Testing My Nearest 10 Electric Car Charge Sites – 1 Year On!
A year ago I drove to the 10 nearest rapid charging sites to my house and six out of 10 of them 60% of them did not work which is appalling quite frankly so I thought well it’s been a year let’s revisit them let’s see if they’re any
More reliable any better and well to see if we’ve at least got some progression on what was well appalling quite frankly it was it was awful four out of 10 working and all of those four that were working were full so it was just a crap show quite frankly so let’s see what’s
Changed I’m currently on route to the first charger but before I go and see if that’s working I need to tell you about something that’s very reliable it it’s smome charge. UK now if I needed a home charger they installed mine would be getting one from smart home charge.
Co.uk they have a huge array of charges you can scroll down the list there’s ton of them you’ve got a comparison tool so you tell them what car you’ve got and they will pick the best one for your particular vehicle they’ve got loads of accessories cables different links if
You need public charging type two for example they’ve got all that you can pay in full you can pay in monthly installments and you’ve got all options I’ve had mine installed by them my brothers Harry all by smart home charge and it’s been faultless check their trust pilot score and please thank them
For sponsoring this channel so it’s that’s smome charge. co.uk now as I said last time this is just a snapshot of today in this area this is not necessarily indicative of the UK’s charging Network I’m not going to visit every single one on camera again in fact I don’t have to this time
Handily enough cuz one of my EV driving neighbors is actually going to Skipton so that’s three of the 10 that I don’t have to visit because they’re doing it for me now the first charge point I’m going to physically visit and do on camera uh and the one after that
Actually are the ones I’m most interested in not only are they the two closest to my house but theyve been down for a long time although in the network defense all networks now some of them are just looking after the charge point for let’s say a council or a supermarket
So let’s imagine the charger is broken the network says this is what you need to repair this charger Mr Council and the council says oh yeah yeah we’ll get back to you when we approve that when we got some money and then they they get back to them so ultimately it’s not the
Network’s fault that it’s not working it’s the people who own the charge point the network are just looking after it they’re administering it so Network bashing is something I’m going to again as I did in the last video not directly do although there does seem to be a
Correlation between the good and the bad to be honest um because it could be unfair it may not be their responsibility righty it’s just around this corner this charger is no longer on zap map well that’s a good start I’ve tried to log into the app and it just
Says look whoops there’s a problem error I I can’t log in I’ve tried three times now crying out loud all right so that’s useless let’s see if we can use contactless payment shall we okay uh tap your contactless card on the terminal to charge start oh oh it’s very fying it’s very
Fying hey it might actually be working guys after nine over a year I think oh wonder if they take the OCTA card thing oh my god oh there we go folks utterly utterly useless now the last time I checked this um charger it was offline for about nine months and it
Said it was always in use in use now but that was on zap map however it’s no longer on zap map maybe because it doesn’t work the I can’t get the app work in I can’t get that working with the OCTA card with my contactless card with my
Phone it’s not working so as far as I’m concerned this hasn’t worked for well over a year probably longer but on the map says it is and that’s my biggest beef unreliable charging is close to the top but my biggest beef is when the map itself and this is not
Just with it with this network when the map itself says it’s working this used to say it was always in use when it clearly wasn’t at least it’s not saying that now but how many times would you visit a charger if it said oh I’m not working it it’ be zero
You wouldn’t waste your time it’s when you drive somewhere and you pull up and you try and you try and then you look at the map and it says well it’s working but then you find out through looking at the comments that it hasn’t worked for months or or however
Long that’s the most infuriating part and don’t tell me there is no automated or even semi-auto automated way of figuring out if a charge point is working or not well it normally gets 10 users a day and for the last week we’ve had zero users oh that’s quiet that must be what
They’re doing right now rather than maybe there’s a problem with the charge Network if it uses 10 on average a day and less than four people have used it in a 24-hour period maybe some automated flagging up of whatever should happen I mean I worked in it for over 20 years I
Know if a server’s gone down for one of our clients before they do typically don’t tell me this is not possible oh it rils me right up right let’s check the next one which has also been offline or inaccessible for about a year or more so
Let’s just see in fact I can tell from here it’s all completely blocked off right now see I don’t know how I think about this because that has been on the map for zap M plug share all the usual stuff who tend to need to be told when
