherwise unavailable. Here's the thing: for people to buy EVs, they need to be assured that the EV can do ANYTHING and go ANYWHERE their ICE vehicle could. Like the insanity that asserts small batteries and short-range "city car" EVs are fine, refusing to put chargers where they are most needed is just ensuring that the masses will NOT buy EVs, regardless of how low the prices might go. An EV can't just replace an ICEV for "most" trips, it has to replace the ICEV for *EVERY* trip. Every single one. That means both having enough range to reasonably travel across continents without having to stop every hour to charge and being certain that no matter where you go you will be able to find a quick charger. There's also a huge opportunity that is being completely ignored. Elon Musk initially promised that all Superchargers would be powered directly by renewable energy, but like most of his other broken promises he backpedaled and every single one of them is connected to the grid. The charging networks would be *WAY* ahead if they would cover every charging location (not just the charging bays, but the whole parking lot) with solar panels and add a wind turbine to every site. Of course the power generation would need to be complemented with sufficient storage. Not only would that eliminate any issues with power access or any concerns about stressing the grid, it would eliminate their energy cost (the infrastructure would be paid for in only a few years and there would be very little overheads thereafter) and make it possible to charge customers far less. It would make installing chargers in remote locations incredibly easy without having to worry about how to connect to the grid. There are NO down sides. Even the significant initial investment would be easily amortized.
I disagree chargers need to EVERYWHERE in remote locations. Your mobile phone doesn't have a signal everywhere. Even now about 5% of the UK doesn't have signal good enough for basic Internet. You would not say that mobile phones are not useable. To say that all UK public rapid charging needs to be powered only by solar and wind with battery battery backup and no grid connection is crazy. It would take up acres for just 1 charger and cost millions. Sure we should have a few more solar panels over them and no way without being connected to the grid.
We will soon have batteries that allow an EV to go 500 miles on a single charge. Once we have that then we are in a different world when it comes to thinking about charging infrastructure. We must never for see tomorrows problems by only taking into account todays technology.
@@rogerstarkey5390 The issue is not how long you can drive a car but how much range you add when refuelling. Nobody worries where the next petrol garage is with a 500 mile range ICE car and therefore no one will worry where the next charger is when you have a 500+ mile battery. Charging stations need to be no more common as petrol stations given they are all rapid chargers, in fact EV charging is better as it allows for a much wider array of potential charging locations. Every parking spot at a supermarket say.
3 comments. 1. Excellent podcast. Thankyou Imogen 2. Why is more use not being made of battery banks to reduce the capacity requirements of charging hubs? 3. In the same way that govt requires councils to have house building and equality/diversity policies, shouldn’t govt also insist that councils, hospitals, and schools have EV charging strategies, or are they waiting until it reaches crisis point? My local cities, towns and public facilities in the UK have woefully inadequate, and often zero charging facilities
Very interesting podcast, currently I don’t own a EV, but I would be more than happy to. They are just to expensive at the moment, for one that I would be happy to own. Hopefully in a year or two I will make that transition.
As an EV driver I must question your logic about Nissan’s future in the drive to EVs. It has been my experience while taking my car to be serviced that the amount of pure EVs in there show room is not showing any improvement in this regard. The only cars in there stoke is mostly around what they are calling E power. In other words they are what Toyota has been trying to do ie self charging hybrids, which has very small battery and a much larger ice engine. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking the Japanese automaker is interested in selling EVs in any shape or form. They have only one option, and that is to keep the hybrid vehicles going as long as they can.
Agree, I was not quite sure I was ready for an EV although I wanted to make that step and not whimp out and go for a hybrid. Held on until ICE car got to the end of its life but the transition came about a year after installing solar and home battery solution which saw us go from importing 3,000 kwh per year to only importing 1,000kWh and exporting 4+thousand to the grid. With the even better tariffs available for EV owners and smart charging I can actually 'fuel' up the car and house now for not much more nett cost ! Waiting for my car to be delivered in the next month !
Great interview. At the end he says it’s easy to pay. Does that mean in Britain that people can pay with their credit card? If so how did you get there from where we are in Canada and the States where you need multiple accounts, cards, apps and funds stored on each of these, in order to have any hope of driving longer distances without getting stuck somewhere, having counted on a fast charger, which is technically working, but which you can’t use. I recently had an issue, where I couldn’t update my payment card, because I couldn’t recall the number of my long defunct credit card which I had used on signing up with this network years ago.
More to the point, ALL points integrated into a common map, with navigation an indication of current availability and cost. With THAT in place, you KNOW you're going there based on "advice" from the car.... Not so much need for signage. When you REACH the location, I would suggest a "traffic light" system on the chargers Red: Out of Order Orange: (Car parked at the unit) "Available soon" Green: Charger Available. This would allow a Quick Scan by the driver to pick an empty, or soon to be open charger. (Tesla already has "in car" status... that's another alternative?)
Fixed charges, like the standing charges he mentioned, get spread over the number of people that use it. A 20,000 pound fixed charge spread over 20,000 users is 1 pound per charge. If only 500 use it, 40 pounds per charge, if 100,000 us it, 20 pence per charge.... .Chargers that are not used much could lose bucket loads of money, frequently used chargers are cash cows. Tesla membership, with the monthly fee, contributes to the standing charges allowing the cost per KW to be lower.
It is such a pleasure to find that Imogen has found a guest who is an expert in his field and actually answers her questions in a reasonable amount of detail. Charging location and planning is more involved than I had imagined and I enjoyed hearing all about it!
