Public Charging Point 'blocking'

[caseys]

So in my town there's a fair few multi-storey car parks and also a couple of shopping centres with either free charging, or free parking whilst you're paying for charging at the point.

Whilst it's irritating when someone without an EV/PHEV parks in a charging bay and so blocks the use for anyone, it seems there's a growing trend for people with EVs to park in the multi-storey spaces and plug in the charger to their car but not actually charge - so they get the free unlimited parking but aren't in fact charging. When someone with an EV (quite important) or a PHEV (less important) might actually need the charger comes along - even if there's a free adjacent charging bay it'll look like the charging plug they need is in use unless they go make a closer inspection.

What you say it's a bit poor game of the people doing this? Or possibly the person that was charging next to them that spotted them doing this and when they went to leave just put that not-in-use charging plug back in it's holster?

Are there other unspoken rules/etiquette on public charging points? I'm a PHEV driver, the other one I try and adhere to is if I'm at a motorway services and I've plugged in that I leave my number for an EV driver who will probably need it more than me.

[Chris-S]

I'm sure there is a decent and considerate way to do this - your method of leaving a number is one, but sadly, this is just exposing that most base of human traits, selfishness. It's far too easy to persuade oneself of a divine right to something that one wants and equally, how nobody else has a right to said thing.

Personally, I'm never going to avail myself of public charging or charge-point parking in my PHEV as I don't want it exposed to the kind of mindless selfishness that seems all too common. If I had a BEV I would do my damnedest to make sure I never needed to use it either.

Driving a BEV/PHEV doesn't automatically make a person decent, selfless and considerate, nor does the converse follow either.

[TooLateForAName]

people are often arses.

Have a look at the chargebump app

[donkmeister]

TooLateForAName said:

Have a look at the chargebump app

I like that solution. I'll remember that when i get an EV.

[Modiman46]

Charger Blocking (ICEing) will sadly continue until a Fine of £100 is applied. A cost factor must also be applied after a full charge or 30 mins on Rapids ( 80% depending battery size ) has elapsed then additional costs are needed to encourage all drivers to free up the charging bay this needs to charged onto RFID account or Credit / Debit card.
Car park attendant costs or chasing non payment costs will not work economically, unless immediate payments are made ( just like Billking of petrol ). APNR for EV bay blocking offences would be possible, they would know EV registrations, KWh consumed, excess charge of allowed time.

[chandrew]

Modiman46 said:

Charger Blocking (ICEing) will sadly continue until a Fine of £100 is applied. A cost factor must also be applied after a full charge or 30 mins on Rapids ( 80% depending battery size ) has elapsed then additional costs are needed to encourage all drivers to free up the charging bay this needs to charged onto RFID account or Credit / Debit card.
Car park attendant costs or chasing non payment costs will not work economically, unless immediate payments are made ( just like Billking of petrol ). APNR for EV bay blocking offences would be possible, they would know EV registrations, KWh consumed, excess charge of allowed time.

Charging is definitely the way forward. We have DC chargers locally where the charge is based on 2 components: the electricity consumed and the time taken, the last one being charged in minutes. The charger has the credit card before giving a charge.

It not only strongly discourages you to stop for a short time but also even not go much over 80%.

... Nothing like Zurich airport though. For the pick-up /drop-off zone the charge is CHF1 a minute (about 80p) after 5 minutes. When they introduced that it pretty much stopped the people blocking the zone over night.

[JonV8V]

donkmeister said:

TooLateForAName said:

Have a look at the chargebump app

I like that solution. I'll remember that when i get an EV.

Chargebump is all but dead. Badly conceived idea - those who are responsible charge and move once charged anyway, those who aren't won't use it or will ignore it. Those who think they're being responsible with the app may leave their car there until bumped which not everyone has. Those that are happy to move their car early if bumped don't need the charge anyway.

The only solution is ticketing for abuse.

[Djtemeka]

These cars are electric. Why not have them fitted with some sort of device where the car notifies you via text or app that's it's charged and sends a signal to the charging machine that starts a 10 min count down timer for a "grace period" before you get automatically charged a small fine. Count down timer stops when the car moves off the parking bay that has a sensor to see if the car has moved. (Similar to the little humps in central londons bays that are linked to apps to show you where the empty bays are)

Not that far off my setting my alarm clock to tell me when my parking is going to expire

[JonV8V]

Djtemeka said:

These cars are electric. Why not have them fitted with some sort of device where the car notifies you via text or app that's it's charged and sends a signal to the charging machine that starts a 10 min count down timer for a "grace period" before you get automatically charged a small fine. Count down timer stops when the car moves off the parking bay that has a sensor to see if the car has moved. (Similar to the little humps in central londons bays that are linked to apps to show you where the empty bays are)

Not that far off my setting my alarm clock to tell me when my parking is going to expire

Already exists on a Teslas on their charging infrastructure (assuming you were bothered to plug in). And tesla now fine owners for over stay when half of the chargers are occupied.

