9 ms·

UK has almost 1M EV chargers, with new public one installed every 25 minutes

80 points by Capstanlqc 2y ago

okasaki 2y ago
[flagged]
- _joel 2y ago
  Err, not really. It may be a bit wishy washy imho but it's certainly not what you describe. Culture war clickbait? Guardian readers are the alleged tofu eating wokerati.
daggersandscars 2y ago
“There were 930,000 UK chargers at the end of June, according to ChargeUK, a lobby group, but the majority of these have been installed in homes and business premises, with only about 65,000 public chargers available.” The article does not break down the 65K public chargers or the added chargers by charging speed.
- krona 2y ago
  Nor does it mention how many of those chargers actually work.
  - dark-star 2y ago
    yeah, I have seen this in Germany as well. I guess the companies get incentives for installing these chargers, and then just let them sit there until they rot In our city (~100k) alone I have spotted over 10 chargers that have been defective for at least half a year, some even longer than 1 year. And that's only those that I regularly drive to. As long as there are no requirements to actually service them and have them in a working condition, the raw numbers of installed chargers are meaningless
    - chrisandchris 2y ago
      > ... there's no requirement ... Is a requirement really necessary? I'm not aware that any requirement exists to keep your petrol station running (well, maybe there is one). And I'm sure it's not necessary to have one, because if your station does not work you go out of business very fast. So why are these companies still in business if it's profitable to have non-working charging stations?
      - pjc50 2y ago
        I wonder if there's some kind of ridiculous accountability split like the famous McDonalds non-working ice cream machines.
      - two_handfuls 2y ago
        At least sometimes, yes. WV’s charger network (“electrify America”) is notorious for perennially broken chargers, and when the government announced the next round of subsidies was contingent on the chargers actually working then suddenly WV got serious about maintenance.
      - lesuorac 2y ago
        > So why are these companies still in business if it's profitable to have non-working charging stations? Pretty sure the government pays them the cost of installing the charger + profit. So they're just in the business of installing chargers. While I don't think anybody pays you to just build gas stations so you'll need to operate it to recover your initial investment.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pornel 2y ago
Charging has gotten pretty decent in the last couple of years. I used to be annoyed that signs for highway services don't show which ones have chargers, but they've fixed that by installing chargers at every one of them (at least along my routes). It's even better in western Europe, where Ionity and Fastned have a pretty dense coverage of 300kW chargers. I've been road tripping around the UK and Europe for the last three summers, and it's been easy peasy. Hyundai has a universal charging card that works with the majority of minor crappy charging networks, which solves the pain of having to install seventeen different charging apps.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >It's even better in western Europe Where? Because here in Austria public EV charging infrastructure is next to non existent. Ironically it's best in Vienna where car ownership is lowest due to excellent public transportation but next to no existing in the other smaller cities where car ownership is highest. It's bonkers.
  - pornel 2y ago
    I have first hand good experience from France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. I've also driven across Poland, and that was where I had to start planning charging, rather than just go wherever, which is why I say west Europe, not just EU. Austria looks less dense than Germany and Switzerland, but still good – DC fast chargers along highways, and over 100 fast chargers in Vienna. Austrian Alps have poorer coverage, but that's not surprising — there aren't many roads there either, but still there are enough chargers to cross them in an EV, so at least as a tourist I don't think I'd have major difficulty. https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      To be fair Benelux and the Nordics are far ahead in terms of EV infrastructure that the rest of "western Europe" whatever that term means if it's geographical, political or economicall. And what's the point of highly dense cities like Vienna having much better EV charging infrastructure, when most of the people there usually use the excellent public transportation so car ownership is low anyway. EV infrastructure Investments should happen precisely in the places with lesser density where cars are a necessity but those are the ones with the lest EV infrastructure precisely as you pointed out.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
They are not all rapid chargers of course. But the point is that mostly those are only needed if you run out of juice on a longer journey. For most normal drivers that only happens a few times a year. Otherwise you just top up at home or using one of the many slow chargers overnight or in a few hours while you are doing something else. My parents in the Netherlands bought an EV two years ago. They live in an apartment without their own charger in the building. Mostly my father just uses one of several public slow chargers in the neighborhood; once a week or so. He checks on his phone when one is available, drives there and plugs in. They also use chargers at hotels when they are traveling and are typically booking things with chargers available. Destination charging is a thing. Drive somewhere, plug in, do what you came to do, and drive back with enough charge to get home. They went on a longer trip to France half a year ago. That's the first time he used a rapid charger. The most stressful thing with that is figuring out the payment systems. It's getting better but there are still way too many options for that. Recently Tesla super chargers became an option as well for them (lots of those) and those seem to work best. They drive a Renault. Anyway, this is very typical behavior with EVs. You charge when it's convenient instead of when you have to. Mostly you are not going to run out on a normal day. It's only on longer journeys that you need to do a bit of planning (make sure the car is charged up before you leave, pick where & when to rapid charge). The worst case is having to take a 45 minute break or so when it's not convenient. That can happen but mostly you can plan to combine that with lunch or something else. And my father is 75, so he needs to have breaks more frequently than the car.