I have a massive amount of respect for Ian. He's always been so open and transparent in all conversations I've had with him. Plus, in my experience Osprey are one of the most reliable networks in the UK with great kit and large parking spaces.
What a treat to hear someone in Ian Johnston’s position who is so clear in answering questions and giving explanations without the evasive waffle that so many senior people seem to go for 👍
This was a brilliant interview. I Learned a great deal. Thanks.
It’s interesting that our new age governments want to see the EV Industry completely pay its way from the get go. It’s a shame they don’t know much history in that the oil industry was overtly subsidised in development, freight and supply with no additional government charges. This went on for the first 50 years of oil then the subsidies evolved to covert subsidies still continuing to this day. Vested interests certainly know how to protect their investments and stuff environmental externalities.
Still subsidized.
Still offered tax breaks for North sea exploration by last government
IMF -"Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $7 trillion or 7.1 percent of GDP in 2022"
Subsidies can be both explicit and implicit in nature. In the UK whilst explicit subsidies have phased out in line with industry maturity they still exist, particularly in regards to remaining high risk financial / speculative areas, whereas implicit subsidies remain largely unaddressed (and before suggested tax does not cover them).
One of the best and most informative podcasts to date. Ian explains everything clearly and precisely and gets behind some of the big issues. It is encouraging that the Labour government is seen to be on the front foot of promoting the transition, and assisting with getting planning beauracracy reduced. It is fascinating that Rishi Sunak's 'promise' to put back ZEV to 2035 was an election gimmick and had no grounding in law! More of these please.
What a great interview. Really interesting to hear Ian debunking some of the warped media coverage on the topic of pricing and planning approvals. How can anyone justify the leap from £99 to £8700 for standing charges?!?! Mind blowing! Nice job Imogen.
Brilliant interview and subject, this shines a light on the complete rubbish that many press outlets, media channels and journalists have been pushing just to get clicks. Thank you imogen and Ian, and Everything Electric Show.
I learned more about the problems and opportunities around charging in this podcast than I have sifting through articles online.
Impartial and extremely informative.
Thank you!
That was the best remote interview I've seen, both in style and content. I enjoyed every minute, quite apart from the very informative content.
Fantastic to hear Ian Johnston and someone who actually knows his business like the back of his hand. I now have a little more care for the high costs they have to pay to operate, which has pushed up prices. I hope that we can get to a point that these are well reduced in the future and we can see sub 50p per kWh soon.
50p is Huge...That's A$1 per kWh..! If you can't charge at home, it's not worth it. It's dearer than petrol at 50p.
@ our home electric in the UK standard price is around 30p per kWh. So 50p is what we had 3 or 4 years ago for rapid charging. Also petrol is around £6.50 per gallon.
@@PeroniPete it is not that dear in Ausi.
Really great podcast and guest, keep it up Fully Charged team🤩🤩
Great episode with an extremely knowledgeable AND VERY REASONABLE guest! I get frustrated with people on the margins of the debate being ... ummm ... extreme. Ian Johnston and Osprey Charging seem remarkably sensible! What a pleasure and delight.
I appreciate the challenges Osprey and others face, however I’ve just charged at a Tesla Supercharger at 39p/kWh and the Osprey charger down the road is 79p/kWh. Hence I’ve never used them and never will unless I’m in a pinch.
If one network is able to offer that service and price, others should be able to also…
Congratulation Everything Electric team for a very informative show. The costs of increase mentioned is mind blowing.
So Imogen as an engineer you'll already know
every action creates a reaction. You and your teams reaction to those horrendous cost increases must be to find out who instigated them and why and more importantly where does that money go, who profits from it.
Could this lead to a podcast with Ofgem?
The Octopus guy I would be sure is driving home tonight in his 5 series BMW!
@@marviwilson1853 I can tell you the guy driving a 5 series bmw is not the problem by a long shot.
@@marviwilson1853 you could start up your own company and get one too.
It would be good to see more interviews like this with articulate specialists who can explain (sometimes fairly complex) situations coherently and objectively, and without marketing hype.
The comments on planning and permits would probably apply equally to so many aspects of infrastructure development, not just charging stations.
Extremely interesting and informative, and could probably provide a few bullet points for Robert Ll's occasional rants.
Agree, this and the Greg Jackson one recently, have been some of the best interviews around of late - clear, informative and even aspiring as to what the future may look like.
Talk about putting EV charging in a Nutshell, EPIC interview.
Very interesting to hear such clarity and honesty from an industry leader!
What makes you think that those in the private sector are clear and honest? Look what Volkswagen and no doubt all manufacturers did to us recently. Never believe those who do what they do when the bottom line is to make money.
@@marviwilson1853 you obviously do not own a business then.
@ I used to.
Great interview pointing out how we can achieve EV adoption acceleration in the UK. From a business viewpoint there must be many opportunities/ frustrations/ problems to solve, but please realise the UK is a long way ahead of many countries in EV and charging terms. I am based in Spain right now and both grants for EVs, permissions for planning and grid connection is sclerotic....easily 2 years for EV grants and much more for charging points. The market is characterised by government spending here, not private innovation - the net result is the chargers go in, break down and never get fixed as the grant has been spent. Don't beat yourself up guys, you are flying the flag for the work that you all do! Thanks and greetings from Spain.
Thank you for the explanation of charging costs and prices.
I'm in New York and it made my head spin.
