Nightmare! (Supercharger queues)

[GRiLLA]

Yes Tebay is woefully inadequate, particularly as it gets very slow when lots of people are charging, which then compounds the problem. As you say, it’s a critical point for the links to The Lakes and Scotland. As is Abington if you’re going to Scotland as it’s pretty much one charge from the Greater Manchester area. (In fact The Lakes really needs something before the Kendal junction, as Tebay is quite a detour if you visiting South/Central Lakeland).

Annadale Water charging hub is coming, with 9 x v3 chargers. There's also been persistent rumours about Tebay Northbound.

Wiki - UK and Ireland Supercharger Site News

Maybe Redbridge used to have a camera patrol but now they are checking you in and out very specifically (the posted video shows the entrance cameras) ... the Hozah system subsequently sends you an email with your times. But that's only if you're registered with Hozah. It's purely optional. The...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[thewishy]

There's also been persistent rumours about Tebay Northbound.

Given that the site is "coming Q1" on the tesla supercharger map, I'd say that we're far beyond a rumour at this point.

It does feel like Tesla are doing something about this "gap", Annadale will help, although that's not on the official tesla map yet, so presumably some quarters away.

 

[imstitch]

It's certainly a busy site these days (and the one I have most used) but I have never actually had to wait ... so clearly there are still slightly quieter times (I've probably shot myself in the foot now ... guaranteed to be delayed next time!). I believe the northbound side is due for Superchargers at some point so that would help enormously: Penrith - Tebay Northbound | Tesla Heading further north there is permission for 9 chargers at Annandale Water services according to supercharge.info though I didn't see that on Tesla's site.

I've had visits where I arrive early at Tebay (say before 8am) and it's empty but before I leave an hour later, there's a queue of 3 or 4 cars waiting. It's not so bad during the off peak season but summer and Christmas have been bad since 2020. I waited at least 10-20 minutes on all my visits during this summer. All this can be avoided by travelling at *sugar*-o-clock but if that's the price of using an EV on top of sitting for an hour recharging, it's only going to slow down the transition. Tebay north will help but if it's the usual 8 connectors, it won't have much effect given deliveries only keep growing in the uk. By next Christmas they'll be another 50,000-75,000 Teslas on the road, 8 more connectors at Tebay and 9 connectors at Annandale is not going to be enough.

Yes Tebay is woefully inadequate, particularly as it gets very slow when lots of people are charging, which then compounds the problem. As you say, it’s a critical point for the links to The Lakes and Scotland. As is Abington if you’re going to Scotland as it’s pretty much one charge from the Greater Manchester area. (In fact The Lakes really needs something before the Kendal junction, as Tebay is quite a detour if you visiting South/Central Lakeland).

All these routes need tripling of capacity. They're happy to build superchargers in Norway with 40 connectors on holiday routes but seemingly not here... The UK now has more Teslas than Norway too.

Imagine paying £50K+ for any other product, than waiting 1hrs in a queue when you just want to be home - Did you also have to pay to charge?

7th winter with owing an EV, our other combustion car is going no where fast.

Only 18 months in and I'm pretty sure I want to switch back to ICE

 

[Utumno]

I've had visits where I arrive early at Tebay (say before 8am) and it's empty but before I leave an hour later, there's a queue of 3 or 4 cars waiting. It's not so bad during the off peak season but summer and Christmas have been bad since 2020. I waited at least 10-20 minutes on all my visits during this summer. All this can be avoided by travelling at *sugar*-o-clock but if that's the price of using an EV on top of sitting for an hour recharging, it's only going to slow down the transition. Tebay north will help but if it's the usual 8 connectors, it won't have much effect given deliveries only keep growing in the uk. By next Christmas they'll be another 50,000-75,000 Teslas on the road, 8 more connectors at Tebay and 9 connectors at Annandale is not going to be enough.



All these routes need tripling of capacity. They're happy to build superchargers in Norway with 40 connectors on holiday routes but seemingly not here... The UK now has more Teslas than Norway too.



Only 18 months in and I'm pretty sure I want to switch back to ICE

I suspect if grid power could be acquired Tesla would put as many stalls in as they could, space permitting. I further suspect Norway hasn’t had the multiple decades of underinvestment that the UK has suffered.

Have a look at all the hoops OCC had to go through for Redbridge, as an example (Electric vehicle charging - Energy Superhub Oxford). 4 miles of brand new HV cabling from Crowley substation to the site isn’t something anyone should be expecting Tesla to put in place.

 

[Adopado]

I suspect if grid power could be acquired Tesla would put as many stalls in as they could, space permitting. I further suspect Norway hasn’t had the multiple decades of underinvestment that the UK has suffered.