- atonse 2y ago
  This might be a very American-centric view but I usually tell people that if you have a garage or driveway then your electric car ownership will be a dream where you truly stop thinking about range. But if you don't, I can imagine there being more stress about charging times, fast chargers, etc. For road trips, thanks to Tesla's extensive Supercharger network, they are really great for that. But with more standards (CCS and NACS) becoming pervasive, hopefully this becomes an issue of the past (payments, etc). My big question is, I don't understand why the oil companies haven't gotten on board. Why aren't we seeing more and more L3 chargers at gas stations?
ramesh31 2y ago
The UK seems like it should be a slam dunk for EV adoption; moderate climate, high gas prices, short distances, and an affluent populace. Yet Germany (and Europe at large) is handily beating them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country Why is this?
- Symbiote 2y ago
  5.0% vs 5.4% of cars on the road? That's probably the slightly higher incomes in Germany.
- stuartjohnson12 2y ago
  Our luddite conspiracy theory faction seems more organised than the rest of Europe. Pushing measures to encourage green adoption runs the risk of attracting the ire of an exceptionally loud and persistent minority who are convinced by things like the bizarre conspiracy theory[1] that policies to curb pollution are part of a great plot to control how often you're allowed to go to the shops. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66990302 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66990302
- simonbarker87 2y ago
  Population density explains a lot of difference between UK and Europe.
  - arethuza 2y ago
    That does rather depend where you live in the UK though and also where you regularly travel to...
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Seem fairly similar, although the UK is denser than all of Europe except Belgium, Netherlands and the microstates. Is that good or bad for EV adoption? Is it skewed by Londoners often not having cars at all?
- swarnie 2y ago
graemep 2y ago
On 65k public chargers though and only another 20k added per year. There are close to 30m households so only about 3% of households have a charger.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  > Of households in Great Britain, 18 million (65%) either have, or have the potential to offer, off-street parking for at least one vehicle. https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing-still-Nagler-June-2021.pdf https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing-st... Lots of potential there. I guess some might just slow charge from a socket too.
simonbarker87 2y ago
We had a Polestar 2 as our only car for about 8 weeks at the start of the year, we knew we’d only have it for a short time so didn’t install a charger to the house. It was a total nightmare, we had to think days ahead to any big trip to make sure we had enough charge to get us through and if we needed to charge en route it was expensive, slow and difficult to find a working charger. We are back with an ICE vehicle now and it’s so much easier. It’s great that we are moving toward an EV future but right now you need a dedicated charger and also be prepared to massively pay over the odds on a per mile basis if you have to charge en route somewhere. Also every charger needs to be tap and pay and every charger should be usable by any EV, screw those Podpoints in train stations that don’t appear in the app and clearly need you to be in some secret club to access. EDIT: I'm based in the UK
- onion2k 2y ago
  we had to think days ahead to any big trip Were you taking a lot of big trips without thinking about them before the Polestar?
  - simonbarker87 2y ago
    Specifically we had to plan our charging for a few days ahead because, without a home charger, we couldn’t get more than a 25% charge overnight. So unless we wanted to start our journey with an expensive fast charge we would need to plan our car usage and charge strategy so that when we left for the big trip we’d have at least 80%. With an ICE we just fill up the night before or morning of and we’re good to go with 500 miles in the tank.
    - rwmj 2y ago
      Why don't you string an electric cable from a regular socket out of the window? It's slow but it can easily charge a car overnight.
      - cduzz 2y ago
        In the US, on a 120v / 12a circuit, it'll add 3 miles of range per hour.
eimrine 2y ago
Can at least any of them to charge a car anonymously?
- pjc50 2y ago
  You can't buy petrol "anonymously" in the UK: every petrol station has CCTV+ANPR to stop you stealing petrol.
  - swarnie 2y ago
    And this is why people should stick to "borrowing" red diesel from the countryside.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      At least that way you're unambiguously a criminal.
- onion2k 2y ago
  In the UK you can't drive anywhere anonymously. The network of ANPR cameras is incredibly extensive.
- itishappy 2y ago
  Every standard outlet.
ageitgey 2y ago
I realize that my experience in an upscale, somewhat suburban part of west London is not representative of the UK in general. But where I live, we've definitely "passed the tipping point" of EV adoption. There are low speed chargers available in the streetlight poles next to street parking (low cost). There are 22kw slow/medium chargers in reserved spots throughout the neighborhood (medium cost, lower to residents). There are 250kw chargers at gas stations (high cost). The local supermarket has 10+ 250kw charging spots (high cost) and at least half are always available. It's finally hit the point where there are always multiple charging options easily available nearby and the number of EVs parked in the neighborhood is rapidly multiplying. I see more EVs on my local streets daily. It's a different world outside of London. Less densely populated areas of the UK can still be a bit of a nightmare for charging, especially during big travel periods. Looking at you, Cornwall.
- rwmj 2y ago
  In the posher lanes around here (in the wealthy home counties) every single house now appears to have a charger, and the main difference between them is whether there are one or two electric cars parked outside.
  - toyg 2y ago
    This didn't happen in a vacuum though. The government effectively forced business-registered cars to become electric, with draconian tax policies and road charges; and is now forcing (with various degrees of success) petrol stations to have chargers.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Yes, the policy is working. None of this - not the EV transition, not the coal transition, not the (very slow) heatpump transition - would be happening without policy.
whlh 2y ago
[flagged]