At the end if the day, some people are just ignorant <insert abusuve term>

[Djtemeka]

JonV8V said:

Already exists on a Teslas on their charging infrastructure (assuming you were bothered to plug in). And tesla now fine owners for over stay when half of the chargers are occupied.

At the end if the day, some people are just ignorant <insert abusuve term>

If only every one of these EV drivers had a tesla

[JonV8V]

Djtemeka said:

JonV8V said:

Already exists on a Teslas on their charging infrastructure (assuming you were bothered to plug in). And tesla now fine owners for over stay when half of the chargers are occupied.

At the end if the day, some people are just ignorant <insert abusuve term>

If only every one of these EV drivers had a tesla

Nah, A Tesla could plug in to a Type 2 socket and be there all day charging preventing anyone else using the point. Somehow some Tesla owners thing that's more acceptable than a phev charging for 30 mins and moving. There ain't a simple answer other than installing more points.

[supermono]

There's a small community of us on Berners St London using the points but quite often someone will park there unplugged -- yesterday a selfish tw@t in a Tesla for example.

It's particularly annoying since you can park for free 4 hours anywhere in Westminster.

The more common problem is people who have achieved 100% charge yet remain plugged in.

[buggalugs]

Points should charge simply for time in bay rather than actual charging via anpr.

[caseys]

buggalugs said:

Points should charge simply for time in bay rather than actual charging via anpr.

I'd agree *if* the rate was adjusted for how much you were charging.

For instance
A PHEV which is rated to 16Amp / 3.6kWh could be charged at 5-10p/minute whilst charging, then a flat rate per minute when it's done
An EV vehicle rated to 32Amp / 43kWh could be charged at 60p/minute (12x the PHEV rate as 12x the charging?), then the flat rate
An EV vehicle charging at 50kWh could be charged at 70p/minute, then the flat rate.

It's all well and good where there are public charging schemes which charge £4/first hour, £12/subsequent hours, where it's cost effective if you're drawing the top kWh rate that you can, but for those that can't (mainly PHEVs, some 1st gen EVs) it's not - so those points should try and blend the rates so that they're in use for the maximum amount of time during the day. Ergo they'd be pulling more profit and maximising environmental savings.

I'm for ANPR on points where the gits park, 'plug in' and don't actually charge. I'd have them towed

[xjay1337]

It is selfish indeed.

However, it will only get worse as the prevalence of EV increases.

[gtidriver]

What about auto discharging, after the car has charged you have a grace period of say 10-15 minutes, then the car starts discharging leaving only 5 miles of range and a lock out of that charge point. I would buy a EV but ive noticed a few things, EV parking at chargers but not actually charging and non EV cars parking in charge bays, this is totally out of order and id bring back clamping and massive fines just for this.

[Heres Johnny]

gtidriver said:

What about auto discharging, after the car has charged you have a grace period of say 10-15 minutes, then the car starts discharging leaving only 5 miles of range and a lock out of that charge point. I would buy a EV but ive noticed a few things, EV parking at chargers but not actually charging and non EV cars parking in charge bays, this is totally out of order and id bring back clamping and massive fines just for this.

I think it will cause as many problems as it solves. The genuine excuse late returner to an empty car for instance.

When you think about what's going on, most EV drivers aren't charging because they don't need to, and they don't even respect the charge point as a scarce resource. That in itself should send a message to those worried about range.

The only answer for me is parking fines, but we need to ensure the rules for any car park are clearly understood. Some say 'EV parking only' - the most useless definition of all, some locations like railway station car parks you can't feasibly return to as soon as youre full.

[caseys]

See, should this go into the Bad Parking Thread in General Gassing? Or just here?

I'm getting some stickers printed up to let people like this know how awesome they are....

[Ebo100]

How do these charging points work at an airport?

I landed at Newcastle yesterday and saw two Teslas plugged it to charging points. In theory they could belong to commuters but what if they were on a two week holiday, is that two points taken for two weeks or can you disconnect another car when charged and plug in your own car?

anyone?

Edited by Ebo100 on Wednesday 23 August 12:57

[mybrainhurts]

Get an internal combustion engine and you won't have these problems.....