Probably one of the most informative pod casts I have ever listened to well done. The one thing I don’t understand with regard to retail prices is how does Tesla manage to charge significantly less than all the other networks. I assume they are subject to the exact same site and supply charges as everyone else and yet they remain .20p to .30p kWh cheaper than their competitors.
It may be their storage batteries on site, the strategy is to buy power when it is cheap, store it, then charge more for it when people 'fill up' their evs.
Tesla aren't trying to make a profit from their charging hubs. They're in the business of selling cars.
@@robinbennett5994 I think you are mistaken there, Tesla want to make a buck wherever they can! Why else open their Supercharger network to other brands?
Makes my top 5 Everything Electric Show podcasts!
Rapid charging is simply too expensive, needs to be 20p -30p lower per kWh, this would increase adoption by customers who don't have driveways/home charging. Tesla seem to be able to manage it ?
You could make them 20-30p cheaper if you replaced the charger with a diesel generator. If nothing else it makes the point how ridiculously expensive the public charging network is.
In Australia, Tesla is the most expensive ar 80 cents kWh. BP is very good, just too few of them.
Marvin, ma house my father inherited from his father burned down this week, because of you climate deniers. Just like the health insurance companies with their delay, deny, depose, you killed people over the last year in Spain, Brazil and now Los Angeles.
@@PeroniPeteTesla have by far the most chargers, and they’re always ultra reliable.
The price varies depending on location and time, however I’ve never paid anything like 80c/kWh at a Tesla Supercharger.
did you watch the video? and can you afford a Tesla?
My jaw dropped listening to this in particular from 40:20
Imogen is brilliant at these complex interviews. Why was this kept from us until now?
What is needed is to ease the installation of low power charge points, at home, at work, at hotels, etc.
Did is right! We need more level 2 charging!
It's already pretty easy to install at home - if you own the house. We need incentives for things like landlords, employers and hotels. Norway has a legal "right to charge" for tenants and employees, which shows the way forward.
@@robinbennett5994 We also have a "right to have a plug" in France ("droit à la prise"), you can install a charge point if you have access to a garage or a parking spot, even if you are renting. But it is far from being the case all over Europe. And last week I was at an hotel with only one charge point, while there were about 100 parking spots and many EVs. And of course the charge point was in use when I arrived, and not free before I left. Simple 7 kW charge points would be enough in hotels, and 11 kW just perfect, but not just one. It must be mandatory.
Very informative. One of the best podcasts. I wish our government in Alberta were as supportive.
Great interview and information.
I'm happy that there's an actual car maker in the charging infrastructure group too.
Very informative discussion.
Workplace charging is the way to go to trickle charge cars while people work all day, and solar power can directly feed that
Many people are retired or work for really small companies. Many builders don’t have a yard.
'Trickle charge' implies not much power being used. 7.4kW is actually a lot.
More people are working from home, so work park is home. Currently at the moment then realistically EV work for people that can home charge. There will be some exceptions but on channels then the vast majority are people that home charge.
@@jeremylister89 3.5kw are suitable for workplace charging, that is trickle charging for a 64kwh battery.
@@malcolmsutton6740 3.5kW is not a trickle charge,. Trickle charge definition only maintains a battery charge balancing charge and discharge currents.
3.5kW is nearly 15 amps charge rate.(x how many cars?). A trickle charge would probably be below 10 watts just to maintain the cars monitoring electronics. 3.5kW is more than an electric kettle = quite significant
The one thing most people don't see is that charging an EV is not the same as filling a petrol/diesel tank. For a lot of people they charge at home on their drive and don't have to visit a public charger.
Lot's of people don't have a driveway so they need to have charging available very close to their home but this doesn't have to be a rapid charger as they could plug in overnight and charge while they sleep.
The other opportunities are hotels/b&b's (so when you are staying overnight you can charge while you sleep which will then reduce the necessity to charge en route) or at work places so you can slowly charge throughout the day.
This is the point I keep making to people who complain they don't have a place to charge at home.
While their car may not be right outside their front door, it is parked _SOMEWHERE_ for several hours every night, so all they need (via the local council or landowner) is an electric supply to that location.
Most drivers don't drive 200 or more miles every day, if they do than maybe current EVs will not work for them, but for everyone else it's already feasible.
I think it will be the case that charging at home will disappear in the same way that "dial up internet" has disappeared in the computer world. Once we have batteries that allow 500 miles between chargers no one will have any need anymore to charge at home. As with petrol you will fill up at Asda once a week when you do your shopping.
@marviwilson1853 Except for cost and convenience.
@@marviwilson1853 Dial up internet was replaced with better, cheaper, constant wifi connection at home, we didn't stop using wifi at home.
Home charging is still cheaper and more convenient than charging anywhere else, and I see no reason that would ever change.
@@marviwilson1853
Batteries will never "allow 500 miles between charges".... Because they don't NEED to.
They WILL (continue to) out-range the driver and charge quickly..... WHILE the driver is accomplishing the task for which they made the journey.
You're close! You actually gave PART of the answer.... "Fill up at Asda when you shop".
NOW extend that to.... Drive to meet a friend in town, at the gym, at a restaurant, at the local shopping centre, etc.... *And charge sufficiently while you're there to MORE than offset THAT journey* (Both ways)
Or, Commute to work (What's the average commute?) and charge WHILE WORKING sufficient to return home *Then back to work the next day* (Essentially shifting the "start point" for the "charging day" from "Home 19.00" to "Work 09.00") still "24 hours", but a different range.
Anyway, MOST commutes will require once per week charging for most vehicles.
Even Business users can make it work.
My case.