Something isn’t online but it’s also been on the map for the network itself and he’s still on the map right now it’s saying it’s online that has been physically inaccessible well over a year probably longer why is it still on the map why are people coming to this area and thinking right I
Need a charge this is the closest one and then finding that out and then going to the other one that says it’s online that hasn’t worked for God knows how long and again finding it doesn’t work and hasn’t done for ages it makes me angry I’m not even using these things
And I’m already annoyed I’ve just heard back from a couple of my spies Skipton looking good as before they were working uh and they have been for a long time they they’re pretty Flawless if I’m honest the ones there uh apart from the one in the supermarket it’s working on AC but not
On DC on rapid charging effectively and as I’m looking at rapid Chargers that is effectively not working and now going to visit another one of the long-term downers on camera I’ll do the rest and not bore you with it um afterwards but yeah this was powered off I was
Literally off there was no electricity to the unit at all last year so fingers crossed that one is at least being fixed that should be obvious to even the charge Network that it ain’t working and this particular charge Network in question you know who you are and you
Can probably figure it out yourself without me actually telling you they’ve reached out to me over the last 6 months or so said oh hi uh could we collaborate and do a video about what we’re doing with our Network and I get this sort of
Thing a lot and I went yeah yeah yeah sure no problems um before that though could you just check these three charge points for me and tell me why they’ve been down for so long and then then we’ll can progress didn’t get back to me at all so if anybody from that particular
Network is watching this I’ve tried I’ve tried yeah now this video’s just turning into a rant rather than what it was originally intended to so again I’ll get to this next Point see if it’s working then I’ll do the rest off camera and then just summarize at home
Because I’m just ring myself up here that is that a new charger hey it’s a new charger actually physically replaced the unit right well it’s working we got one we got one whilst I’m here I might as well check the one that’s literally just over there hey I believe that has been
Replaced as well W blow me down with the feather well I’ll check this and well I’ll summarize when I get back home right I am done thanks to my good friends that have checked the ones further a field for me that’s saved me a but ton of time uh all 10 have been
Checked effectively so thanks for that guys um right we do have progression so to recap last time we had six faulty charges of 10 60% failure rate this time we have four of 10 so 40% failure rate have not worked now compared to last time that’s not a bad thing we’re better than
We were but even then a 40% failure rate the only thing I guess that there’s a bit of a glimmer of light should we say at the end of the tunnel is that two of the most unreliable ones have been physically replaced with new units so that is a very good thing and
I’m hopeful that they’re going to do that with the other two the few petrol stations that I visited last there’s been two or three pumps not working you know when you get the little yellow thing over the the nozzle so you can’t use it so it’s not unusual to have
A a petrol pump out of use but when you’ve got a dozen or more it doesn’t really matter does it and remember this is just rapid charging destination charging is a far far more effective way of enabling people who can’t charge at home from to to be able to charge so if
You could charge at your work or you you know there was a dozen charges at your Supermarket or the cinema car park or the council car packs that’s far more effective than the rapid charger so I I’ll leave it up to you now four of 10 is still bad it’s still very
Poor but the ones that aren’t working are what I would call Legacy sites that they were probably put in for token Council reasons is probably the easiest way of saying it so it’s not a case of the charges can’t be made reliable Tesla have proven that time and
Time again of course they can’t it’s that some networks aren’t very good at looking after them some councils have put stuff in that they can no longer afford to keep some companies will maybe do that as well but ultimately the one thing again that I will say once more
About the networks is sort your bloody Maps out and it’s not just one there’s many networks that do this oh it’s working fine I I’ve been to Lords that do that and then you get there it’s physically powered down and you think how did you not know and before anybody
Says we’re not ready for 2035 you’re absolutely correct it’s 2024 so we’re not going to be ready for 2035 will we be will we be ready well that’s reliant on government councils and to a lesser extent charge networks to sort their crap out and given the first two the government and Council
Part of it all that’s my biggest worry but we’ve got plenty of time to sort it out so if you want to be useful Badger your MP Badger your counselors Badger the people that matter don’t just complain on YouTube like I’m doing right now actually do what I have done in the
Past see my mp help councils out I’ve done all that I am doing all that because I want a network that’s reliable for me and everyone else I’m now going to go home and use my very reliable charger so thank you for watching guys and I’ll see you soon
1 year after I tested the nearest rapid charging ‘sites’ to me, I do the same again to see if we have an improvement!
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