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SteveG
What is the make, model and year of your EV?
Kia e-Niro Model 4 64kwh 2020
What do you think of public chargers generally?
Often unreliable and there are nowhere near enough of the correct type in the right places but things are improving.
What and where are your favourite public chargers?
IONITY is probably the most reliable based on my limited public charger use. The ones I’ve used have been at the M74 Gretna BP services and Dumfries Cuckoo Bridge shopping centre. I’ve also used some of the new Gridserve chargers at various sites and they are a vast improvement on the Ecotricity chargers they’ve replaced in many places.
ChargePlace Scotland chargers dominate in Scotland and in general I’ve found them reliable, though not 100% and there aren’t anywhere near enough of them. I’ve used Be-EV chargers down in the Manchester area and they seem reliable. GeniePoint chargers are generally reliable, I’ve used a couple in Lancashire but my usual one let me down last month in the middle of a snow storm so they’re off my Christmas list for now.
To sum up from my own experience, public chargers are getting better regarding reliability but there simply aren’t enough of them. There needs to be many more rapid, 50kW or faster journey chargers at stopping places all along the main trunk routes all over the country. I’ve never seen Tesla install chargers in less than banks of 6 or multiples of 6, it’s a model that works, so why don’t other suppliers copy and even improve on it?
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What’s been your best experience with a public charger?
I’ve never been let down by an IONITY charger yet.
What’s been your worst experience with a public charger?
CPS chargers tend to be hit and miss in some places but to-date I’ve always managed to get a charge eventually. That is if I ignore the complete system outages they’ve had a couple of times. Luckily, it wasn’t disastrous in either case as I managed to get to my destination both times. GeniePoint and Ecotricity are the only complete failures I’ve had. That is, where I’ve had to go elsewhere for a charge having totally failed to get a charger to work.
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