[uk] Public charging - the media may have a point

[NewbieT]

The problem is the .gov releasing the rapid charging fund. Which will take years while all the consultants and lawyers top slice it. There is probably grant agreements and lease agreements to write. Criteria and bidding rounds to establish. We won’t see these new power supplies until 2025 at the earliest. In the meanwhile why would Tesla or anyone pay for an MSA power supply today when the .gov is putting up the money ‘next year’ or the year after.

There will be a gold rush but we’re going to have to wait for it.

 

[NewbieT]

Just to add, I think Welcome Break need to be careful:

CMA unlocks electric vehicle charging competition for motorway drivers

The CMA has secured commitments from Gridserve which will unlock competition and increase choice of electric vehicle chargepoints on motorways for drivers.

www.gov.uk

 

[PaddyB]

Until the data and established long-term trend of sales vastly outpacing chargers changes, it's not being pessimistic, it's being realistic.

Tesla knows damn well how many cars they intend to make and sell years in advance, failing to plan for the infrastructure to support their own sales is on them. Moreover, it's even worse for regular EV buyers, 270K sales in 2022 and only 1000 (including Tesla supercharger) 100+ KW chargers installed.

You sound exactly like my Dad, glass half empty!

But you are right, they need to expand the network. I am just more hopeful that they have a plan and are executing it. They are a data driven company, undoubtedly the most data driven car company, and they will know exactly where the problems are.

 

[UrbanSplash]

But why would you que when you don't need to in a combustion car, and petrol is essentially the same price.

EVs are going backwards for me, which is sad because an EV has been our main family car since 2015. But going back or staying with petrol seems like the most sensible thing to do at present.

I agree. I’m in year 4 of having a Tesla, and and the experience of having an electric car is far worse now than 4 years ago. I can’t see this changing which is very sad. I’m not surprised the UK has managed to arse it up though. Look at the state of government.

For me the future of EV charging is: Tesla open all superchargers because they have to, other chargers don’t grow rapidly due to red tape and high costs for land/installation. ‘Smart’ home electric becomes more expensive due to increase in taxation, cost of electric cars continues the trend of being the ‘luxury’ end and therefore expensive (£40k for an electric Arbarth hahahahaha)

It’s obvious the government HAVE to move people into non fossil fuel transport, but my god they will wring every penny out of people by doing it, as will car manufacturers. Add the mass proliferation of charging infrastructure into the mix and it’s absolutely depressing.

So why not get petrol for now….? M3!

 

[qwickshot]

Just to add, I think Welcome Break need to be careful:

CMA unlocks electric vehicle charging competition for motorway drivers

The CMA has secured commitments from Gridserve which will unlock competition and increase choice of electric vehicle chargepoints on motorways for drivers.

www.gov.uk

The cynical side of me thinks they only agreed to this for a specific reason.

The reason is that I expect Gridserve will have deployed chargers maximising the capacity of the site before the exclusivity expires. So even if anyone wants to deploy chargers, they can’t because there isn’t enough power capacity at the site.

 

[tomorrowman]

I found the following interesting. Highlighted the problem, the root cause and the fix. It left me with some hope

 

[Mrklaw]

I’m hoping that change in funding rules, plus Toddington’s comments on ITV mean we’re in for a mini-boom in installs this year. Although the DNO slowness may impact that

 

[LiamPope]

Doesn't need a physical queuing system, Tesla knows you are there and parked up ... might need you to CLICK something to say you are waiting to charge, rather than assuming ... but then it could say "You are number X in the queue" and tell you which stall to go to once it is your turn ...

Even I could program that, so nothing like as hard as Intermitted Wipers ...

P.S. It would refuse to allow a charge to start for anyone that jumped the queue ...

Over here even the frikkin hairdressers manage this! Join the queue on the app, get live update of your place and estimated waiting time, rock up to the shop when almost ready, then you are called for your slot. I almost can't believe there isn't something exactly like this at EV chargers and it is instead an ever more chaotic bloodbath of circling vultures worse than trying to find a parking space on a saturday! Bays could have a sign calling the next customer by reg or nickname as well as in the app, 3-5 mins and if you don't turn up for your slot yer out to stop people joining queues too early, penalties if you try taking someone else's slot. All so easy! Why doesn't it exist???

If i ever drive to the UK visit I'll leave the Tesla at home and come in the S-Max!

 

[Masklin]

Report in today’s Times that government going to miss their 2030 target of 300,000 EV chargers by twenty years if installing/increasing at present rate.

Most interesting statistic perhaps was that in 2020 there were sixteen EVs for every charger, whereas there are now thirty EVs for every charger.

 

[qwickshot]

For me the biggest issue is the lack of destination chargers.

Rapids get all the attention but if there were a lot more cheaper by an order of magnitude to install AC chargers where people actually need them, rapid charger use would drop dramatically.

 

[Overworked]

Gretna and Tesla


Hardly a marriage made in heaven.

I'm lucky enough to have not "suffered" with any queuing yet.
However, what with plenty more Teslas on the road and the SC network released to the more inferior EVs, I doubt that my luck will prevail..

