Call for civil disobedience - Northampton Supercharger

[SeanG]

Stop the rot !! The Campanile Northampton Supercharger has been contracted out to ParkingEye and they are now extorting £100 from every Tesla driver who does not leave their car unattended while charging to go and register at a terminal in the hotel. This is not stopping ICE'ing - an ICE driver can still park in a charging bay and if they register they don't get fined!!

As we all know, lots of Superchargers are placed at the remotest end of car parks - a good thing to avoid ICE'ing, but no good at all if ParkingEye take over - they will oblige you to leave your car unattended.

1. disabled drivers
2. vulnerable drivers at night
3. drivers with vulnerable passengers who do not want to be left alone
4. dyslexic drivers who cannot type out their car registration .... ;-)

will not be well served if ParkingEye win any new contracts to supervise Tesla Superchargers.

If you are at the Campanile Northampton REFUSE TO REGISTER !!!

 

[Xenoilphobe]

Slam the hotel on trip advisor, Yelp, and any other social medium. Once they tally up a bunch of one star ratings and it hits their revenue stream they will change the policy.

Parking Eye doesnt give a sheetz as the hotel pays them, so nail the hotel on every forum you can find and they will change the policy.

 

[malcolm]

Would also be worth contacting Myriam Attou, who has replaced Georg Ell.

 

[culverwood]

The same policy is in place at the Heathrow Hilton and the Superchargers are much further away from reception than the Northampton ones.

 

[WannabeOwner]

The car park don't want people to park in the car park and just abandon their cars there for hours, so they want everyone to register at hotel reception.

is that it, or is there some new, additional, requirement?

I've charged there often; there is a screen on the reception desk, you just put your REG in. Big signs by the chargin bays reminding you to do that.

I am sure the system is fully automated. Anyone who comes in the front gate, and stays for more than a few minutes, and does NOT register at Reception gets fined. If I've understood, and that is the whole deal and there are no new recent & more onerous changes, I can't see how they are going to do something different just for Tesla drivers.

This hotel location was one of the very early adopters that partnered with Tesla, before Newport Pagnel or any other Supercharger was available in that area, and I've been grateful to them on a number of occasions over the past two years.

P.S. I expect before they required register-to-park their carpark was stuffed with people dumping their cars there, its a prime location to "meet a colleague and head off in one car", I know I've done exactly that at Hotel carparks on the outskirts of Cambridge ...

 

[Peteski]

Slam the hotel on trip advisor, Yelp, and any other social medium. Once they tally up a bunch of one star ratings and it hits their revenue stream they will change the policy.

Parking Eye doesnt give a sheetz as the hotel pays them, so nail the hotel on every forum you can find and they will change the policy.

I would be very reluctant to slam any hotel that is providing Tesla Supercharging! I do use the Northampton chargers and to be fair I've never seen the Tesla bays ICED even though they are very close to the main entrance. Having to register is hardly a big inconvenience, as much as I hate 3rd party parking companies. At least the signs are pretty clear and the registration process is very straightforward on the screen in reception.

 

[WannabeOwner]

nail the hotel on every forum you can find and they will change the policy

Or tell Tesla to take their Chargers away ...

 

[SeanG]

Elon Musk said that Superchargers would never be a profit centre, I can't imagine he wanted nasty outfits like ParkingEye to turn a profit from them instead.

I've appealed against the fine of £100 on the basis that I wasn't parked at all - I was charging, and my appeal has been rejected. I have been contacted by other Tesla drivers who had also been fined at Northampton and had appealed BUT, their appeals have been ACCEPTED !! The difference? They are all in the UK and I'm not - I'm prepared to bet that Tesla drivers from abroad are more likely to be bullied into paying this extortionate fine and UK drivers are more likely to stand their ground, and so ParkingEye back off if you are from the UK and they press on if you aren't.

You can either stand up against this or expect it to roll out everywhere, and if it rolls out everywhere it will mean that whenever you stop to charge, whatever the shitty UK weather, no matter what your circumstances (disability, sole female driver at night, sleeping children in the back), you will have to walk away from your car and register within 10 minutes of arriving !!! If you don't then ParkingEye or some other scumbag company will attempt to slap a £100 fine on you.