Have a look at all the hoops OCC had to go through for Redbridge, as an example (Electric vehicle charging - Energy Superhub Oxford). 4 miles of brand new HV cabling from Crowley substation to the site isn’t something anyone should be expecting Tesla to put in place.

About time the money that is supposedly available from the government gets spent! It's bonkers that they announced it in September 2021 yet they're not accepting applications and only going to begin consulting about it sometime in spring 2023!

The Rapid Charging Fund (RCF) is a £950 million fund to future-proof electrical capacity at motorway and major A road service areas

 

[Utumno]

I do wonder if leaving it to “the market” is the best idea to be honest.

If real change were achieved by governments, they wouldn't need to be regularly overthrown.

 

[Utumno]

About time the money that is supposedly available from the government gets spent! It's bonkers that they announced it in September 2021 yet they're not accepting applications and only going to begin consulting about it sometime in spring 2023!

You should probably read this - https://assets.publishing.service.g...-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-strategy.pdf - and compare it against reality. In case you were wondering, there are 101 MSA's in England, Scotland & Wales.

 

[Zilla91]

Wish they’d do less talking and more building Expansion of electric car charging network must focus on location data, says report

Edit: I should know better having worked in government that there’s nothing they love more than talking to themselves and umming and ahhring instead of actually doing anything

 

[candida]

Imagine if you, say, had no food for your children, or your city was being bombed, or your country was without power, head or water. Those would be minor inconveniences, but good gawd if you had to wait an entire 20 minutes to plug in your luxury electric car while everyone patiently waited in an orderly line? The HORROR!

Yea but we aren’t, are we?

We’re living in a small country that for virtue signalling reasons has said it won’t let anyone buy convenient and clean ICE transport from 2030 and instead drive us to queues which are beginning to form already.

It’s trite to say “none of your children are bing slaughtered”. Happily that’s true. But we are able to offer comment on the ludicrous situation that’s being foisted on us.

I’m an early adopter and I’ve enjoyed aspects of it. But the public is t being fooled. EV ain’t the future until the infrastructures is sorted. Which is why prices are in free fall.

Are we all affluent? To a degree, plainly. Are we lucky not to be living in war zones or areas of poverty? Obviously. But it doesn’t mean our complaints about a more than imperfect car aren’t completely valid. Any more than saying the NHS, for example, is fine in principle but a bit rubbish in reality.

Owning a Tesla doesn’t disqualify you from pointing out how crap bits of it are. Quite the opposite it qualifies you.

 

[Zilla91]

Good for you. Meanwhile, this is a thread in the UK + Ireland forum and last time I checked, Santa Barbara was nowhere near the UK or Ireland.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Mod comment: there’s a way to discuss the recent queues without belittling the headline and suggesting only if your home city is being bombed (by the weather or otherwise) are you allowed to complain (that particular post has been removed). Whether it’s “a nightmare” or just “very inconvenient” it doesn’t really matter, this Christmas has seen queues like we’ve not previous experienced in the uk, probably fuelled by a combination of the M3 launch here a few years ago putting many more cars on the road and Covid suppressing peak holiday traffic until now. Either way, the queues have been making the headlines.

 

[ACarneiro]

convenient and clean ICE transport

Thank you for a very thoughtfully and eloquently written post except, IMHO, for this bit.
Cleaner than previous generations of ICE they may be but “clean” they most certainly are not and never can be.
The transition is absolutely the right thing to do.
The “forcing the transition” is, I think, not so much virtue signalling but the recognition that the auto industry would never willingly make such a seismic shift and the only way of bringing about the cost reduction of EVs made possible by mass adoption would be to force their hand.
It may yet backfire, I agree, but overall it was probably the right decision to make.

 

[scdoubleu]

In addition to under capacity on the M6/M74 corridor, a significant problem is SuC location within established service station car parks. Abington is a prime example - 6 stalls in the corner of a tight and busy car park, with what looks like at least 8 3rd-party chargers being commissioned opposite.

Finding a nearby spot to queue at Abington yesterday lunchtime was challenging with only 2 or 3 cars in line, and it's going to get much worse once those chargers opposite are online. I foresee confrontations between EV and ICE drivers because the former are causing car park gridlock.

EV chargers at service stations need a separate space in the same manner as fuel stations do currently. Only then will we see the number of stalls increase sufficiently to suit demand.

 

[qwickshot]

Do the tritium chargers that seem to be the go to choice in the U.K. have the same power shifting capabilities as the likes of the Kem Power units?

To me the Kem Power approach makes so much sense.

