Why exactly is the public charging network so flakey?
Discussion
OutInTheShed said:
..........................
Until people routinely want it, and will happily pay the true cost for someone to make a proper business out of providing it, it will be mickey mouse.
ThisUntil people routinely want it, and will happily pay the true cost for someone to make a proper business out of providing it, it will be mickey mouse.
And remember that the charging station has to deal with the user, a member of the general public, the great unwashed. These are the people that (1) forget to take the petrol nozzle out of the car and drive off, (2) can't take care of a mobile phone (how many cracked screens do you see, (3) can't read/follow road signs, (4) generally don't read instructions (3) block a petrol pump while they do their weekly shop etc. etc.
Just wait til the chavs can afford second hand Teslas, how will their charging stations handle that!
What hope have we got of them not screwing up a charger for everyone else. Anyone remember phone boxes and the state they used to be in?
TheDrownedApe said:
This is my one annoyance too. Rarely charge outside of the home but when i do it's one of 3 locations:
M6 Stoke to Wigan
Shrewsbury or mid Wales
M5 Bristol to Exeter
Except for the M5 area (which works well) they are either broken, ICE'd or already being used.
Mid and North Wales is a disaster and If it wasn't for the kindness of family (3 pin granny) i would struggle to visit North wales in my EV. There is a new charger in Bala though that is proving a very useful for a quick 10 min top up.
We recently went from St Ives to Hereford and the problems we had should never have been an issue. OH is pretty crap at reading maps so i lplan my charging stop before i leave, go to Zapmap, read recent comments, check prices and paying options, programme that in as a stop only to arrive and it be broken or won't accept contactless due to ???? So then i have to search for another charger, whilst sat idle, that i either have the app for or accepts contactless. Then find out that the road where you need to go is closed (M4 bridge) and the diversion is great but misses out the charger by miles.
My next trip is overnight in Leeds and trying to find the best combination of overnight carpark and charging - why isn't it simple!!!! Do they have idle charges? Do i need to go back to the carpark after it's charged and move it out of the bay even though there are 10s of chargers. How long will it take to recharge to 90% as the charging speed is never accurate? i need to pay in advance for parking yet i don't know how long i will need it for?
sorry ranting now - i love my EV and have a new shiny C40 coming in a month, but i wish it was easier for those times where you are supposed to be enjoying time away and you have that lingering doubt hanging around.
I don't know what the solution is, but suspect that like others have mentioned it's a business that needs to be sustainable and atm it isn't.
Yep sounds like a reasonable summary of what life is like with an EV when you go beyond the local loop.M6 Stoke to Wigan
Shrewsbury or mid Wales
M5 Bristol to Exeter
Except for the M5 area (which works well) they are either broken, ICE'd or already being used.
Mid and North Wales is a disaster and If it wasn't for the kindness of family (3 pin granny) i would struggle to visit North wales in my EV. There is a new charger in Bala though that is proving a very useful for a quick 10 min top up.
We recently went from St Ives to Hereford and the problems we had should never have been an issue. OH is pretty crap at reading maps so i lplan my charging stop before i leave, go to Zapmap, read recent comments, check prices and paying options, programme that in as a stop only to arrive and it be broken or won't accept contactless due to ???? So then i have to search for another charger, whilst sat idle, that i either have the app for or accepts contactless. Then find out that the road where you need to go is closed (M4 bridge) and the diversion is great but misses out the charger by miles.
My next trip is overnight in Leeds and trying to find the best combination of overnight carpark and charging - why isn't it simple!!!! Do they have idle charges? Do i need to go back to the carpark after it's charged and move it out of the bay even though there are 10s of chargers. How long will it take to recharge to 90% as the charging speed is never accurate? i need to pay in advance for parking yet i don't know how long i will need it for?
sorry ranting now - i love my EV and have a new shiny C40 coming in a month, but i wish it was easier for those times where you are supposed to be enjoying time away and you have that lingering doubt hanging around.
I don't know what the solution is, but suspect that like others have mentioned it's a business that needs to be sustainable and atm it isn't.
It's all doable (hopefully) but often when you are on those longer trips, you're on them because you want to do something and not have a trip dictated by chargers and charging which is in reality often the case. And then there's the fact that the chargers are now so expensive that on these trips you may as well take an ICE alternative if you have one.
I guess more is more so more [working] chargers, faster chargers, more range etc will aliviate some of this but unless some minor miracles occur it's hard to see this stuff ever being as easy as ICE and more EVs can easily outpace charger availability if a lot of people are on the road at the same time so it might actually get worse at certain times of year.
One thing I do find particularly unacceptable about this is when chargers report that they are online but actually are not.
