Nightmare! (Supercharger queues)

[Carts850]

Whilst queuing has been mentioned. The last time I was trying to charge at Gretna they were all full. But it really wasn’t clear how to actually queue. Park and hope? Pitch black and raining. If you timed it perfectly and drove around to the chargers just as someone left you’d really not know what the hell is happening. Are those Teslas parked or queueing? Is that an actual free charger?
Needs a lot of work.

 

[Adopado]

Whilst queuing has been mentioned. The last time I was trying to charge at Gretna they were all full. But it really wasn’t clear how to actually queue. Park and hope? Pitch black and raining. If you timed it perfectly and drove around to the chargers just as someone left you’d really not know what the hell is happening. Are those Teslas parked or queueing? Is that an actual free charger?
Needs a lot of work.

Gretna has always had such a poor reputation I have never even attempted to charge there.

 

[WannabeOwner]

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.

Hmmm, not sure. Only 10% the population compared to UK and land-area 1.5x as big. Although I tend to think that mountainous areas have roads "up the valley" which concentrates the traffic, and thus makes positioning of services more worthwhile.

But their sovereign wealth fund must be helping too

I had a look on Supercharge Info

UK has
2x 24 stall, 1x 18 stall, 1x 17 stall, and 10x 16 stall (permits for 2x 32 stall)

Norway has
1x 44 stall, 1x 42 stall, 3x 40 stall, 2x 36 stall, 2x 28 stall,
5x 24 stall, 1 x 22 stall, 16 x 20 stall, 4x 18 stall, 8x 16 stall

 

[MkPotato]

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).

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.

Yes, as we’ve seen recently with PPE contracts, it’s very easy for government money to end up in the pockets of people with the right connections, who know how to game the system.

Subsidises are always tricky to implement, and normally the loop-hole finders are ahead of those making the rules. However, by the same token, the free market normally ends up milking the profitable opportunities for maximum gain, and neglecting the less-profitable ones.

As you say, it’s probably better to reduce the amount of red-tape and other barriers preventing charge network expansion.

 

[WannabeOwner]

neglecting the less-profitable ones.

Bjorn had a YouTube recently. He was charging somewhere "way up North" in Norway, and mentioned the original poxy 50kW chargers were still there. He made the point that that should be moved to e.g. a supermarket car park and replaced with faster charge stalls. He choose to charge elsewhere because of low-power, and reckoned that no-one was charging on the 50kW any more ...

So maybe it would be worthwhile to have some incentive to redeploy e.g. 50kW to places with longer dwell time, and help with fitting faster replacement kit next to arterial roads.

 

[Type2]

Gretna has always had such a poor reputation I have never even attempted to charge there.

I charge quite frequently at Gretna, but I don’t use the superchargers. There has been a queue for them every time on my last few visits. Instead I use the Ionity chargers. They are 350kw, and although I can’t utilise the full capacity I do get a significantly faster charge than the 150kw SuC. By setting the Gretna SuC as a destination for charging the battery preconditions. I’ve just checked now and all SuC are occupied but three out of the four Ionity are available.

There are, at times, better alternatives to the SuC network.

 

[NewTangerine]

I charge quite frequently at Gretna, but I don’t use the superchargers. There has been a queue for them every time on my last few visits. Instead I use the Ionity chargers. They are 350kw, and although I can’t utilise the full capacity I do get a significantly faster charge than the 150kw SuC. By setting the Gretna SuC as a destination for charging the battery preconditions. I’ve just checked now and all SuC are occupied but three out of the four Ionity are available.

There are, at times, better alternatives to the SuC network.

I’ve done the same thing at various Ionity stations. I used to avoid them due to the price difference but Ionity (via Bonnet) has been similar or cheaper than most SuCs for a while now.

 

[Adopado]

I’ve done the same thing at various Ionity stations. I used to avoid them due to the price difference but Ionity (via Bonnet) has been similar or cheaper than most SuCs for a while now.

How much are they via Bonnet? i.e. free Bonnet vs subscription Bonnet vs just using credit card

 

[Mr H]

I charge quite frequently at Gretna, but I don’t use the superchargers. There has been a queue for them every time on my last few visits. Instead I use the Ionity chargers. They are 350kw, and although I can’t utilise the full capacity I do get a significantly faster charge than the 150kw SuC. By setting the Gretna SuC as a destination for charging the battery preconditions. I’ve just checked now and all SuC are occupied but three out of the four Ionity are available.