Not an EV driver.... But.....
Field Service Technician
Home based.
Expected to attend 3-5 customers per day on average.
To achieve that target, my company wants me working an area, with MINIMAL travel and MAXIMUM "time on site".
MAXIMUM travel time should be 60 miles/ 1 hour..... Because Travel time is INEFFICIENT.
The AVERAGE would be let's say 15 miles (Probably less)
So the average 4 calls, including travel to the first and to home would be 75 miles. (3 miles/ kWh? that's 25 kWh for "steady state")
I *should* stop for a 1 hour lunch break.
I'm going to assume that increasingly, the places where i stop, usually on major routes, or urban areas, will have "charging opportunity" (As you said.... "Asda", etc)
As I go to the store, grab a sandwich, use the facilities, and sit in the car for.... 45 minute total, an 11kW charger would provide a very useful top up, or a "Supercharger across the road" would leave me on 80% from 20% in most cases...... and that's without the potential of "destination charging" *while I work* .
.
I would not need or Want a "500 mile battery".
I am occasionally tasked with driving to Manchester (or Similar) for a Tech Support call.
220(ish) miles each way.
3-4 hours (I WILL hit at least one rush hour! You Can't *average* more than 65mph even with "enthusiastic" driving in the early morning)
I routinely stop for 30 + minutes on the way up and 45 on the way down (Knackered by then).
Even That is sufficient to obtain enough to cover the journey.
It's a "Non-problem"
Repair of faulty chargers is an issue especially where there aren't many chargers. In locations where it's quite a few miles between chargers when one goes down it's a Big problem
In Aberdeen it's much improved in the last couple of years but with e.g. Charge Place Scotland when one goes down if it needs a visit it's often weeks until it's fixed, I've seen chargers out of use for months, one for over 6 months, weeks is PAR for the course, months not unusual !
I feel there should be penalties for companies that own the chargers but don't keep them in working order.
Same thing happened in the USA, chargers were installed, then vandalized or broke of their own accord, and now take up space that should house a working charger.
That was one of the best podcasts that I've watched, Imogen is a great interviewer and Ian was very clear and open with his answers. It was interesting to hear him say that range anxiety and lack of infrastructure concerns have largely been overcome now, whenever my many doubting friends go on about range anxiety I just say that the only people who think it's a problem for EVs are ICE drivers who know nothing about owning an EV.
Wow! what a great informative podcast, and from me, as someone who lives on the other side of the planet, (NZ). I am so impressed with Osprey and Gridserve in the way they are cutting through the red tape to make things happen in a more timely fashion. Our new government is of the same thinking, they have come up with a 'fast track' system to get things done, like roads and railways etc, before we all die of old age!
We did a 5 week visit to the UK to see my old homeland for one last time in June 2024, I was amazed at how many wind turbines we saw off in the distant ocean, and also as a contrast, in your face, on the side of the motorways too! very impressed. When we visited Scotland to see Nessie, the locals told us they have more wind than all of Europe combined, I had to chuckle, but there is definitely more wind up there than in Hampshire. We saw less evs there compared to NZ even though the percentage of sales is more in the UK, but you have to keep in mind the total number of vehicles on the road over there. We have a lot of Korean and Chinese evs plus Teslas of course, Euro is too expensive in comparison. I own an MG ev, and very happy with it too. We are fortunate in that over 80% of our power is renewable, which helps. Hope one day these companies will come to the NZ market to push things along a bit more.
Such an interesting interview, lots of information I had no idea about - particularly around public charging and the costs levied on the charging companies. Imogen is a great host and although it was an almost hour long it went at a good pace without feeling rushed.
"It's not electrons that are the problem, it's pieces of paper." I'm going to use that quote.
One of the best interviews that I have heard on the subject. I've been driving EV for 11 years from the solo (and free) Ecotricity days until now. I used the Osprey chargers at Chesterfield Football club some weeks ago, very easy to use. Now I understand the high prices!
Retail parks can also be excellent sites for destination charging. Their car parks are unused outside of business hours and they could be used for long stay EV charging as cheap prices.
Retail parks also need to look at their ANPR policies so that EV drivers can charge out of hours confident that they will not be penalised by ANPR systems.
It's a great point and maybe the future. All really works when we have a 500 mile single charge battery. Then we would think about "refuelling" as we do now with petrol cars. Once a week at ASDA while we do our weekly shopping. Supermarkets have always been in the petrol game so electric charging would seem to be of interest to them. As with petrol, price competition between super markets should keep prices competitive. One can imagine every parking space with a charger. Maybe a covered roof with solar panels.
I was thinking more in terms of the people who live within walking distance of ASDA and who haven’t got off street parking. They could leave their cars overnight at a cheap 7kW charger.
@@roppenheimer12 It's a great idea for now although how many people who have an EV and who live within walking distance of supermarkets who also don't have home charging I'm not so sure. For me, our approach to charging should not be based on todays technology but on what is coming.
Thanks Ian and Imogen a great podcast. Gives a great insight into the constraints and economics of setting up a charging network. Sounds as if there might be an opportunity or two for the installation and operating costs to reduce but I have a feeling it will be transferred elsewhere.
If the standing charge has increased from £99 to £8600 where is the money going and what is being done with it?
Is it National Grid, the major electric generators or the Government that is sucking up the standing charge money?
Great interview, what would have been nice to hear is why there is such a disparity between Rapid charging stations within the UK, as little as 40p kWh, as much as 90p kWH. At the lower end rapid charging is a little cheaper than petrol or diesel. At the upper end it is almost twice as expensive.