Numerous times now, we've gone to charge, only to find the charger completely frozen, unable to start a charge etc.
Had it 3 times in a row on a single journey the other week. Squeaky bum time driving very slowly on the A127 to try and save enough juice to get to the BP in Basildon (which luckily did work, although there was a guy with a Taycan standing there saying it was refusing to charge for him!).
Numerous times now, we've gone to charge, only to find the charger completely frozen, unable to start a charge etc.
Had it 3 times in a row on a single journey the other week. Squeaky bum time driving very slowly on the A127 to try and save enough juice to get to the BP in Basildon (which luckily did work, although there was a guy with a Taycan standing there saying it was refusing to charge for him!).
budgie smuggler said:
One thing I do find particularly unacceptable about this is when chargers report that they are online but actually are not.
Numerous times now, we've gone to charge, only to find the charger completely frozen, unable to start a charge etc.
Had it 3 times in a row on a single journey the other week. Squeaky bum time driving very slowly on the A127 to try and save enough juice to get to the BP in Basildon (which luckily did work, although there was a guy with a Taycan standing there saying it was refusing to charge for him!).
Are the IT/comms issues with chargers worse in the UK than other countries?Numerous times now, we've gone to charge, only to find the charger completely frozen, unable to start a charge etc.
Had it 3 times in a row on a single journey the other week. Squeaky bum time driving very slowly on the A127 to try and save enough juice to get to the BP in Basildon (which luckily did work, although there was a guy with a Taycan standing there saying it was refusing to charge for him!).
Are these UK branded products with software from the UK IT industry?
How's it going elsewhere?
Strangely, unmanned, pay-at-pump fuel stations have sold me diesel with no problems at all for the last three years.
Apart from making me slightly cross that I could only have £99 worth when my tank would have taken a little more!
OK, there were a few days when I didn't try buying fuel because it was quite likely they had none to sell me.
There are other things though.
Technically how hard should it be to pay for a parking space in town?
The National Trust can make it work in the bum end of the boondocks....
Apart from making me slightly cross that I could only have £99 worth when my tank would have taken a little more!
OK, there were a few days when I didn't try buying fuel because it was quite likely they had none to sell me.
There are other things though.
Technically how hard should it be to pay for a parking space in town?
The National Trust can make it work in the bum end of the boondocks....
OutInTheShed said:
Strangely, unmanned, pay-at-pump fuel stations have sold me diesel with no problems at all for the last three years.
Apart from making me slightly cross that I could only have £99 worth when my tank would have taken a little more!
OK, there were a few days when I didn't try buying fuel because it was quite likely they had none to sell me.
There are other things though.
Technically how hard should it be to pay for a parking space in town?
The National Trust can make it work in the bum end of the boondocks....
My first thought on seeing this thread was how easy and reliable pay-at-pump is at petrol stations. You don't need an app or an account with the supplier. You select what type of supply you need and pay by card.Apart from making me slightly cross that I could only have £99 worth when my tank would have taken a little more!
OK, there were a few days when I didn't try buying fuel because it was quite likely they had none to sell me.
There are other things though.
Technically how hard should it be to pay for a parking space in town?
The National Trust can make it work in the bum end of the boondocks....
I get that the charger needs to communicate with the car in ways that a petrol pump doesn't, but that's a very local 'network' between two machines that are next to each other and connected by a cable, so that shouldn't be flakey. Apart from that, could the interface between the user and the charger, and the comms between the charger and the outside world, be made almost as simple as for pay-at-pump?
Is the whole app/account rigmarole needed for genuine technical reasons, or is mainly an artifact of the way the business has evolved?
OutInTheShed said:
Are the IT/comms issues with chargers worse in the UK than other countries?
Are these UK branded products with software from the UK IT industry?
How's it going elsewhere?
We discovered a while ago that free chargers in French supermarket car parks are not great for visitors, as the SMS code to start the charge doesn't arrive on a non-French mobile. We wouldn't get that much during the hour we are there each week, and we pay only 12p/kWh at the house, so not worth getting even a French PAYG alongside my Swiss phone. Are these UK branded products with software from the UK IT industry?
How's it going elsewhere?
Why exactly is the public charging network so flakey?
A few reasons I find it all a bit rubbish.
Chargers which need an app to work, I now have two pages of apps just to use the car, which TBH is a joke. I don't use public chargers that often so nearly every time I've been to a charger the app has needed an update before it will work.
Chargers which don't supply the power they should, in the past few weeks I've had a 125kW unit supplying 30kW and a 50kW unit supplying 20kW. I don't care if they need to load balance, they are advertised at 125kW they should supply that (unless the car won't take it).
The price is also a total minefield, every supplier has a different price structure, for example, BP pulse below to get the best rates you then need a monthly membership.
