Shell Recharge

[Yev000]

Can't understand why people have a problem with the price and call for a boycott.

Well first off, I'm personally not calling for a boycott. If given no choice, through lack of planning or otherwise, I'd use it in a heartbeat rather than call the AA.

The "problem" as you put it, is that BP, Shell and others are buying up the competition to remain relevant, then failing to actually deliver something better. There is a fine line between investing and cornering the market.

VS a Tesla supercharger network, it's costs, availability, ease of use etc. Shell does not compare. Even if every single Shell petrol station had one or two chargers, at that price and speed, it would not compare.

So the problem is that the end vision is already worse than an existing competitor, before even starting. And of course it's advertised as the best thing since sliced bread and as a result Shell and BP will save the planet...

They are actually hurting adoption by buying the competition and then implementing it poorly. It's also seen as a "success" because it's better than nothing...

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Well first off, I'm personally not calling for a boycott. If given no choice, through lack of planning or otherwise, I'd use it in a heartbeat rather than call the AA.

The "problem" as you put it, is that BP, Shell and others are buying up the competition to remain relevant, then failing to actually deliver something better. There is a fine line between investing and cornering the market.

VS a Tesla supercharger network, it's costs, availability, ease of use etc. Shell does not compare. Even if every single Shell petrol station had one or two chargers, at that price and speed, it would not compare.

So the problem is that the end vision is already worse than an existing competitor, before even starting. And of course it's advertised as the best thing since sliced bread and as a result Shell and BP will save the planet...

They are actually hurting adoption by buying the competition and then implementing it poorly. It's also seen as a "success" because it's better than nothing...

Firstly - who said it was you that called for a boycott?

So please join me and avoid using Shell unless absolutely necessary.

There's also something to be said for not using public charging unless you need to anyway, leave it to those who actually do need to charge... but that aside...

The market was horribly fragmented, I have more apps, cards and special payment mechanisms than I care to shake a stick at, if you want to point a finger at anyone for causing issues, point it as ecotricity.

So we have a network thats rolling our charge points in lots of locations that cost a little more than you'd like, can be paid for with a credit car, or if you apply for their card you get a discount - and its a bad thing?

Tesla have done bugger all in the last 18 months in the UK in reality despuite the numbers doubling. Their promise of toilets, coffee shops and free wifi at every location has long since disappeared, Oxford is running at half capacity if its running at all.

The best as far as I can see are Instavolt - so competition is happening.

I can now charge, if I need to, at places I couldn't before - that to me should be applauded. I don't fall for them saving the planet - its marketing - and I doubt anyone does.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Oxford is running at half capacity if its running at all.

Double the number of stalls at Oxford compared to a year ago. Probably straining the electrical supply and landlord / other promise of supply, outside Tesla control, not being honoured ... as has happened in numerous places in the UK.

Might be Tesla incompetence, but generally their sites work whereas 3rd party are in whatever state of decay / non-repair

Tesla have done bugger all in the last 18 months in the UK

I'm not seeing any other car maker doing anything at all. Arguably charging shouldn't be Auto Makers job at all.

I'm also surprised that Tesla continue to make any funds available for Supercharger improvement / expansion, they have to make what money they have work as best they can ...

As in past years they haven't added anything like as much as they said they would ... I think some of that is reluctance to rollout many new sites without V3 (i.e. having to then incur the cost of upgrade) and V3 having taken longer to get ready for deployment than expected (another common theme for Tesla ... but I have no argument when they strive for lofty targets and achieve them albeit with delay)

 

[Yev000]

Firstly - who said it was you that called for a boycott?

Err ok. I clarified my position, apologies if it made offence.

and its a bad thing?

Wow that's a lot of spin, it's making me dizzy.

Tesla have done bugger all in the last 18 months in the UK

Ok, I want off this ride.

Arguably charging shouldn't be Auto Makers job at all.

Not sure whose job it is. One could argue that the government, if interested in encouraging the switch to "carbon neutral" - or whatever you want to call it - should be putting up infrastructure, much like BT bit and Railways before that. After all if you change the statement to " Arguably putting down rail shouldn't be Train Makers job at all" or " Arguably putting up telephone lines shouldn't be Phone Makers job at all" you wouldn't have a network at the end.

At some point someone has to make it, and as with things like infrastructure its usually a cost, rather than a profit in itself. The problem I see with treating charging as a profit making scheme is that not only is it ultimately doomed to make a loss, but it will discourage EV use while doing so.