 

[MkPotato]

There‘s no doubt that the government need to get involved more closely. Leaving it to the market will almost certainly lead to gaps in the charging infrastructure, especially as EV ownership really takes off, so it’s hard to imagine that some kind of subsidisation won’t be required. Having said that, I suppose that anywhere with regular queues pretty much proves that supply exceeds demand, so expanding the capacity at somewhere like Tebay seems like a win-win. In these cases the government needs to facilitate the expansion as soon as possible.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

There‘s no doubt that the government need to get involved more closely. Leaving it to the market will almost certainly lead to gaps in the charging infrastructure, especially as EV ownership really takes off, so it’s hard to imagine that some kind of subsidisation won’t be required. Having said that, I suppose that anywhere with regular queues pretty much proves that supply exceeds demand, so expanding the capacity at somewhere like Tebay seems like a win-win. In these cases the government needs to facilitate the expansion as soon as possible.

I think the main intervention is to sort of the wayleave issue where land owners can refuse to allow power over their land for EV chargers, or ask for stupid amounts of money. I don't think they have the right for some other purposes. If we made it easier to install them, I'm sure more would be added. I don't like the idea of gov subsidies, it just makes some companies game the system as seen by ecotricity back in the day (my understanding is they locked in the motorway service centres, took a combination of EU money and cash from Renault and Nissan, and then spent more cash blocking others in legal battles protecting their stranglehold than they did on the chargers themselves).

But I also get the feeling the issue over the weekend is the typical one we get here, and thats not having the infrastructure to cope with peak demand for a few days a year, just like we don't all drive around with winter tyres and have a snow plough on every corner for the 3 days a year when its really needed (apologies to the Scottish who probably are geared up for that). We'd all complain if we had to pay a premium all year to have excess rapid chargers everywhere, most of the time only lightly used, just for the peak holiday periods. That said, there are some very clear pinch points. Somebody mentioned Telford, I use that occassionally and I saw somebody have to wait about 5 mins for the first time ever a few days ago, but usually you're unlucky if you have to share a V2 with another bay. More power enabling them all to be V3 would speed everything up as I was only getting 50kw when the car could have been taking in 200kw, that would turn over slots pretty quickly.

 

[WannabeOwner]

EV ain’t the future until the infrastructures is sorted

I'm still optimistic (although having driven Tesla since 2015 I haven't seen much improvement over that time to 3rd party charging attitude of "You need to be a member of MY gang" and "I don't care if most of my gear isn't working and isn't repaired promptly"

I'm looking at Norway. I know they have deep-pockets for EV transition (and I have zero idea how much subsidy has been used for charging infrastructure) but the speed with which new car sales have become very nearly exclusively EVs seems to have caused charging points to pop up all over the place - and, indeed, ICE pumps being removed in favour of electricity means that ICE drivers are having to start to plan where they will be able to refuel . That sort of supply-and-demand could happen here too.

GridServe looks to be an excellent model for the future. I have no idea where monopoly motorway service stations, currently installing "me only" brands of chargers, will wind up. SatNav is going to be choosing best-quality-service combined with cheapest-price to recharge - that may take footfall away from sites that have made a monopolistic choice for lousy / unreliable gear ... hopefully.

it’s hard to imagine that some kind of subsidisation won’t be required

I'm not against that, but so far the Charger Companies have worked around the legislation to just pump-profits.

Government introduced legislation to require that consumer could pay-at-pump. I assume hat was intended to be contactless, but charger-companies just put up signs for how to download the APP ... I'm oversimplifying a bit!! ... but I fear the worst of what government money will achieve.

 

[WannabeOwner]

We'd all complain if we had to pay a premium all year to have excess rapid chargers everywhere, most of the time only lightly used, just for the peak holiday periods

Increasing battery range will mean less frequent road-trip-charging, so over time that may help.

I've gone from 240-mile motorway-speed range to 300-miles, and my Supercharger visits from 2x a month to a couple of days a year.

 

[Adopado]

I'm looking at Norway. I know they have deep-pockets for EV transition (and I have zero idea how much subsidy has been used for charging infrastructure) but the speed with which new car sales have become very nearly exclusively EVs seems to have caused charging points to pop up all over the place - and, indeed, ICE pumps being removed in favour of electricity means that ICE drivers are having to start to plan where they will be able to refuel . That sort of supply-and-demand could happen here too.

I would think it's also much easier because of the lower population density (and therefore traffic density) in Norway compared to many areas of the UK.

 

[candida]

I've gone from 240-mile motorway-speed range to 300-miles, and my Supercharger visits from 2x a month to a couple of days a year.

To be honest the core of my dissatisfaction is my 140-160 mile effective (90-10%) motorway range. The rest just contributes to the unsettled feeling that makes for stressful trips.