How bad REALLY is the electric car charging network? | What Car?
How good or how bad really is the UK’s public charging infrastructure if you read some of the tabloids you might assume that there are barely any charging points at all the ones there are are all broken and electric cars are basically a hoax on the other hand if
You buy a new EV like the scoda enyak here you’ll be told that there are loads of places to plug in and charge up quickly without any mention of the fact that the charging Point might be broken that you might have to wait to use it or
That it might not deliver the sort of charging speed that is promising so what’s the truth well we’ve put together a bit of an experiment to find out what your experience is likely to be if you’re relying on the UK’s public charging infrastructure in a relatively builtup area so we’re starting this in
Isa in Su it’s a commuted Town within the M25 so we’re not doing this in the highlands of Scotland to make life as difficult as possible for the EV and we’re simply going to visit the 10 closest CCS charging points according to an app that you can download to your
Phone called zap map now we Have No Agenda here we genuinely don’t know what we’re going to find out but it is around about 10:00 on a Thursday morning rush hour is over so let’s head to our first charging point and find Out now although the main purpose of this experiment is obviously to find out the state of the charging infrastructure around here but you can consider it a bit of a review of Zap map the app as well because that’s what we’re going to be using to find out where we’re going
Zap map is free to download we’ve actually got the premium version here that costs $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year and that means that you can sync up with apple carplate to just make it a bit easier to see where you’re going the first stop is a pod point at a little
Supermarket in ham apparently and there is only one CCS connector according to this and although sometimes you can get some information about whether someone’s using the charger or whether or not it’s broken here it just says unknown status so we’re just going to have to find out for
Ourselves right so we’re just pulling into the car park here I can see the charger at the end and it looks like another scoda enyak is charging but there is a space next to that so let’s back into that and see if there is more than one CTS connector right so as you
Can see the second enyak L parked up next to is indeed charging up and there’s only one CCS connector here but it is at 91% at the moment it’s been charging for about 42 minutes so hopefully the person who owns this car will be back pretty
Soon and we can plug in if not we’re going to wait a maximum of 15 minutes so if they’re not back during that time or the charging hasn’t completed and we can plug in then we’re going to head off to the next location right so the timer is actually
Up we’ve been here for 15 minutes but yeny is on 99% so it’ be a bit silly to head off to the next charging point so we’re going to hang on for a couple of minutes hopefully this will complete charging the charging connector will disconnect even if the person doesn’t
Come back and we can plug in and get this on charge so the Moment of Truth this car has actually finished charging now will this connector come out and allow us to charge hopefully it will so let’s find out great news so let’s get this car on charge
Now right great news we are charging up now we had to wait a little bit longer than we said we waited for 17 minutes but that other renc was so close to finishing that it kind of made sense to do that and we’re going to stay plugged
In for around about 5 minutes we’re going to record the peak charging rate that the charging Point delivers and then we’re going to head off to the next location our next St is a Hilton in cbum now that’s run by BP pulse there is just
The one CCS connector again it’s a 50 KW and on this particular charging Point zap map does say that it’s available right now so hopefully when we get there that’ll still be the case Okay so just pulling into the Hilter now and just need to locate the
Charging points there it is over there I can see it and there’s no one using it so hopefully we can charge up and it’ll be another good Experience right another painless experience to be honest we have finished charging it wasn’t quite as quick we got a maximum of 37 Kow this is a 50 KW charger but otherwise no complaints at all and hopefully if it’s all as easy as this then we should be done pretty
Quickly okay so we could have our first broken charging point because according to zap map our next charging location which is a genie point at a Morrison store in waybridge is out of service now we’re still going to go there to find out if that’s really the case but if it
Isn’t working the good news is that zap map would tell us that so we’ just go to another charging point less impressive about this app though is that it’s supposed to be able to navigate to these points using Google Maps always but neither of those seems to be working at
The moment there seems to be some sort of bug in there so the only navigation tool that is available to us is Apple Maps so the charging Point here is indeed out of order if I click on the screen here as you can see it says temporarily unavailable on all of the
Chargers so that’s not ideal that is one of the three charging points we’ve visited so far that has been out of order but on the plus side Z map told us about that so we wouldn’t have come here probably in normal situation let’s find out if the next one’s working not far to
Our next charging point at all it’s still in wridge actually at a bantine gym never heard of that but apparently there are two ccs connectors not one and they’re both free and both working so hopefully we can get a charge okay so we’re halfway through our experiment now this is our fifth
Charging location and it is what looks like a brand new MFG charger now there’s only one of them here at this ESO service station but it’s free we’re plugged in we’re connected up absolutely fine and we’re getting the fastest charging speed that we’ve seen so far of
49.9 KW it’s only a 50 Kow charger so that’s pretty much the maximum it can deliver so far then four out of the five charging locations we’ve been to have been working and we’ve only had to wait to use one of those four not a bad
Experience at all I’d say but let’s hope it stays that way so we just passed the halfway point we are heading to our sixth charging location the next two are really close together the first is a genie point at a Shell Petrol Station apparently there is one CTS charging point there it’s
