EV Charging Experiences Don’t Get Much Better Than This!
Okay hope I’m close Lord Gatwick welcome to Gatwick oh Gatwick I’m hopeful might find it that can’t be it electric cars and electric car charging which came first the chicken or the egg I think it’s fairly safe to say that the electric car came first and the charging Network struggle to keep up
Especially back in the olden days you know it could be occasionally very frustrating you had to have the right app on your phone you had to have the right card you have to have the membership thing often the charges will be in the corner of a dark car park and
A big puddle it it could be a nightmare that is changing it’s changed a huge amount in The Last 5 Years and this is a brilliant example of what we should be demanding and expecting in the future this is Grid’s latest electric for court at Gatwick Airport and it’s pretty
Cool so what we’ve got here is 30 charges in total many of them like these 350 KW capable so there’s not many cars that can take that charge yet but they are definitely coming so this is very much future proofed over in the far corner there you’ve got some AC charges
22 KW things like Renault zo is use those load more 350 KW charges there then the other side are Chargers that are compatible with Chad they’ve got two leads ccs and Chad so you can charge any car there’s four Tesla Chargers there uh that and then what is really interesting
Is here normally there’s bump stops to stop the car reversing too far you know you push your wheel up to it but not here they’re not here why is that cuz they sound like quite a good idea but every time I’ve charged a car with a
Bump stop I’ve tripped over it like an idiot so that’s a really good thing all there’s no curbs so the the uh accessibility is really really good look at this this is a charging area for for people with disabilties so if you’re in a wheelchair and you get out of your car
And you can wheel it you’ve got room to move around the car and plug it in and if you can’t plug it in yourself there’s staff here that will help you like fully charged then you’ll love our fun everything electric Expos around the world next up we’re in London and
Harriet remember energy and transport professionals Go free on the first day a few years ago people were worried about you know the charging experience myself you know what was it reliable is it easy enough to charge I think it’s pretty clear we’ve we fixed that it’s now very reliable it’s easy to charge
And so what this uh site does it really takes the consumer experience the customer experience right the way to the next level right um you know so it’s not just you know charging your vehicle and having good facilities but it’s you know connectivity with those facilities um and just making that charging experience
Is fulfilling exciting and uh you know as it possibly can be yes you’re looking forward to going to charge somewhere rather than going CU that was I mean that was my experience today I mean I drove over 120 mies to get here and in a
You know the world that I live in you I’d have to be thinking oh I must remember I’ve got a charge somewhere to get back home tonight maybe you know I want to top up it didn’t occur to me cuz I knew I was coming here and I drove in
And there was probably 10 Vehicles charging and I just went in an empty Bay and plugged in and that was it was so easy so you can get a coffee there lots of snacks here BMW I5 well that is here to show that you can book a test drive
This is where you book your test drive and you can go out for a little spin if you’ve never been an electric car before but come and have a look at this over here so this place is amazing like everything here it’s the latest technology this is the little fresh good
To go store with just walkout technology powered by Amazon what does that mean you ask me well it’s very simple you walk up to the entrance tap your card on the little tap to pay thing there you walk in see a sandwich M that would be
Lovely piece of fruit I’ll have some of that there a cake oh I want a cake then you walk out and you go I don’t want the cake I’m trying to be healthy I’m not going to eat the cake you put the cake back on any shelf it doesn’t matter and
Then what happens you literally walk out you do nothing else and later on as I got when I went went and bought something this morning you get a little receipt email to you it’s so easy to use it feels like you’re stealing things but you’re not and it’s just really it’s
Just the latest stuff very clever having it at a major International Airport is kind of it kind of makes it feel special because it’s a very different use to one that was just say by the side of a big Motorway yeah I mean this is a uh this is a UK first in
I think this is a world first an electric for court at an International Airport uh Gatwick is obviously one of the busiest airports in the world um you know I remember actually being at Gat workk not so long ago when I turned up and I couldn’t charge and I went away
On a holiday the car wasn’t had enough enough energy it was a real Panic on the way back no more yeah um and so what this does is it provides real confidence for anybody uh visiting the airport uh whether it’s you know taxis or you know rideing delivery Vans people at the
Airport people who live in the vicinity um you know people who who take their vehicle here leave it in a car park for a period of time and then you know want want to have a complete confidence idence that when they come back from their holidays they can come in they can
Get a fantastic coffee something to eat you know from this incredible convenience store we have there and uh and and it’ll all be fine cuz I think what it it finally comes to is that you you would go to a charger somewhere and it works and that’s fine or you go to
One on the motorway and it’s fine but then you go actually when I come here the charging what what’s happening is the charging is becoming kind of irrelevant like a petrol station you don’t go oh can I get that nozzle in my tank can fill up it’s just that’s taken
As a given what else is there and that’s what you’ve done here is you’ve gone yeah the charging is downstairs just plug in the charges forget it come up here and it’s amazing and you can have a nice coffee and you’ve got nice really good toilets I have to say I I really
Appreciated them and you’ve got shops and you got food and it’s warm and he’s got Wi-Fi yeah I mean good Wi-Fi good Wi-Fi all the critical things but I mean that is it’s interesting that that’s kind of where you’re pushing that the I’m not saying we’ve solved the charging
Thing cuz we need more of them and we need all that you know but the the the difficulty that you and I would have experienced early on plugging a car in and going is the thing I can’t get the app I haven’t got a signal the blood
That was a pain and you’ve you’ve kind of removed that and so what you do now is you drive in you plug in and go well what else please support our stop burning stuff patreon and help us to tackle misinformation about electric vehicles and clean energy that’s so horrible out there but
It’s really lovely in here and what an amazing place this is such a good idea we just need loads more of these all over the world to make charging a car a total non-event it’s it’s only been open a few days it’s already really popular we’ve seen so many people coming through
Anyway that’s all uh please do subscribe we cover so many different topics on this channel it’s really grow exciting and growing fast and we you know we come to brilliant places like this even on lousy days like today anyway that’s all if you have been thank you for watching
In this episode Robert takes us to the latest in premium charging stations – GRIDSERVE’s Electric Forecourt at Gatwick International Airport in the UK.
From his early EV charging experiences with non-functioning chargers stood at the far end of a dark car park, to this cutting edge, future proofed, 30 charger strong forecourt – Robert is truy in his element!
GRIDSERVE’s CEO Toddington Harper updates Robert on how they are focussed on bringing a fulfilling charging experience to the masses.
Learn more about GRIDSERVE here: https://www.gridserve.com/
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