That's why the Tesla model works, they incorporate the cost of the Supercharger network into the car. You arguably pay your bit up front. Or you could call it "advertising". Whichever, it's the cost of doing business and being ahead of the competition. I believe this is one of the big reasons why Tesla is ahead - imagine no superchargers at all.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Double the number of stalls at Oxford compared to a year ago. Probably straining the electrical supply and landlord / other promise of supply, outside Tesla control, not being honoured ... as has happened in numerous places in the UK.

Might be Tesla incompetence, but generally their sites work whereas 3rd party are in whatever state of decay / non-repair



I'm not seeing any other car maker doing anything at all. Arguably charging shouldn't be Auto Makers job at all.

I'm also surprised that Tesla continue to make any funds available for Supercharger improvement / expansion, they have to make what money they have work as best they can ...

As in past years they haven't added anything like as much as they said they would ... I think some of that is reluctance to rollout many new sites without V3 (i.e. having to then incur the cost of upgrade) and V3 having taken longer to get ready for deployment than expected (another common theme for Tesla ... but I have no argument when they strive for lofty targets and achieve them albeit with delay)

Oxford is thought to be a supply issue and it seems the UK suffers more than other countries but the owners group were informed of promises of significant extra capacity only a few months ago to be completed by the end of the last quarter and more by the end of the year - we've had one new location and one half closed. I struggle with the empty promises from Tesla on really short date, it always has, because rather than exceed expectation they continually fall short of a really high expectation they set. Falling short can still mean great progress, but why oh why promise the universe and only deliver the earth when just promising the earth is more than enough?

As for others makes - well the irony is with respect to this thread, they're probably doing it through Shell - Shell have the locations, they have the changing market to respond to, they have the long term relationships with auto - doesn't the BMW Sat Nav show you Shell locations as standard already? We'll not have single brand networks long term, it makes absolutely no sense and competition authorities will wade in preventing Tesla from installing more at some point. VAG, Merc, Ford, BMW, Volvo, PSA, Hyundai, Honda etc etc can't all have their own network as space won't allow so it will have to stop

 

[Rooster6655]

We'll not have single brand networks long term, it makes absolutely no sense and competition authorities will wade in preventing Tesla from installing more at some point. VAG, Merc, Ford, BMW, Volvo, PSA, Hyundai, Honda etc etc can't all have their own network as space won't allow so it will have to stop

Yes at service stations will be at a premium and prime space will get more expensive outside of the service stations and standalone petrol stations

 

[WannabeOwner]

Falling short can still mean great progress, but why oh why promise the universe and only deliver the earth when just promising the earth is more than enough?

I agree. From Punters viewpoint its lousy. however, maybe setting difficult goals is a way to get best productivity. I have no knowledge on that, except the observation that it appears to be the Elon-Way, and I wouldn't want to work for him ...

We'll not have single brand networks long term,

The problem I perceive, currently, is them competing. Sharp Practices to try to arm twist people to e.g. take out a subscription. "Pay at pump" government legislation interpreted as "Download APP when you get there" (and hopefully you'll be suckered into a monthly subscription) and so on [not Shell per se]

Rival brands also means that there is no single central "Available stalls" data service. So anyone out-and-about cannot check stall status of all nearby sites and choose the most appropriate. We have Zap-Map and Plugshare with crowd-sourced data, but that is incomplete.

Agreed, Petrol forecourts are ideal places for EV chargers - and I've seen Bjorn showing forecourts in Norway where lack of demand for Petrol means that those pumps have been replaced in-situ with EV chargers

Two types needed, of course, those for owners with no off street parking / home/work charging, and those on a long journey. Shell suits the later well, but not sure that in-town site are representative for that?

I have done Grantham-York-Grantham, which has been tight, and have used in-town charging, at York to make sure of the return, so maybe "in town" is more beneficial, for out-and-back long journeys, than I was imagining.

For people with no home-charging I don't think most petrol forecourts provide enough services for the dwell-time - what was 10 minutes for petrol will be 30+mins with current EVs... and at 50kW maybe 1+hours; maybe that suggests that better locations would be car parks for shopping areas where you would be inclined to spend some considerable time

 

[NorfolkMustard]

Don’t forget we’re in the very early days of EVs still. Is it ~3% of the cars on U.K. roads?

We’re just about at the stage when ICE cars had to buy petrol from the chemist in pint bottles.

the ubiquity of electricity means this isn’t going to be a problem

 

[Stretchquaker]

I recently tried out Shell recharge when staying with some friends over half term. I charged at the Shell Recharge in Whyteleafe. It worked ok using contactless. Teslafi says I started at 18% and charged up to 71% and this took 57 minutes. It felt quite slow but I was in no rush so sat in the car and did some emails.