80 points by Capstanlqc 2y ago

okasaki 2y ago

[flagged]

_joel 2y ago
Err, not really. It may be a bit wishy washy imho but it's certainly not what you describe. Culture war clickbait? Guardian readers are the alleged tofu eating wokerati.

daggersandscars 2y ago

“There were 930,000 UK chargers at the end of June, according to ChargeUK, a lobby group, but the majority of these have been installed in homes and business premises, with only about 65,000 public chargers available.” The article does not break down the 65K public chargers or the added chargers by charging speed.

krona 2y ago
Nor does it mention how many of those chargers actually work.
- dark-star 2y ago
  yeah, I have seen this in Germany as well. I guess the companies get incentives for installing these chargers, and then just let them sit there until they rot In our city (~100k) alone I have spotted over 10 chargers that have been defective for at least half a year, some even longer than 1 year. And that's only those that I regularly drive to. As long as there are no requirements to actually service them and have them in a working condition, the raw numbers of installed chargers are meaningless
  - chrisandchris 2y ago
    > ... there's no requirement ... Is a requirement really necessary? I'm not aware that any requirement exists to keep your petrol station running (well, maybe there is one). And I'm sure it's not necessary to have one, because if your station does not work you go out of business very fast. So why are these companies still in business if it's profitable to have non-working charging stations?
    - pjc50 2y ago
      I wonder if there's some kind of ridiculous accountability split like the famous McDonalds non-working ice cream machines.
    - two_handfuls 2y ago
      At least sometimes, yes. WV’s charger network (“electrify America”) is notorious for perennially broken chargers, and when the government announced the next round of subsidies was contingent on the chargers actually working then suddenly WV got serious about maintenance.
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      > So why are these companies still in business if it's profitable to have non-working charging stations? Pretty sure the government pays them the cost of installing the charger + profit. So they're just in the business of installing chargers. While I don't think anybody pays you to just build gas stations so you'll need to operate it to recover your initial investment.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pornel 2y ago

Charging has gotten pretty decent in the last couple of years. I used to be annoyed that signs for highway services don't show which ones have chargers, but they've fixed that by installing chargers at every one of them (at least along my routes). It's even better in western Europe, where Ionity and Fastned have a pretty dense coverage of 300kW chargers. I've been road tripping around the UK and Europe for the last three summers, and it's been easy peasy. Hyundai has a universal charging card that works with the majority of minor crappy charging networks, which solves the pain of having to install seventeen different charging apps.