BTW, I'm not paying, and I don't fancy their chances of success in my local (French) court.

 

[Whitmarsh]

Stop the rot !! The Campanile Northampton Supercharger has been contracted out to ParkingEye and they are now extorting £100 from every Tesla driver who does not leave their car unattended while charging to go and register at a terminal in the hotel. This is not stopping ICE'ing - an ICE driver can still park in a charging bay and if they register they don't get fined!!

As we all know, lots of Superchargers are placed at the remotest end of car parks - a good thing to avoid ICE'ing, but no good at all if ParkingEye take over - they will oblige you to leave your car unattended.

1. disabled drivers
2. vulnerable drivers at night
3. drivers with vulnerable passengers who do not want to be left alone
4. dyslexic drivers who cannot type out their car registration .... ;-)

will not be well served if ParkingEye win any new contracts to supervise Tesla Superchargers.

If you are at the Campanile Northampton REFUSE TO REGISTER !!!

This is a fuss about nothing. You don't have to leave the car unattended for more than a few minutes - the hotel reception is just opposite the SCs. Parking Eye are not supervising the chargers; they are supervising the whole of the car park in which the chargers happen to be. The hotel doesn't want its car park to be used without charge by people who go shopping nearby, so it makes most people pay; people charging are being given a concession by not being charged for parking - so you should be grateful.

 

[Tevvy]

I don't see the problem either. It literally takes 30 seconds. There are plenty of signs telling you to do it.

 

[WannabeOwner]

You can apply to the Ombudsman. I haven't paid a private-land parking fine yet, although it takes some of my time making a nuisance of myself ... but I figure it is their time & money too. They have to pay a fee if the issue is escalated ombudsman, so I get some satisfaction getting to that point ... and Ombudsman has found in my favour (i.e. contrary to the Parking Company's "internal investigation" there were actually mitigating circumstances ), or I refused to enter any discussion with them (when no Ombudsman involved) until it got to court and instructed them not to incur any further cost until that point. When they had Bayliffs contact me I send them a note reminding them that I had told them not to incur any further cost and that, as I had already informed them of the fact, that I would not be paying for the Bayliff's fee if the court found against me. Never heard from them again ...

 

[SeanG]

This is a fuss about nothing. You don't have to leave the car unattended for more than a few minutes - the hotel reception is just opposite the SCs. Parking Eye are not supervising the chargers; they are supervising the whole of the car park in which the chargers happen to be. The hotel doesn't want its car park to be used without charge by people who go shopping nearby, so it makes most people pay; people charging are being given a concession by not being charged for parking - so you should be grateful.

If this is a fuss about nothing would you care to pay my £100 fine? Or the fines of any other foreign tourists who have made the same mistake? The fine comes with a clear photo of the reg plate, confirmation that the car is a Tesla, and that I spent 38 minutes on site.
It isn't about stopping ICE cars from blocking charging bays - they just need to register and they can park where they like - as long as it is for less than one hour.
It isn't about making people pay, the car park is free and there are no shops nearby.
It might be about stopping people from parking all day while they go to work in the area, but Tesla drivers do not need to be caught up in this.
I spoke to the staff at the Campanile, they admitted that since the introduction of ParkingEye a lot of Tesla drivers were getting caught out - but that they had the fines cancelled on appeal. I think this might be true, at least for local UK drivers ... but I wonder how many non locals pay up, and how quickly this will become a revenue stream for ParkingEye. Musk said he had no intention of allowing Superchargers to become a profit center - I guess he meant for Tesla at least.

I don't live in the UK, and here in France private parking pirates like ParkingEye thankfully seem rare if non-existent, if you are so happy to have them then I wish you well, but I wonder how happy you will be when every UK Tesla Supercharger is in their grasp.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

On a broader note, I do think there will be a trend towards Super Chargers being in places you have to pay to use. Within NYC you have to choose either valet parking (so you pay the usual NYC parking fees and hand over your car to someone...) or there are a couple that are in paid parking but you can at least park yourself. Like the Brooklyn Museum/Botanical gardens which is $6 for an hour.