I think it's called corporate greed in the name of shareholder profits and fat CEO salaries, the bane of modern society.
I think it's called "Tesla providing a "necessary service" while others look for Profit from Day 1"?
Time for "a word in their ear" by Government?
Parity point with the average petrol car is 72p for the average long-range EV and 60p for the all EV average. With the parity point shifting upwards as battery densities rise and BEVs become even more efficient.
p.s. Community charging (such as Shell ReCharge community charging ) is now starting to be offered across the country as low as 20/25p per kWh (typically at 11kWh speeds).
If it is more expensive to charge away from home and more expensive than petrol then people will keep their petrol cars.
@GruffSillyGoat I disagree parity point is about 50p kWh with the current cost of fuel. My car averages 3.5 miles per kWh across the year which isjust over 14p a mile. My last car a petrol averaged about 15p a mile and petrol is a bit cheaper now.
Some fantastic and fascinating insight into the ZEV mandate. Thank you!
Excellent thanks.
Brilliant interview. Thank you.
Insightful and informative. Thanks!
Encouraging information for the future charging networks in UK. I would be grateful if you could find a similar spokesperson when you are in Australia later this year. I hear nothing of private investment in charging networks here, especially in the West where I live. Most of our public charging is still in back alleys and not in destination areas like shopping centres. Thanks Imogen.
Just on public charging cost, I perfectly accept it will be more than charging at home, but many rapid chargers charge so much, it works out more expensive than a car running in Dino fuel. It needs to be lower than that, regardless of the type of charger.
Yep Dave takes it on worked out that if you rely on fast chargers then it is cheaper to use an ICE car.
I would have thought the opposite actually based on economies of scale. It has always been the case in economics that if you buy more of something then you get it cheaper. The amount of power going through a public charger per day compared to a domestic home must surely make the wholesale price of electricity cheaper. You would not need to add much to the KwHr price to recoup installation costs over many years of use. The whole thing should be nationalized anyway.
First who still believes petrol comes from
Dead dinosaurs. Second charging at home can be 5-10x cheaper! It’s madness how complicated and expensive it is to charge out and about! I would never buy electric car if I did not have ability to charge at home, Tesla been only exception
@@DersimLondon Could not agree more. I would only buy an EV if I could pay for power as I do at home. I might even have a case for asking for even lower public charging prices given economies of scale.
@@DersimLondon - why does owing Tesla make a difference, their network is open to other makes of EVs at many locations with lower charging rates, even without membership (their just even more cheaper with membership).
Thank you, that was so informative, interesting and reassuring.
isn't there a part of the puzzle missing here? isn't the price of electricity artificially linked to the most expensive way of generating it? (running gas turbines)... please correct me if I'm wrong.
Worth remembering that the same people pointing their fingers at EVs for car factory closures are very often the same people who pushed through brexit which has made the UK far less desirable as a manufacturing base.
Brexit still living rent free in your head.
@@RuislipResident-v7p
Except Brextwit has NEVER been "rent FREE".
@ruislipresident-v7p you can’t just dismiss actual consequences of the stupidity of Brexit as “haha get over it”. It just makes you sound like a cretin.
What I really want to see is provision made for EV's towing caravans and trailers. Currently, I have to abandon my caravan in the lorry park at most services on the motorway, and then drive the wrong way up the one-way system, to get back to the chargers in the main carpark. Otherwise, I would have to leave my caravan at the lorry park, leave the services via the exit onto the motorway, go to the next junction, double back to the services, and charge in the carpark. This would use up an additional 20 to 30 miles of range before I get to charge. Not good when towing reduces my 300 mile range to 100 miles anyway.
The only way I can circumvent this, is by travelling very early in the morning, and hogging a number of spaces with my caravan, whilst I un-hitch to charge my car. Some serious thought needs to be applied to the layout of these places.
Great video - great guest 😁👍
Hooray! Someone has finally asked and had answered WHY the kWh cost on a fast or a rapid is what it is. Coincidentally the article on the BBC website this morning about EV adoption in Norway demonstrates that EV adoption is driven best by carrot & stick, rewarding EV adoption & disincentivising ICE. One of the easiest levers to pull is to make electric “fuel” the same as or cheaper than fossil fuel per mile. So the reason for change becomes financial rather than environmental.
I loved this podcast. Such positive news and what I really wanted to hear and can pass onto my friends who are curious but need that push to get them over the start line.
Fascinating episode.
Brilliant podcast! 👏 A lot of useful information 👍 Happy to heart that a progress is being made to bring the charging cost down hopefully
£8,600 standing charge, and over £19,000 capacity charge!? Good eduational interview.
Great interview
Excellent podcast, some of the obstacles are a lot clearer to me now.
Thank you to you both for a wonderful podcast.
This was a really great interview.
It's true that we don't need even provision of chargers everywhere, but there are blackspots. If I drive to the Hebrides for a holiday (which I have done a few times in the past), where is there an ultra-rapid charger in the outer Hebrides (there isn't one)? Or Skye? or Fort William? Or Kintyre? On Anglesey? Or the Llyn Peninsula? Where are there enough ultra-rapid chargers in Cornwall for the number of EVs there in peak holiday season? These are some of the gaps that need filling.
That was great. Thank you.
Unfortunately here in Australia I’d say charging infrastructure is worse now in many respects than it was when we bought our Tesla five years ago! There are a HUGE number of additional EVs on the road, and the rollout of additional chargers has simply not kept pace. Driving a long distance now at holiday time is very risky unless you’re happy to join a queue.