Another 50 KW but zap map says it’s offline so it can’t tell us whether or not someone using it or whether or not it’s working so the only way we’re going to find that out is by heading there bad news I’m afraid the charging Point here
There is only one CCS point and it is out of order it’s not even switched on at all it’s got a hanger on it so we can’t charge up there’s no point in even trying but the good news is that the next charging station is pretty
Close so as I said the last charging location that we went to was out of order but this one is about 300 yd down the road it’s a BP pulse and there are actually two of these stations next door to one another the other one is isn’t being used either so availability
Absolutely fine it’s not the quickest charging rate we’ve seen at the moment the car says we are putting 37 KW that’s the same as the last BP pulse station that we went to this can officially deliver 50 KW but not too bad at all so
We should be on our way in a few Minutes okay so all of the charging stations we’ve been to so far have been 50 KW CCS whereas the next place we’re going has three three charging stations and two of them are apparently 150 KW so we should be able to charge up more quickly and apparently according to zap map they’re all
Available and they are well two of them are at least the 50 kwatt one right at the end is apparently out of order but these two 150 KW chargers are working someone is plugged in next to me there and we are charging as well we are getting the fastest charging rate we’ve
Seen so far but it isn’t 150 KW it’s about 66 67 so that’s perhaps a little bit disappointing given that we are paying 85p per Kow hour that’s a lot of money for a charge but good news is it’s working so another successful charge so we’re at our ninth charging
Location now and it is a BP pulse these though can deliver 150 Kow rather than 50 Kow that the BP pulse which went to earlier can there are two stations but that one over there is wrapped in a load of polythene so clearly out out of order
This one looks like it’s working but let’s find out if that’s the case so we Press Start 79p per kwatt hour you are allowed to start charging so let’s plug in and see if it works and how much power we’re going to get another success so it’s charging at the moment and the
Peak rate that we are getting so far is about 6970 so that’s the fastest rate we’ve seen still way down on the 150 KW that this charging Point can theoretically deliver but not bad at all nine down one to go and it looks as though we might be ending our experiment
On a bit of a downer actually because according to zap map our final charging stop which is a BP pulse at Woodland’s Park Hotel there’s only one charging Point apparently is out of service now we’re going to go there of course to find out if that’s really the case but
At the moment it doesn’t look promising as expected it isn’t good news I’m afraid this BP pulse charging Point behind me is out of service so we can’t plug in and charge up but we don’t want to end on a downer so what we’re actually going to do is make an 11th
Bonus charging stop at cbum Services now of course all of the charging points we’ve visited so far have been off the motorway network but if you need to make a long journey chances are you’re going to be using one on the motorway now cobon Services is apparently the busiest
Motorway service station in the UK and it’s fairly new it’s only been open for about 10 years so there should be no excuse for how much power they’ve been able to get to all of their charging points there are quite a few but whether or not they’re working and whether or
Not they’re free is a question we need to answer so let’s head there now okay so we are at services and it’s disappointing to find that of the six ionity super fast chargers they can deliver up to 350 KW they are all being used at the moment now this is a huge
Huge service station must be over a thousand spaces in here and there are only six charging points it’s 20 3 on Thursday afternoon it’s not like it’s Peak rush hour and we’re going to have to wait to charge so we have been waiting here for 12 minutes so far now everyone who was
Here when we arrived is still charging up that’s a little bit frustrating if I’m honest there are only six Ultra rapid charging stations here at such a huge service station there are a couple of slower grid serves 50 KW down the bottom but they are being
Used as well so at the moment it looks like we’re going to hit our 50-minute deadline and not get a charge but we still have a couple of minutes so fingers crossed okay bang on 15 minutes just before our deadline we have a free charging spot Jaguar ipace that was
Charging up has just left there are still five of the cars that were here when we arrive still there but hopefully we should be able to plug in let’s find out so we are plugged in at our final 11th charging stop not getting a particularly great rate but we are charging so what
Do we find out well the number of public charging points varies hugely depending on where you live but our experiment shows at least some builtup areas now have plenty of places to top up if you don’t have off street parking or you’re visiting a different area we managed to
Get a charge at eight of the 11 locations we visited although we did have to wait for around 15 minutes or two of those and none delivered close to the charging speed the n is capable of accepting the relatively High state of charge of the battery of between 70 and
80% probably didn’t help but it’s clear there’s still a big difference in the amount of power that different charging stations actually deliver compared with their claims perhaps the biggest disappointment though is the fact that the UK’s busiest Motorway service station has a poultry six Ultra rapid Chargers plus three slower 50 KW units
Nowhere near enough to properly serve how many electric cars there are going around the M25 although we’re told more points are due to be installed very soon as for the absap map it did a good job of hunting up out local charging points and getting us to them and it was pretty
Reliable at telling us whether the Chargers were working or not it’s a shame it isn’t properly integrated with the car state of charge and remaining range so you have to put in more thought than you would in a Tesla which can advise you where’s best to stop if you
Need to charge on route to your destination and even precondition the battery so you get a fast charging speed when you arrive zap map should definitely be the first app any non- Tesla EV driver downloads though thanks for watching and let us know your experiences with the UK’s public
Charging infrastructure in the comments below
#WhatCar #EVCharging #EVChargingTest
How bad really is the public electric car charging network? Will Nightingale spends a day with a Skoda Enyaq to find out.
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