Anyway, I've just received a parking charge and fine for £100 from Euro Car Parks. They have me entering and staying 61 minutes before leaving, which will be accurate as leaves the couple of minutes it took me to work out how to use it.

I did not notice any signs at the site or certainly near the charger about a maximum charge time so my question is this: have I missed something here? Do Shell recharge have a maximum charge time? has anyone else come across this? I hope to have the penalty removed of course but if not I'll sure as hell be letting everyone I meet know about this.

Any thoughts?

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I recently tried out Shell recharge when staying with some friends over half term. I charged at the Shell Recharge in Whyteleafe. It worked ok using contactless. Teslafi says I started at 18% and charged up to 71% and this took 57 minutes. It felt quite slow but I was in no rush so sat in the car and did some emails.

Anyway, I've just received a parking charge and fine for £100 from Euro Car Parks. They have me entering and staying 61 minutes before leaving, which will be accurate as leaves the couple of minutes it took me to work out how to use it.

I did not notice any signs at the site or certainly near the charger about a maximum charge time so my question is this: have I missed something here? Do Shell recharge have a maximum charge time? has anyone else come across this? I hope to have the penalty removed of course but if not I'll sure as hell be letting everyone I meet know about this.

Any thoughts?

I think a classic left hand not knowing about the right hand it seems. I know some locations require you to register if you are charging on super chargers (hotel on the M1 if I recall) but there were signs clearly stating this. I think your appeal with evidence of you charging should be enough to get in voided. People have suggested talking to the venue (hotel in the Tesla case) rather than the parking fine company so maybe an place to start, or even go straight to recharge as they will hopefully want to get this addressed before it becomes an administrative nightmare..

 

[MaDProFF]

I think there is a huge opportunity for an early investors to open up a load of charging stations, make it a pleasant experience, even big screen, coffee light bites etc, small cafe so you Inca get out of the car and stretch legs etc. put them in places where there are some open space, and at cross point of big Roads, like Godstone would be prime spot just off m25 and A22, there are loads of places ideal, put in a load of charges for teslas and other Evs

 

[WannabeOwner]

Couldn't see anything on ZapMap but Plugshare says "Parking limit 30 mins or else £90 fee." and several comments about getting fined / giving Reg No to staff No suggestion that there is an obvious sign though, none of the user-uploaded photos indicated anything at all.

Seems pretty stupid to me that Shell wouldn't at least put up an obvious sign right at the charging bays.

By comparison there are specific signs at Supercharger Heathrow Hilton

and Northampton hotel

 

[navt]

I charged at the Shell Recharge in Whyteleafe. I've just received a parking charge and fine for £100 from Euro Car Parks.

Nothing on the app would suggest this is the case. Which is worrying.

 

[Stretchquaker]

Couldn't see anything on ZapMap but Plugshare says "Parking limit 30 mins or else £90 fee." and several comments about getting fined / giving Reg No to staff No suggestion that there is an obvious sign though, none of the user-uploaded photos indicated anything at all.

Seems pretty stupid to me that Shell wouldn't at least put up an obvious sign right at the charging bays.

By comparison there are specific signs at Supercharger Heathrow Hilton

and Northampton hotel

Yes and funny enough I have used both of those chargers (Heathrow and Northampton) and there's clear signage on both so I happily reported in the way they asked with no problem.

Funnily enough I've just logged in to the Shell App which recommends/estimates that to charge my Model 3 from 20% to 80% will take 1 hour 35 mins. There is no mention of parking charges or registration on the app.

 

[arg]

The problem I see with treating charging as a profit making scheme is that not only is it ultimately doomed to make a loss, but it will discourage EV use while doing so.

Fortunately, rapid charging for itinerant users seems to have a business case that people are willing to invest in. Instavolt, Engenie and others have all managed to raise capital to install charging (and if you look at the people behind those two, they aren't EV-loving greenies, they are hard-nosed financial types).

And back-of-envelope figures seem to bear this out: if a single rapid charger costs about £25,000 to install needing to be paid off over a 10-year life and needs £1000/year maintenance during those 10 years, then that's ~£10/day to be covered. 30p/kWh pricing gives a gross margin of about 20p/kWh, at 40kW charge rate that's £8/hour, so say two 40minute sessions per day (every day) to break even. With single units, that's actually about the limit of what you can expect to achieve on average without crowding, but once you are up to double units per site (assuming enough demand to justify that) it's easily possible, and once demand grows further then the numbers look better still.

So government help isn't needed with basic charging provision - just a policy environment where investors can trust that there will be a significant customer base of EVs to serve.