It’s unfortunate that so many more brands have arrived, yet none of these new brands are investing in charge equipment. Tesla is the only car company that is doing this- and demand for their chargers is often such that we face long queues at busy times.
Thanks for such an informative interview
Great interview !
It should be compulsory for supermarkets to have solar panels on their south facing roofs
I second this motion
Johnfrancis, I see all of that empty roof space as having tremendous value! Over the developed regions of the Earth, there is a tremendous amount of roof and parking lot and other urban space that would be appropriate for solar panels. And, the energy produced would be used in the immediate area of the chargers. And, they would mesh with home and utility scale batteries and also car charging.
Here in France it's now obligatory to install solar panels on any new carparks larger than 100 spaces (from memory?) ... Why? Shade, simpler to wire, simpler to maintain. There's a glut of companies now that will build a farmer a free barn, as long as they can cover it with panels! Local riding centre just did it, free covered exercise yard and in 20 years' time the lot is his. (Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse, but figures suggest they'll still be 80% efficient, that'll be a big fat cheque from the grid regardless!)
@ France is much sunnier. It makes sense to reduce the searing effects of the sun. Well done France.
Easy to pay is still one of the main challenges here in Belgium today. Too many apps/cards limiting where you can charge even when a free charger is available.
Does Belgium have regulation to simplify the charging of apps/cards?
The UK has sought to head this issue off in two ways - introduction of regulation (that came into force last year) that all new and existing rapid/ultra-rapid chargers must offer contactless debit/credit card payment, and the adoption and roll-out of the Park and Charge standard where the car provides the payment details to the charger directly.
Further, although not coming into force till later this year the same UK regulations mandate payment roaming and open payment and information standards (OCPP and OCPI), meaning one will no longer be tied to a particular payment service for chargers; say turning up at a Tesla charger but paying via Octopus's Electroverse (or whatever preference the driver has for payment).
@GruffSillyGoat all sounds good to me.
I love my EV and charge exclusively from home. I also have solar panels which pay for me to fill my battery. I certainly wouldn’t be interested in an EV if I couldn’t charge from home. Even if the infrastructure meant plenty of convenient chargers I still wouldn’t be tempted - never enjoyed visiting petrol stations and that was just for a few minutes so anything making that a longer experience is a big negative for me. I expect a lot of people who do not have the luxury of home charging will think like this. Forcing this take up will cause a lot of resentment, we need to tolerate a mix. I can’t see an easy way to solve this.
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for sharing.
Really interesting episode !!
Interesting and informative piece, had a bit of a nightmare with broken and 'under maintenance' chargers this weekend, one of them an Osprey charger but at least it explains the breathtaking costs of rapid charging and the difficulties just getting charge sites established. Thanks for the video.
Superb interview and really educational. Well done Imogen 😊
We so need more medium rate and slow charging in places where people will stop for a while.
Fast charging is too fast for most businesses.
Nice to hear confirmation of the need for charging related to housing. Osprey charging in Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset is a local case. Thanks for the design these homes have no home charging but there is demand for EVs. Thanks 😊
I was shocked on my last trip from MID Wales to South Coast just how many chargers have had their cables cut, Kidderminster 3 charging spot found unusable. Even in Hereford at the HQ of Polar all 8 charges had lasted there cables cut clean off. What's the industry doing about this?
I'm awaiting delivery of our disabled sons motability EV van this week - eek (been waiting 6 months). In the meantime, I've been educating myself on charging, the network and even popping along to see where chargers are, on the major routes we tend to use and have installed an EV charging point at home. I have found you do have to 'tune out' the naysayers, as there are so many.
Mid Wales is a nightmare. All the A roads are very busy in the summer, especially the holidays. One look on Zapmap shows how many rapid there are between Welshpool and the coast. Almost none and still very few destination chargers at the beach towns.
There's still the misconception that only fast DC charging matters. It makes more sense to have a slow AC charger outside a cinema theatre or supermarket than 32 super fast DC ones on the side of the motorway. I like the example of expending more in places you wouldn't have visited if not for the charger, I've found myself doing that too
Sadly with onboard chargers in most UK delivered cars being 7kW single phase, destination charging at opportunity locations (gym, supermarket, restaurant complex etc) will always be ‘a bit too slow’. It’s a real shame that 22kW isn’t standard across all cars. All the recently upgraded destination chargers in Dorset (Mer units, double headed type2) are 22kW, yet very few cars can utilise that.
@@dorsetengineering exactly, 22 kw AC chargers are common in my area but almost no car accept that. A pity because that's the sweet spot for speed while shopping. I spent about 30-40 minutes shopping, 7kw may fall short but the 50kw or 100kw DC that I find some places overshoot and we don't want to reach 100% and then remain idle until you finish shopping or eating
Why would I plug in at the cinema for ££££ when I can charge at home for next to nothing?
How would slow charging at a cinema help me drive from Newcastle to Cornwall?
The charging network is tailored to who has EVs at present and how they use them. It's tailored to people who already have home charging. Because people who don't have home charging by and large don't have an EV.
We need both. In particular more low powered chargers outside cinemas etc for those who cant charge at home, will get people used to Always Be Charging (ABC) so doing 2 hours at the cinema, an hour at the supermarket, 3 hours at the mall, etc, rather than taking the petrol model of one single visit.
@Joe-lb8qn or 7 hours at work. Commuting there is the main use of a car and the ideal destination charger.