Then we come to broken units, there seems no rush to get broken chargers fixed, the closest rapid charger to our office has now been broken for 5 months, this is the only one in a town for 124000 people.
Even my closest Tesla chargers have never worked, the M3 fleet southbound, they have been there for four years I believe.
Then we come to the queuing, it's all a bit random and you just never know if the charger will be free even if the app says it is.
Next, people who just dump EVs in charging bays not charging like this muppet who by also parking badly was taking up two of the four bays.
Or at our local leisure centre where EV drivers just seem to think the EV charging bays are just for parking.
And lastly, paying by card when the apps don't work can also be a right pain when you need to get a receipt, I have no idea how big companies cope with all the admin.
Rant over
IMO it is the biggest downside to owning an EV if you need to travel any sort of distance.
A few reasons I find it all a bit rubbish.
Chargers which need an app to work, I now have two pages of apps just to use the car, which TBH is a joke. I don't use public chargers that often so nearly every time I've been to a charger the app has needed an update before it will work.
Chargers which don't supply the power they should, in the past few weeks I've had a 125kW unit supplying 30kW and a 50kW unit supplying 20kW. I don't care if they need to load balance, they are advertised at 125kW they should supply that (unless the car won't take it).
The price is also a total minefield, every supplier has a different price structure, for example, BP pulse below to get the best rates you then need a monthly membership.
Then we come to broken units, there seems no rush to get broken chargers fixed, the closest rapid charger to our office has now been broken for 5 months, this is the only one in a town for 124000 people.
Even my closest Tesla chargers have never worked, the M3 fleet southbound, they have been there for four years I believe.
Then we come to the queuing, it's all a bit random and you just never know if the charger will be free even if the app says it is.
Next, people who just dump EVs in charging bays not charging like this muppet who by also parking badly was taking up two of the four bays.
Or at our local leisure centre where EV drivers just seem to think the EV charging bays are just for parking.
And lastly, paying by card when the apps don't work can also be a right pain when you need to get a receipt, I have no idea how big companies cope with all the admin.
Rant over
IMO it is the biggest downside to owning an EV if you need to travel any sort of distance.
LimaDelta said:
This. With most cars now seeing c300 mile ranges, and most daily journeys well below that, how many owners actually regularly charge away from home or work? There just isn't the demand for en-route charging.
The average car journey in the UK is less than ten miles, and 12k miles per year is only 32 miles per day. To be maxing out an M3 range every (370miles) day you would be covering a whopping 135,000 miles a year!. Even if you just count week days its 96,000. Anyone covering those sorts of distances is a statistical outlier.
In the 3 1/2 years we had an i3 it was only once charged at a public charger, and then only because of a power outage at home (we took it into the village pub as they have a charger in the carpark).
I agree about the daily basis - but even having this rigmarole 2 or 3 times a month is a total ballacheThe average car journey in the UK is less than ten miles, and 12k miles per year is only 32 miles per day. To be maxing out an M3 range every (370miles) day you would be covering a whopping 135,000 miles a year!. Even if you just count week days its 96,000. Anyone covering those sorts of distances is a statistical outlier.
In the 3 1/2 years we had an i3 it was only once charged at a public charger, and then only because of a power outage at home (we took it into the village pub as they have a charger in the carpark).
OK let me add this caveat.
AS I said I worked very briefly for a firm making chargers, I am not sure they were anything more than employer/home based units, I do not think they were services style things.
But the quality was very poor.
I would suggest Tesla were and are able to be a little more forward thinking in that the investment was going to pay off eventually so perhaps spent more time making sure they were well built, reliable and used skilled staff to do it.
Where I worked was not skilled staff. And remember this was eventually a firm and tech bought by BP! Let's hope they improved QA.
The market went from nothing to everywhere in months almost so the pressure on firms to make stuff or deliver on promises would be huge. That can have an impact on quality with companies rushing stuff out not properly tested to hit targets, this leads to high staff turnover and poorer and poorer quality.
Tesla seemed to do it right, maybe they got lucky, maybe they invested more heavily in testing, app design and reliability.
AS I said I worked very briefly for a firm making chargers, I am not sure they were anything more than employer/home based units, I do not think they were services style things.
But the quality was very poor.
I would suggest Tesla were and are able to be a little more forward thinking in that the investment was going to pay off eventually so perhaps spent more time making sure they were well built, reliable and used skilled staff to do it.
Where I worked was not skilled staff. And remember this was eventually a firm and tech bought by BP! Let's hope they improved QA.
The market went from nothing to everywhere in months almost so the pressure on firms to make stuff or deliver on promises would be huge. That can have an impact on quality with companies rushing stuff out not properly tested to hit targets, this leads to high staff turnover and poorer and poorer quality.