I have been to Gretna twice, but not got to use the Tesla SC’s as there was a queue each time, so I used one of the two unused gridserve chargers beside them whilst others ignored them!

Not going there in any hurry though.

 

[yessuz]

For me the biggest issue is the lack of destination chargers.

Rapids get all the attention but if there were a lot more cheaper by an order of magnitude to install AC chargers where people actually need them, rapid charger use would drop dramatically.

true!

this was my argument regarding SCs in Nottingham Victoria and Derby Derbion - nonsense to have SCs at 150 kw in the city centres and multis-torey car park at shopping centre where people go and spend more than 1 hour for shopping. it just makes no sense.

better would be:
1) Install SCs in more convenient, easier to access areas (for example now you have to go 20 minutes into derby or almost 30 minutes into Nottingham from M1 in order to charge). thus it will be better for users rather to put them into paid car parks in city centre..
2) those shopping mall car parks would benefit from different configuration: instead of 8 x 150 KW like in derby, it should be like 4 x 150 for those poor souls who coming there to charge and leave, and rest would benefit from 15 x 50 kw dc charging - it still would top up car quite quickly (LR from 0 to 100% in like 90 minutes), but infrastructure would be there for far more users to use at the same time.

 

[qwickshot]

I’d argue they would be better off with 180 7kw (or 11/22 with load balancing) chargers and ditching DC altogether.

PS not sure why would you go into Nottingham if travelling up/down the M1 when Mansfield is just up the road or over a non tesla site.

 

[spdpsba]

Doesn't need a physical queuing system, Tesla knows you are there and parked up ... might need you to CLICK something to say you are waiting to charge, rather than assuming ... but then it could say "You are number X in the queue" and tell you which stall to go to once it is your turn ...

Even I could program that, so nothing like as hard as Intermitted Wipers ...

P.S. It would refuse to allow a charge to start for anyone that jumped the queue ...

As far as I know from reliable sources they are working on something similar to your idea, don’t know the details. I think one of the issue they are dealing with is how to get the non-Tesla in the same queuing system without using geofencing tech. Not sure what the issue is as I am not in that field. Hopefully we will see this later this year! But that is anyone’s guess with Elon.

 

[yessuz]

I’d argue they would be better off with 180 7kw (or 11/22 with load balancing) chargers and ditching DC altogether.

PS not sure why would you go into Nottingham if travelling up/down the M1 when Mansfield is just up the road or over a non tesla site.

I am just saying....

Nottingham is the last SC between Notts and Birmingham (M42) (Tamworth will open soon). But before that there is only one at Mansfield. And before that - only a woodall which is always full.

So between Mansfield and B-ham is 1 hr drive/60+ miles. and in theory there are SCs, but in practice it's poo

 

[yessuz]

I’d argue they would be better off with 180 7kw (or 11/22 with load balancing) chargers and ditching DC altogether.

PS not sure why would you go into Nottingham if travelling up/down the M1 when Mansfield is just up the road or over a non tesla site.

yes, or even 22kw - most people do not come with depleted battery. if you come with M3 LR and need 50% top up, you need ~40 kwh. 22 kw charge would do that in 2 hrs. happy days

 

[qwickshot]

yes, or even 22kw - most people do not come with depleted battery. if you come with M3 LR and need 50% top up, you need ~40 kwh. 22 kw charge would do that in 2 hrs. happy days

I wouldn’t because the car couldn’t charge at 22kw. I think there are only 3 or 4 cars on the market that actually go over 11kw.

It would need closer to 4 hours but that is still spot on for a shopping centre car park where 0-4 hours tends to be a reasonable price. Over 4 hours tends to cost a lot to stop commuters parking there.

 

[Durzel]

Hot take: Queuing will be commonplace as more EV's hit the road. I don't see charging infrastructure and technology being able to address this.

I agree with this.

I already found it hit and miss whether I'd be able to charge on a local rapid back in 2019 when I had a BMW i3 and it felt like there weren't that many EVs on the road. Nowadays with every manufacturer including Tesla selling hundreds of thousands of them, the charging networks are nowhere near increasing by commensurate numbers. If anything you're more likely to see knackered or disabled chargers, a local Morrisons have turned off their Geniepoint charger presumably because whatever arrangement they had is not financially viable for them anymore

 

[GRiLLA]

Report in today’s Times that government going to miss their 2030 target of 300,000 EV chargers by twenty years if installing/increasing at present rate.

Most interesting statistic perhaps was that in 2020 there were sixteen EVs for every charger, whereas there are now thirty EVs for every charger.

Oh boy I hate those articles that for absolutely no reason assume that meeting the defined target requires a linear amount of chargers to be installed each period since the target was set, so therefore claim we are 'behind'. They then show a graph that is clearly non-linear growth of charger installs so far. Makes my skin crawl at the deliberate mis-conclusion of simple graphs.

 

[WannabeOwner]

As far as I know from reliable sources they are working on something similar to your idea

I'm not holding my breath ... queuing has been a "thing" in California for many years, as density of Tesla has always been high there. They've had plenty of time to come up with something long before now ...