All rapid chargers installed from spring 2020 have to accept one-off card payments
Have any regulations actually been enacted to make that happen? Government have powers under the
Automated and Electric Vehicles Act to introduce such regulations, but I hadn't heard of them actually doing so yet. In the summer, there was a
press release threatening to use those powers if chargepoint operators don't start doing it voluntarily. Usually, actual regulations are preceded by a consultation phase to resolve the details, and that doesn't appear to have happened.
So I suspect we will wait until spring 2020, then (if they aren't too busy with other matters) the Government will express their shock and surprise that these networks didn't do what they were asked and start consultation on regulations.
By way of comparison, we have the
Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulations (which were as a result of an EU directive and so are regulations under powers of the European Communities Act). Those regulations require chargepoint operators to provide "ad hoc access" - not requiring an subscription, but the definition has been interpreted to permit requiring you to download an app and create an account, so long as you can do that at the time you want to charge your car.
The timescale on that one was that the EU published their directive in 2014, UK Government produced a draft of the UK version and put it out for consultation for 1 month in Oct-Nov 2016, then the results were published in Sept 2017 and the regulations came into force Oct 2017, but they had a 'sunrise clause' such that the Ad-hoc requirements only applied to new chargepoints from Nov 2017 and old ones from Nov 2018.
I live in London next to a Source London charger so I subscribe to that network. I am in Bristol at present and see that the same company appear to have a Source West charger network (same logo, different app) which is incompatible.
It's not the same company. The similar logo reflects the history that several separate networks were set up under Government grant schemes.
These schemes were deliberately regional, and required separate organizations to make bids for funding; however, having won the funds the winning consortia (which often included academic institutions and/or local government) shared various resources. So Source East, Source London, Source West shared their logos.
Source East and Source London were set up under the Plugged In Places grants in 2010 with 3-year grant funding, the idea being that they should be self-supporting after that time. Source London was run by Transport For London, but when the funds ran out they sold the network to a commercial operator (who were apparently mainly interested in it for their car-sharing service). Source East was run by University of Hertfordshire, and it continued for some years in a zombie state with no funding to do anything until UoH eventually wound it up. Source West was funded under a different scheme, fronted by the local councils, but with operations initially subcontracted to ChargeYourCar (which was another of the original PiP grant recipients). CYC was later bought out by Chargemaster, as was Plugged In Midlands.