Tesla seemed to do it right, maybe they got lucky, maybe they invested more heavily in testing, app design and reliability.
I echo the thoughts from others on the over complicated and seemingly unnecessary process involved in using most third party chargers.
Why do I need an app, account, signal etc when I just want to buy some electricity. I can drive all over the world armed with nothing more than a debit card and use unmanned petrol pumps, it would make life a whole lot simpler if I could do the same with chargers.
It's often a PITA and i'm fairly tech savvy and in my thirties - can only imagine how my retirement age mother would get on! Luckily I tend use ICE for longer trips so it's rarely an issue but it would be with an EV as our only car.
Why do I need an app, account, signal etc when I just want to buy some electricity. I can drive all over the world armed with nothing more than a debit card and use unmanned petrol pumps, it would make life a whole lot simpler if I could do the same with chargers.
It's often a PITA and i'm fairly tech savvy and in my thirties - can only imagine how my retirement age mother would get on! Luckily I tend use ICE for longer trips so it's rarely an issue but it would be with an EV as our only car.
LukeBrown66 said:
I do think a lot of this should have been far better regulated
100%A licence should be needed to supply EV charging to the public,
2% downtime gets your licence pulled.
Less than 70% of the advertised power supplied, your license pulled.
No contactless option, your license pulled.
No systems in place to stop overstayers, your licence pulled.
It wouldn't take much.
OutInTheShed said:
Strangely, unmanned, pay-at-pump fuel stations have sold me diesel with no problems at all for the last three years.
Apart from making me slightly cross that I could only have £99 worth when my tank would have taken a little more!
OK, there were a few days when I didn't try buying fuel because it was quite likely they had none to sell me.
There are other things though.
Technically how hard should it be to pay for a parking space in town?
The National Trust can make it work in the bum end of the boondocks....
You’ll be lucky at Attingham Park, most struggle with mobile service near the chargers, often need to walk towards entrance to activate and then check it is actually working.Apart from making me slightly cross that I could only have £99 worth when my tank would have taken a little more!
OK, there were a few days when I didn't try buying fuel because it was quite likely they had none to sell me.
There are other things though.
Technically how hard should it be to pay for a parking space in town?
The National Trust can make it work in the bum end of the boondocks....
York Hyper Hub early December wasn’t working and apparently ha d been like it for a fortnight, was “commissioned” in June
LukeBrown66 said:
Maybe because there are so many little companies all wanting their tiny slice of pie. This does not help reliability.
I do think a lot of this should have been far better regulated, as usual it was just left to itself and has become less than great in some ways.
More government involvement and it could have been just like the Smart Meter programme....I do think a lot of this should have been far better regulated, as usual it was just left to itself and has become less than great in some ways.
TheRainMaker said:
Why exactly is the public charging network so flakey?
A few reasons I find it all a bit rubbish.
You certainly know how to ruin a parade. A few reasons I find it all a bit rubbish.
This set of 4 rapid chargers in Edinburgh have probably been in place for a year now but are still not working.
Oops forgot the pic!
Edited by 5s Alive on Friday 13th January 22:14
5s Alive said:
You certainly know how to ruin a parade.
This set of 4 rapid chargers in Edinburgh have probably been in place for a year now but are still not working.
Oops forgot the pic!
But Edinburgh also has a fleet of rapid chargers in the city installed which, bar a couple out of service and 30 minute limits, represent quite good value at 35p/kWh. The 22kW posts also represent great value if you're popping in for a couple of hours to do shopping and don't mind walking 2 minutes to George St.This set of 4 rapid chargers in Edinburgh have probably been in place for a year now but are still not working.
Oops forgot the pic!
Edited by 5s Alive on Friday 13th January 22:14
TheDeuce said:
OutInTheShed said:
Because, thus far, very few people actually want public charging very often.
Until people routinely want it, and will happily pay the true cost for someone to make a proper business out of providing it, it will be mickey mouse.
I can't accept that. I know of modern high speed chargers that are consistently busy but still I hear complaints of them failing often. I hardly use public chargers myself but I reckon 20-30% of the ones I have used or tried to use have failed me in some way.Until people routinely want it, and will happily pay the true cost for someone to make a proper business out of providing it, it will be mickey mouse.
Tesla's network just works, why can't the other networks? This is not high tech stuff.
I've found most other operators fine to be honest, except for the Shell one I tried recently. Seems like a trend!
Other than that, Ecotricity were shocking but much better now they've been taken over by Gridserve.
I've never had any problems with Podpoint, Geniepoint, Dragon, or Instavolt but appreciate I might have been lucky.
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