As the EV charging infrastructure grows, and as Super Chargers start to become congested (cars are rolling out quicker now than charging stations) there will be pressure to charge a fee for usage beyond the power usage at the station.

 

[MP3Mike]

As we all know, lots of Superchargers are placed at the remotest end of car parks - a good thing to avoid ICE'ing, but no good at all if ParkingEye take over - they will oblige you to leave your car unattended.

If the walk is an issue can't you stop at/near the reception desk to run in and register your car and then move to a charging stall?

 

[SeanG]

I don't see the problem either. It literally takes 30 seconds. There are plenty of signs telling you to do it.

If the walk is an issue can't you stop at/near the reception desk to run in and register your car and then move to a charging stall?

You are right.

It is odd though that Tesla can tell if my car has free supercharging or not, and then charge my credit card, and the ParkingEye service can tell that I own a Tesla (it says so on my £100 fine notice) and that I was on site for 38 minutes..... and yet If I had rolled up in a big fat Hummer and parked across three charging bays for 59 minutes, all I needed to do was run in and register, and there would have been no fine at all.

The staff at the Campanile say that a lot of Tesla drivers are being caught out, and as some of them are tourists like me, they will probably be bullied into paying, the UK drivers I have heard from have all appealed against the fine and had it cancelled, I had my appeal refused this morning .... I think me being "foreign" made ParkingEye more ambitious.

 

[Wooloomooloo]

You are right.

It is odd though that Tesla can tell if my car has free supercharging or not, and then charge my credit card, and the ParkingEye service can tell that I own a Tesla (it says so on my £100 fine notice) and that I was on site for 38 minutes..... and yet If I had rolled up in a big fat Hummer and parked across three charging bays for 59 minutes, all I needed to do was run in and register, and there would have been no fine at all.

OK, the world is unfair, we get it. At the same time, knowing what you know, why not just adjust your behavior slightly to get a better experience, rather than lamenting the unfairness of life.

As Banksy once said, the grumpier you are, the more assholes you'll meet.

 

[SeanG]

I don't see the problem either. It literally takes 30 seconds. There are plenty of signs telling you to do it.

According to the staff on site there are lots of Tesla drivers who don't notice the signs, or don't understand them, either way there are lots of fines being issued, and as far as I can tell so far, the UK drivers who appeal get the fine cancelled, and the tourists get bullied ... or at least that's my experience.
And as far as it taking 30 seconds ....... I'm impressed, and I hope it doesn't rain too hard next time you are there.
How about those less fit than you? or those who simply don't like walking around in the dark, lone female drivers etc.,
If ICE drivers at self service petrol pumps had to "register" or else suffer a £100 fine I think you'd see some direct action pretty quickly.

 

[SeanG]

OK, the world is unfair, we get it. At the same time, knowing what you know, why not just adjust your behavior slightly to get a better experience, rather than lamenting the unfairness of life.

As Banksy once said, the grumpier you are, the more assholes you'll meet.

LOL, not grumpy, more like amused at how relaxed some people are at being fleeced by private parking companies - I moved out of the UK to live in France a long time ago ... and over here the money grabbing antics that are normalised in the UK (and probably in the US too) are just unheard of ... if ParkingEye came over here I know how the French would react !!

 

[Subevo]

I used this very location on my first long distance trip.i was unsure what to do until another tesla driver said go into reception and register or you will be fined .which I did.luckily had no problems since as used them again on way back.
I wouldn't be happy either if it happened to me.
Also wife got a cup of tea and it was expensive and rotten as they use powdered milk which floats to the top.she wasn't amused.

 

[Asterix187]

So what you're actually annoyed about is that you got a fine because you didn't read the quite obvious signs or the info about the supercharger location on the car map?

The entrance is literally 10m away from the superchargers and the car reg unit (of which there are 3) are right on the counter as you walk in. It has never taken me more that 30 seconds to go to the desk, sign in and come back.

It's well lit and I would suggest that people are more likely to get attacked from the bushes whilst plugging in than walking across the road to the hotel front entrance.

Maybe next time just don't use it and go and pay 30p per kW at an Ecotricity pump on the M1 as it will be cheaper than getting a fine.