Really interesting to understand the underlying costs and the levers that can be pulled to improve public charging prices. Also great that CPOs are largely all on the same page 🙂
Another great podcast with a well rounded subject. I will take away much of this information to bolster my talks against the anti EV side.
I’m a great fan of Osprey, but this is a very informative insight into to costs behind the Public Charging infrastructure - maybe skip to near the end to know more
Good interview, thanks. Shame that Tesla’s ability to offer much lower costs was not addressed, even non Tesla’s pay a lot less than Osprey charge.
Tesla subsidise superchargers from their other businesses, an option that isn't open to charging networks where charging is the whole business model.
@@tsedge99do they choose to subsidise non Tesla drivers then?
@@jeremydavies4620 tesla are likely not making money on their supercharger business using it as advertising and brand building component, remember free long distance superchargering. Also as they have plenty of cash they not paying lots of debt interest unlike Pure ev charger companies that have to borrow money at market interest rates plus risk premium since long pay back period so lot of money being sunk in that take long time to pay ax outline in this podcast margins are not good as utilisation is not were it needs to be, but over tome a bet is being made that change later this decade.
it may be because they use their own storage batteries to harness the energy when cheap and then sell it on when it is not.
First time I here anyone mentioning the standing charge! I have been considering this in my choice of supplier for a long time.
For a public charger that is in use 24 hours per day, 365 days a year it adds peanuts to the price of the KwHr. He is being very misleading to justify their profiteering and talking about the Ukraine War - oh deary me!!!!
That was a very good interview, thanks. My only question is, considering the costs are as explained, why do Tesla charge so much less than others: example Tesla is 62p, IONITY 74p, GRIDSERVE 79p (trip planned 14Jan at 1850hrs - Cheshire to Eurotunnel). There’s a 27% price difference?
Planned on ABRP …
It was touched on very briefly about low wattage charging for people without the ability to charge at home. That is the area that see no real growth. A few pilot schemes but nothing major and nothing in the numbers required.
In my area in a small town being doubled in size by 2500 new houses, the new houses get chargers, 1 rapid and 5 fast plus a lot of houses with drives but houses without drives being built are in the hundreds a handful of chargers don’t scratch the surface. There is an existing housing estate with no private parking, all is common, nothing has been added and it’s a mile walk to the handful of chargers in the new build.
Building regulations should have been sorted 5 years ago. Local government should be putting in what is required and getting appropriate charging infrastructure included in housing estate planning.
Talk to the supermarket you use for your weekly shop..... etc.
There's no reason your charge HAS to be at, or adjacent to your "Home Location".
@ I need a daily charge or 2, running 3 evs. So that would mean doing at least a weekly shop a day. All we have are small shops and a small Tesco metro.
My personal charging requirement isn’t the issue.
The issue is that we need to charge almost every car once a week (maybe more). Overnight charging seems to be the best and that requires a lot of 7 or 11 kw chargers. In my area 1 public 11kw charger per 1000 houses with half of them brand new is pathetic, predicable and incredibly stupid.
Brilliant video with the right questions and right understanding answers. Thanks for producing this video.. one thing on the price of public charges. Can't we just generate our own uk electricity and get the prices down or even store it battery farms to help price reductions. What is Tesla doing to keep thier charges lower and others are not..
I want charging at gyms and movie theaters!!! Lots and lots of slow charging at gyms and movie theaters!
Finally went electric with a Tesla model y. Best car I’ve ever owned. All my fears have been squashed after only 6 months of ownership. Home charging is key. If you can set up a simple home charging station like I did it’s simple, inexpensive and so convenient. I’ve only used a public super charger 4 times in 6 months. 3 times on a road trip and once just to show my daughter how. I charge at home for a couple dollars a day 99 percent of the time. The Tesla chargers are great and super fast when needed.
And some people think a standing charge of 50p per day is outrageous! With a standing charge of £8600 and capacity charge of £19000 per year, sounds like a recipe for battery-based DC chargers to flourish...
Its just a utilisation problem, it goes away it busy sites. They will have big challenge with incentives to get people to do ubiquitous. V2G
I have just run the SMMT stats for PARC & NEW SALES YOY for last 5 years for BEV, PHEV, Light Goods & Heavy Goods, however the data does not define what is business and what is personal, which is a fundamental equation required to quantify investment for Chargers for either Domestic or Commercial markets regardless of location. It is a supply and demand requirement.
With the UK having a week's worth of gas supplies the other day, can the national grid support all the new charging infustucture? We may be able to install more chargers but can we power them?
Yes (he says so several times during the interview and the national grid have explicitly said that demand from EV charging will not be a problem)
Well.... The Fact that the UK used more energy from wind and solar than from Gas in the last 12 months should help.
We should also consider that a very substantial percentage of the Gas used would have been for Heating, not Electricity generation.
It's moving in the right direction (AND we shut the lat Coal plant in September, so that's great!)
It never ceases to amaze me how little everybody, and most concerning the charging networks themselves, understands about where public chargers need to be. You keep forgetting that unlike ICE cars, EVs can charge pretty much anywhere there's electricity, which means charging is already available EVERYWHERE in cities. The biggest thing that keeps people from buying EVs is the fact that there is no charging in the places they want to travel. In other words, the chargers need to be installed in REMOTE locations, out of the way places and especially places where electricity is otherwise unavailable.