Rinzler89 2y ago
>It's even better in western Europe Where? Because here in Austria public EV charging infrastructure is next to non existent. Ironically it's best in Vienna where car ownership is lowest due to excellent public transportation but next to no existing in the other smaller cities where car ownership is highest. It's bonkers.
- pornel 2y ago
  I have first hand good experience from France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. I've also driven across Poland, and that was where I had to start planning charging, rather than just go wherever, which is why I say west Europe, not just EU. Austria looks less dense than Germany and Switzerland, but still good – DC fast chargers along highways, and over 100 fast chargers in Vienna. Austrian Alps have poorer coverage, but that's not surprising — there aren't many roads there either, but still there are enough chargers to cross them in an EV, so at least as a tourist I don't think I'd have major difficulty. https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    To be fair Benelux and the Nordics are far ahead in terms of EV infrastructure that the rest of "western Europe" whatever that term means if it's geographical, political or economicall. And what's the point of highly dense cities like Vienna having much better EV charging infrastructure, when most of the people there usually use the excellent public transportation so car ownership is low anyway. EV infrastructure Investments should happen precisely in the places with lesser density where cars are a necessity but those are the ones with the lest EV infrastructure precisely as you pointed out.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

They are not all rapid chargers of course. But the point is that mostly those are only needed if you run out of juice on a longer journey. For most normal drivers that only happens a few times a year. Otherwise you just top up at home or using one of the many slow chargers overnight or in a few hours while you are doing something else. My parents in the Netherlands bought an EV two years ago. They live in an apartment without their own charger in the building. Mostly my father just uses one of several public slow chargers in the neighborhood; once a week or so. He checks on his phone when one is available, drives there and plugs in. They also use chargers at hotels when they are traveling and are typically booking things with chargers available. Destination charging is a thing. Drive somewhere, plug in, do what you came to do, and drive back with enough charge to get home. They went on a longer trip to France half a year ago. That's the first time he used a rapid charger. The most stressful thing with that is figuring out the payment systems. It's getting better but there are still way too many options for that. Recently Tesla super chargers became an option as well for them (lots of those) and those seem to work best. They drive a Renault. Anyway, this is very typical behavior with EVs. You charge when it's convenient instead of when you have to. Mostly you are not going to run out on a normal day. It's only on longer journeys that you need to do a bit of planning (make sure the car is charged up before you leave, pick where & when to rapid charge). The worst case is having to take a 45 minute break or so when it's not convenient. That can happen but mostly you can plan to combine that with lunch or something else. And my father is 75, so he needs to have breaks more frequently than the car.

atonse 2y ago
This might be a very American-centric view but I usually tell people that if you have a garage or driveway then your electric car ownership will be a dream where you truly stop thinking about range. But if you don't, I can imagine there being more stress about charging times, fast chargers, etc. For road trips, thanks to Tesla's extensive Supercharger network, they are really great for that. But with more standards (CCS and NACS) becoming pervasive, hopefully this becomes an issue of the past (payments, etc). My big question is, I don't understand why the oil companies haven't gotten on board. Why aren't we seeing more and more L3 chargers at gas stations?

ramesh31 2y ago

The UK seems like it should be a slam dunk for EV adoption; moderate climate, high gas prices, short distances, and an affluent populace. Yet Germany (and Europe at large) is handily beating them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country Why is this?

