EV Beano drives a Vauxhall Mokka-e Elite Premium electric car and shares his experiences to-date on public charging.
What do you think of the UK public charging network in general?
Where it works and is plentiful it is generally very good. The legacy attempts by the oil companies are pretty poor, although where they are putting in new units these are starting to be better. As the number of multi-charger locations increases, especially from some very keen CPOs, there is room for plenty of optimism.
What and where are your favourite UK public chargers?
- InstaVolt at their multi-unit sites – Booths car parks in Cumbria and stand-alone in Banbury, North Norfolk
- Osprey’s Kempower chargers, Banbury – both for practicality in balancing loads and their design as something slim and attractive
- Gridserve’s Electric Forecourts – which really make an attraction of making road trips or combining EVs as meeting venues
- Shell’s Recharge Electric Forecourt in Fulham.
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What’s been your best experience with a UK public charger?
- InstaVolt – where the customer service was available, knowledgeable and able to sort issues remotely
- RAW Charging – similarly able to remote start chargers and solve issues with units.
What’s been your worst experience with a UK public charger?
Trying to report, on more than one occasion, about units not working to Shell Recharge. Responses have included that they don’t know which unit I am describing even when I give the site address and postcode in full and suggesting that the employees at the Shell Fuel Forecourt franchise might be the people to approach about a charger not working.
What’s got to change about public charging in the UK to get more people driving electric cars?
Mostly the public perception. But also the rollout rate needs to continue at pace, with multiple charging stalls as the norm and CPOs who have seamless maintenance and repair. They could, for example, schedule restarting of chargers where they are known to go offline/for example in the early hours of the morning if they have not been used for a period of time.
See other public charging reports here