Here's the thing: for people to buy EVs, they need to be assured that the EV can do ANYTHING and go ANYWHERE their ICE vehicle could. Like the insanity that asserts small batteries and short-range "city car" EVs are fine, refusing to put chargers where they are most needed is just ensuring that the masses will NOT buy EVs, regardless of how low the prices might go. An EV can't just replace an ICEV for "most" trips, it has to replace the ICEV for *EVERY* trip. Every single one. That means both having enough range to reasonably travel across continents without having to stop every hour to charge and being certain that no matter where you go you will be able to find a quick charger.
There's also a huge opportunity that is being completely ignored. Elon Musk initially promised that all Superchargers would be powered directly by renewable energy, but like most of his other broken promises he backpedaled and every single one of them is connected to the grid. The charging networks would be *WAY* ahead if they would cover every charging location (not just the charging bays, but the whole parking lot) with solar panels and add a wind turbine to every site. Of course the power generation would need to be complemented with sufficient storage. Not only would that eliminate any issues with power access or any concerns about stressing the grid, it would eliminate their energy cost (the infrastructure would be paid for in only a few years and there would be very little overheads thereafter) and make it possible to charge customers far less. It would make installing chargers in remote locations incredibly easy without having to worry about how to connect to the grid. There are NO down sides. Even the significant initial investment would be easily amortized.
I disagree chargers need to EVERYWHERE in remote locations.
Your mobile phone doesn't have a signal everywhere. Even now about 5% of the UK doesn't have signal good enough for basic Internet. You would not say that mobile phones are not useable.
To say that all UK public rapid charging needs to be powered only by solar and wind with battery battery backup and no grid connection is crazy. It would take up acres for just 1 charger and cost millions. Sure we should have a few more solar panels over them and no way without being connected to the grid.
We will soon have batteries that allow an EV to go 500 miles on a single charge. Once we have that then we are in a different world when it comes to thinking about charging infrastructure. We must never for see tomorrows problems by only taking into account todays technology.
@@marviwilson1853
No, we won't.
Can you say, hand on heart that you have EVER driven more than 300 miles in one go, without a break, in the UK?
@awo1fman
Enough with the "edge case" rubbish
@@rogerstarkey5390 The issue is not how long you can drive a car but how much range you add when refuelling. Nobody worries where the next petrol garage is with a 500 mile range ICE car and therefore no one will worry where the next charger is when you have a 500+ mile battery. Charging stations need to be no more common as petrol stations given they are all rapid chargers, in fact EV charging is better as it allows for a much wider array of potential charging locations. Every parking spot at a supermarket say.
Brilliant
3 comments.
1. Excellent podcast. Thankyou Imogen
2. Why is more use not being made of battery banks to reduce the capacity requirements of charging hubs?
3. In the same way that govt requires councils to have house building and equality/diversity policies, shouldn’t govt also insist that councils, hospitals, and schools have EV charging strategies, or are they waiting until it reaches crisis point? My local cities, towns and public facilities in the UK have woefully inadequate, and often zero charging facilities
Very interesting podcast, currently I don’t own a EV, but I would be more than happy to. They are just to expensive at the moment, for one that I would be happy to own. Hopefully in a year or two I will make that transition.
As an EV driver I must question your logic about Nissan’s future in the drive to EVs. It has been my experience while taking my car to be serviced that the amount of pure EVs in there show room is not showing any improvement in this regard. The only cars in there stoke is mostly around what they are calling E power. In other words they are what Toyota has been trying to do ie self charging hybrids, which has very small battery and a much larger ice engine. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking the Japanese automaker is interested in selling EVs in any shape or form. They have only one option, and that is to keep the hybrid vehicles going as long as they can.
There still aren't enough fast chargers at hotels for overnight charging.
Agree, I was not quite sure I was ready for an EV although I wanted to make that step and not whimp out and go for a hybrid. Held on until ICE car got to the end of its life but the transition came about a year after installing solar and home battery solution which saw us go from importing 3,000 kwh per year to only importing 1,000kWh and exporting 4+thousand to the grid. With the even better tariffs available for EV owners and smart charging I can actually 'fuel' up the car and house now for not much more nett cost ! Waiting for my car to be delivered in the next month !
Great interview. At the end he says it’s easy to pay. Does that mean in Britain that people can pay with their credit card? If so how did you get there from where we are in Canada and the States where you need multiple accounts, cards, apps and funds stored on each of these, in order to have any hope of driving longer distances without getting stuck somewhere, having counted on a fast charger, which is technically working, but which you can’t use. I recently had an issue, where I couldn’t update my payment card, because I couldn’t recall the number of my long defunct credit card which I had used on signing up with this network years ago.
When will there be better signage on motorways to show that chargers exist at a service area. May help spread the word to those thinking about an ev
More to the point, ALL points integrated into a common map, with navigation an indication of current availability and cost.
With THAT in place, you KNOW you're going there based on "advice" from the car.... Not so much need for signage.
When you REACH the location, I would suggest a "traffic light" system on the chargers
Red: Out of Order
Orange: (Car parked at the unit) "Available soon"
Green: Charger Available.
This would allow a Quick Scan by the driver to pick an empty, or soon to be open charger.
(Tesla already has "in car" status... that's another alternative?)
Fixed charges, like the standing charges he mentioned, get spread over the number of people that use it. A 20,000 pound fixed charge spread over 20,000 users is 1 pound per charge. If only 500 use it, 40 pounds per charge, if 100,000 us it, 20 pence per charge.... .Chargers that are not used much could lose bucket loads of money, frequently used chargers are cash cows. Tesla membership, with the monthly fee, contributes to the standing charges allowing the cost per KW to be lower.