Symbiote 2y ago
5.0% vs 5.4% of cars on the road? That's probably the slightly higher incomes in Germany.
stuartjohnson12 2y ago
Our luddite conspiracy theory faction seems more organised than the rest of Europe. Pushing measures to encourage green adoption runs the risk of attracting the ire of an exceptionally loud and persistent minority who are convinced by things like the bizarre conspiracy theory[1] that policies to curb pollution are part of a great plot to control how often you're allowed to go to the shops. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66990302 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66990302
simonbarker87 2y ago
Population density explains a lot of difference between UK and Europe.
- arethuza 2y ago
  That does rather depend where you live in the UK though and also where you regularly travel to...
- pjc50 2y ago
  Seem fairly similar, although the UK is denser than all of Europe except Belgium, Netherlands and the microstates. Is that good or bad for EV adoption? Is it skewed by Londoners often not having cars at all?
swarnie 2y ago

graemep 2y ago

On 65k public chargers though and only another 20k added per year. There are close to 30m households so only about 3% of households have a charger.

thebruce87m 2y ago
> Of households in Great Britain, 18 million (65%) either have, or have the potential to offer, off-street parking for at least one vehicle. https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing-still-Nagler-June-2021.pdf https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/standing-st... Lots of potential there. I guess some might just slow charge from a socket too.

simonbarker87 2y ago

We had a Polestar 2 as our only car for about 8 weeks at the start of the year, we knew we’d only have it for a short time so didn’t install a charger to the house. It was a total nightmare, we had to think days ahead to any big trip to make sure we had enough charge to get us through and if we needed to charge en route it was expensive, slow and difficult to find a working charger. We are back with an ICE vehicle now and it’s so much easier. It’s great that we are moving toward an EV future but right now you need a dedicated charger and also be prepared to massively pay over the odds on a per mile basis if you have to charge en route somewhere. Also every charger needs to be tap and pay and every charger should be usable by any EV, screw those Podpoints in train stations that don’t appear in the app and clearly need you to be in some secret club to access. EDIT: I'm based in the UK

onion2k 2y ago
we had to think days ahead to any big trip Were you taking a lot of big trips without thinking about them before the Polestar?
- simonbarker87 2y ago
  Specifically we had to plan our charging for a few days ahead because, without a home charger, we couldn’t get more than a 25% charge overnight. So unless we wanted to start our journey with an expensive fast charge we would need to plan our car usage and charge strategy so that when we left for the big trip we’d have at least 80%. With an ICE we just fill up the night before or morning of and we’re good to go with 500 miles in the tank.
  - rwmj 2y ago
    Why don't you string an electric cable from a regular socket out of the window? It's slow but it can easily charge a car overnight.
    - cduzz 2y ago
      In the US, on a 120v / 12a circuit, it'll add 3 miles of range per hour.

eimrine 2y ago

Can at least any of them to charge a car anonymously?

pjc50 2y ago
You can't buy petrol "anonymously" in the UK: every petrol station has CCTV+ANPR to stop you stealing petrol.
- swarnie 2y ago
  And this is why people should stick to "borrowing" red diesel from the countryside.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    At least that way you're unambiguously a criminal.
onion2k 2y ago
In the UK you can't drive anywhere anonymously. The network of ANPR cameras is incredibly extensive.
itishappy 2y ago
Every standard outlet.

ageitgey 2y ago

I realize that my experience in an upscale, somewhat suburban part of west London is not representative of the UK in general. But where I live, we've definitely "passed the tipping point" of EV adoption. There are low speed chargers available in the streetlight poles next to street parking (low cost). There are 22kw slow/medium chargers in reserved spots throughout the neighborhood (medium cost, lower to residents). There are 250kw chargers at gas stations (high cost). The local supermarket has 10+ 250kw charging spots (high cost) and at least half are always available. It's finally hit the point where there are always multiple charging options easily available nearby and the number of EVs parked in the neighborhood is rapidly multiplying. I see more EVs on my local streets daily. It's a different world outside of London. Less densely populated areas of the UK can still be a bit of a nightmare for charging, especially during big travel periods. Looking at you, Cornwall.

rwmj 2y ago
In the posher lanes around here (in the wealthy home counties) every single house now appears to have a charger, and the main difference between them is whether there are one or two electric cars parked outside.
- toyg 2y ago
  This didn't happen in a vacuum though. The government effectively forced business-registered cars to become electric, with draconian tax policies and road charges; and is now forcing (with various degrees of success) petrol stations to have chargers.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Yes, the policy is working. None of this - not the EV transition, not the coal transition, not the (very slow) heatpump transition - would be happening without policy.

whlh 2y ago

[flagged]