Where government intervention is needed is:

• To solve parts of the country where power simply isn't available without massive construction to reinforce the distribution network.
• To provide equitable access to publicly-owned sites. Currently this is being handled badly, with subsidy monies wasted and/or fragmentation of networks.
• To solve the problems of those without home charging. A significant chunk of this doesn't need government money but does need legislation (to solve the problems of flats etc. with communal parking and of people renting rather than owning their homes - both of which currently rely on having a cooperative and well-informed landlord). Also worth noting that the solution(s) won't be the same everywhere.

 

[MrBadger]

I had to go looking for it, but a very tenuous mention of a 30 minute charge limit on the Shell website FAQ - this would imply that it applies to all/most chargers

How to use section, towards the end, after all the talk of how much charge can you get in 30 minutes

Shell Recharge App

Will there be a penalty for drivers who leave their cars to charge for longer than 30 minutes?

We have a parking ticket system to discourage cars from overstaying. We do request that customers only leave their car in the Shell Recharge space for the time needed to charge their car and continually review our enforcement policies.

As I say, the wording is all very tenuous and highly questionable that there is any fixed 30 minute limit.

And this one would trump pretty much most thoughts on limits - even better it could probably be be used to defend a fine if there is a 30 minute widespead policy.

Do I have to charge for the full time, can I just top up for five minutes?

Shell Recharge is completely flexible, so customers can charge for the amount of time they require – there is no minimum charge time.

Our card is waiting to be opened so I will see if there are ant T&C's in that.

 

[NorfolkMustard]

Just looked on google maps - this is at a shell garage? not a hotel. sheesh. I thought Whyteleafe was perhaps a hotel with parking cameras - like a lot of the Polar chargers in Holiday Inn carparks.

I suppose it's to stop people parking there (Shell @ Whyteleafe) for the train station.

 

[Stretchquaker]

Just looked on google maps - this is at a shell garage? not a hotel. sheesh. I thought Whyteleafe was perhaps a hotel with parking cameras - like a lot of the Polar chargers in Holiday Inn carparks.

I suppose it's to stop people parking there (Shell @ Whyteleafe) for the train station.

nope, it’s a bog standard Shell petrol station.

I have emailed Shell today and will update the thread when I get a response. I’ve also sent them the PCN as well as my charging record from Teslafi which confirms I was charging for 57 minutes of the 61 I was there.
Will keep you updated!

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I think there is a huge opportunity for an early investors to open up a load of charging stations, make it a pleasant experience, even big screen, coffee light bites etc, small cafe so you Inca get out of the car and stretch legs etc. put them in places where there are some open space, and at cross point of big Roads, like Godstone would be prime spot just off m25 and A22, there are loads of places ideal, put in a load of charges for teslas and other Evs

Isn't that the sort of thing that Shell are doing?

But run the maths... 4 rapid chargers and a restroom, cafe, staffed etc if not attached to somethjing like a petrol station is going to cost maybe £250k to set up and £1k a day to staff

Those 4 chargers if they were chucking out 50kw for 50% of the time at 20p are only making 10p a kwh, £5 each. £10 in total or £240 a day profit. Doesn;t even cover 1 member of staff let alone the infrastructure costs. And they operate at much lower utilisation rates than that.

Charge 40p a kwh, and you're still not clearing the operating costs of a site with facilities at £750 a day

 

[WannabeOwner]

Shell forecourt has an average of, what, 8 pumps? So what if/when they are all converted to Electric. Currently Shell gets £60? every 10 minutes? [at times of 100% occupancy] from each pump. So £2880 per hour turnover (from all 8 pumps). My understanding is that the profit is wafer thin, much of that is tax of course. But profit has got to be more than £40 presumably?

Plus: 8 pumps x 10 minute dwell time = 48 people through the shop each hour.

So if all 8 pumps were converted to Electric they will deliver, say, 50kW average - assuming that in near-future the charge-rate of EVs will average out at that over a 30 minute session. At 10p profit per kWh that's £5 per stall per hour, so £40 profit

8 stalls x 30 minute dwell time = 16 people through the shop each hour. Because they are there for longer maybe they will be more inclined to buy a coffee etc.

If I've done the maths right the numbers looks rubbish to me ...

a restroom, cafe, staffed etc i

My view would be that Shell Forecourt is the wrong place for chargers because the facilities aren't suitable for a 30 minute stop. A location where numerous facilities already exist gives me more scope to use-up the 30 minutes. My Supermarket shop probably takes that long, a "wander around the shops in town" takes half a day!

But how long before refuel-BEV is a 10 minute stop? That might be one-generation of battery-tech away from now, and then same dwell-time at Shell as currently (but perhaps much less profit per visit?)