There are, at times, better alternatives to the SuC network.

it will pre-condition if you navigate to the IONITY stalls as well

 

[Philmc]

There was queuing at Rugby services on the way north last week. The queue of Teslas waiting was blocking access to the Gridserve chargers such that folk heading for them had to go against the car park’s one way arrows system.

Queuing will likely only get worse and should probably be accommodated in the design of charging locations now, but I expect it will be in the same way as the Supercharger bay design has been in order to accommodate opening up the network.

I attended a Tesla online q&a earlier this year and asked how queues would be alleviated or managed. The response was along the lines of ‘we won’t be developing a process as we plan for no queues, we build more chargers’ !

 

[VT_EE]

Indeed! I was curious about how this government fund was being used so I went onto the government web site to find out ... of course not a penny has actually been spent ... so I sent an email to enquire. Here it is and the reply I received back in October:


From: *****
Sent: 22 October 2022 15:35
To: RapidChargingFund <[email protected]>
Subject: Rapid Charging Fund for Motorway and A Road services

I note that the information for this fund was published on gov.uk in September 2021. However, in the “How to Apply” section it continues to say "The fund is not yet open for applications. Further details will be available shortly.” Clearly we are beyond the “shortly” timescale now! Is there a planned date for the acceptance of applications to this fund?

Regards,

*****



Hi *****,

The Rapid Charging Fund (RCF) is a £950 million fund to future-proof electrical capacity at motorway and major A road service areas to prepare the network for a fully electric car and van fleet. As such, the RCF will specifically focus on upgrading the grid network infrastructure to motorway service areas and major A roads only and will not be funding the actual rapid chargers themselves. However, please feel free to direct to us any questions or information you have.

The timing and process for the delivery of this funding, including who can apply, is currently being planned and will be confirmed in due course. We will conduct a public consultation on proposals in Spring 2023.

Kind Regards,
Rapid Charging Team
Office for Zero Emission Vehicles




__________________________________________________________________________________________
This email has originated from external sources and has been scanned by DfT’s email scanning service.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

So the fund is only providing infrastructure upgrades, but no actual chargers? That is sort of a half-baked.

 

[Utumno]

I attended a Tesla online q&a earlier this year and asked how queues would be alleviated or managed. The response was along the lines of ‘we won’t be developing a process as we plan for no queues, we build more chargers’ !

I get the gung-ho bravado of the attitude, but there’s a clearly a missed opportunity here.

 

[Utumno]

So the fund is only providing infrastructure upgrades, but no actual chargers? That is sort of a half-baked.

The Government supplying chargers would be the dumbest thing imaginable.

 

[VT_EE]

The Government supplying chargers would be the dumbest thing imaginable.

Agreed, but using the funding to help subsidize commercial chargers would not be. Sometimes it takes subsidies to prod private industry to invest.

 

[WannabeOwner]

using the funding to help subsidize commercial chargers

I think that's where we are at from the original subsidies. Cheap/Subsidised to install, no sense fixing any broken ones ...

 

[Adopado]

So the fund is only providing infrastructure upgrades, but no actual chargers? That is sort of a half-baked.

I think that's a worthwhile approach. There are some huge variations in the cost of setting up charging locations due to the proximity of available high capacity grid access points. Without that connection issue being covered it will just never be financially viable for a charging company to cover those costs (which could be millions of £ over and above the actual charger provision). There are also other ways to facilitate speedy installs but this grid connection issue needs to be evened out for motorway service areas.

 

[Masklin]

I attended a Tesla online q&a earlier this year and asked how queues would be alleviated or managed. The response was along the lines of ‘we won’t be developing a process as we plan for no queues, we build more chargers’ !

Made me chuckle

 

[12Pack]

Another shout for my Raven performance MS. Effortlessly skipped passed all the queu’d up superchargers for the 300 miles from Manchester to St. Andrews and now overnight charging at the at Old Course Hotel where we are staying. Who needs those superchargers and jam-packed motorway services anyway.

 

[DaveNN]

Satnav directed me to Tebay ( from Sunderland) the night after Boxing Day.
The Mrs' 6th sense kicked in and said it'd be a mare..
Went across the tops past Harrogate etc and landed at mine on 0miles...with whatever reserve in hand.
I've not read the entire thread , I will suppose that the press never ran a piece on the thousands of Teslas that weren't stranded or were charged by using none supercharger sites?

 

[Utumno]

Agreed, but using the funding to help subsidize commercial chargers would not be. Sometimes it takes subsidies to prod private industry to invest.

Private industry is happy to invest and expand, as has been proven many times over. However when private industry comes up against structural limitations like physical space and grid power availability, they cannot proceed further.