545 mile day tomorrow....

[FiF]

That's fair comment about user led penalties / refunds for failures of commercial service.

Then one sees the passenger refund system on the railways. Personal experiences being train runs late on entire journey, sufficient to qualify for refunds, except there's a massive timetable allowance on the last section. Sorry sir it shows on time at destination on our records. But it wasn't even close at the last but one halt.

Then there was the occasion when a complete fustercluck with passengers being lied to about train is coming to start point, yet service started from another and wrong station, seriously, Shrub Hill vs Foregate St with no warning! Passengers at origin left waiting for ages for bus replacement service which then spent two hours driving all over West Midlands dropping folks off. Sorry our records show that....

On the other hand when they're bang to rights with zero wiggle room then you get your money back but too much mealy mouthed wiggle room.

[DonkeyApple]

FiF said:

That's fair comment about user led penalties / refunds for failures of commercial service.

Then one sees the passenger refund system on the railways. Personal experiences being train runs late on entire journey, sufficient to qualify for refunds, except there's a massive timetable allowance on the last section. Sorry sir it shows on time at destination on our records. But it wasn't even close at the last but one halt.

Then there was the occasion when a complete fustercluck with passengers being lied to about train is coming to start point, yet service started from another and wrong station, seriously, Shrub Hill vs Foregate St with no warning! Passengers at origin left waiting for ages for bus replacement service which then spent two hours driving all over West Midlands dropping folks off. Sorry our records show that....

On the other hand when they're bang to rights with zero wiggle room then you get your money back but too much mealy mouthed wiggle room.

Yup. It's not impossible to set clearer parameters with less wriggle room for operators. It could be set that free chargers are omitted but where a pay charger shows on an information network as working as stated but a user detours to it to discover it isn't, within sensible parameters, they can make a claim that is high enough to encourage reporting but low enough to not deter the roll out of chargers.

I'm also of the view that rather than paying manufacturers a cash bonus for each sale out of tax payer's coffers that once that ends we should implement a system whereby manufacturers have to pay for a charger install for each set batch of EVs they sell. For example, every 5th EV sale triggers a payment by the manufacturer to an approved installation company who will then fit a charger according to an approved map.

We want to expand EV adoption at a sensible rate so we want to ensure the corporate charging network also expands at the right rate, in the right places and is maintained at an appropriate standard. We can either hurl vast amounts of taxpayer money at it, lose billions and end up with total failure or we can understand the absolute importance of guaranteeing the mobility of workers and put the right financial threats onto the shoulders of corporate giants who are best placed to roll this out but like errant children, need a quality stick to cajole them to favour the end consumer over shareholders.

Arguably, given the importance of keeping the U.K. working population efficiently mobile, a proper stand alone regulator would be prudent?

[FiF]

Yep, as with most subjects it's about obtaining a sensible balance on all fronts.

Edited to correct typo.

Edited by FiF on Tuesday 4th January 12:14

[DonkeyApple]

FiF said:

Yep, as with most subjects it's about o training a sensible balance on all fronts.

It's also a tricky one to manage, the expansion of the remote charging network. For the next decade the bulk of people switching to EVs will have home charging and habits that mean charging away from home is very rarely needed. Compounding that will be EVs getting longer ranges, users adapting to their new type of car and all destinations having chargers if they want those consumers.

Finally, at some point, as a society, we will crack the whole energy density problem of batteries and then cars in the U.K. will have very little need of remote charging full stop for the majority who have home charging.

In short, the whole remote charging part of EVs is a pretty crap business. You're infrastructure has next to no viable demand today and in a decade when it might, you'll have endless competition hitting your margins and at any moment the battery breakthrough can appear that renders it all loss making and mostly redundant overnight!

[Mr Miata]

off_again said:

Or an MX-5 won’t work for everyone too.

Lies