More woes for EV drivers in the UK. Some interesting stats in this Times report as well.
The new parking fine coming for electric car owners
Rising electricity costs and the introduction of punitive penalties at charging points are taking the shine off electric car ownership
They used to be celebrated as the greenest of cars which could cost nothing to charge, little to park and attract a big tax break when you bought one. But electric car owners are facing a new penalty — the introduction of fines and extra fees if they spend too long at electric charging points.
One driver left his van charging overnight at a service station on the M4, expecting to pay £26, and was horrified when an overstay charge of £123 was levied earlier this month.
From April 1, a new £30 penalty will be charged for those staying for more than an hour in Aberdeen. In Sheffield, the charge will be £20 from the same date. Similar charges have been introduced across most of the Highlands since the start of the year.
In London, ESB Energy has an overstay fee of £8 at 350 charge points after an hour. At GeniePoint, you pay an overstay charge of £10 after 90 minutes, and £10 for every 90 minutes after that.
For some time, Tesla has had an overstay fee of 50p or £1 per minute on its network, depending on how busy the charging station is, while Liberty Charge takes an extra 8p per minute.
The fees have come as a nasty shock to electric vehicle (EV) drivers who were initially encouraged by the government to switch from petrol or diesel with tax breaks and free supermarket and council chargers, but have had to stomach swingeing increases in the price of power.
Even the most rapid chargers take longer than filling up a car with fuel, and the rise of overstay charges means that drivers may not want to risk leaving their car plugged in while busy with other activities, such as shopping or going to a restaurant or cinema.
Paul Jackson, chief executive of The Miles Consultancy, which advises firms on how to cut costs on company cars, said the charges are catching out one in six motorists each month.
He said the van driver on the M4 — whose employer was a client of Jackson’s consultancy — was aggrieved because his employer refused to pay the levy.
The driver insisted he had no choice but to charge overnight because he could not interrupt his work to top up the battery during the working day. “Do you want me to get up at 2am to pick it up?” the driver asked.
There are more than 1.15 million plug-in cars, including both electric and hybrid cars, registered in the UK but fewer than 40,000 public charge points. EV drivers become frustrated if they arrive at charging bays to find a petrol or diesel car parked there, or an electric car which is already fully charged.
The cost of installing chargers, and connecting them to the National Grid, is also so high that charge point operators cannot afford to have them lying idle. It costs £1,000 to £2,500 to install a slow charger in a lamppost; £30,000 to £40,000 for a rapid charger at 50 kWh; and £50,000 to £60,000 for an ultra-rapid charger.
Neil Isaacson, chief executive of Liberty Charge, which will have 4,000 sockets by the end of the year, said: “We have to make sure that our network is available as close to 100 per cent of the time as possible because that is the only way we are ever going to get a return on investment.”
Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder of Zap-Map, an app used by EV drivers to search for charge points, said: “The introduction of overstay or idling charges makes sense on high-powered rapid chargers where charging time is short and it is important that the chargers are freed up for other EV drivers.” But she said motorists should not be “unfairly penalised” for using low-powered chargers as part of their daily routine. Motorists without driveways or off-street parking are already paying much higher prices than those who can charge up at home.
Quentin Willson, a former presenter of BBC TV’s Top Gear and founder of FairCharge, a campaign group, said: “EV drivers understand the need for idler fees and they will be the first to say, ‘Right, I’ve got to shift my car.’ It’s absolutely right to do that because somebody else needs to use the charger.
“What we don’t want is a predatory parking industry coming into this and seeing it as a revenue opportunity.
“We should be giving free parking to EVs, not saddling them with more costs. Let’s grow this, not sabotage it.” Hugo Griffiths of Carwow, an online marketplace for new and used cars, warned of a “Wild West landscape of piecemeal parking policies” and said the government may need to standardise fines.
Andrew Till, who appears on YouTube as Mr EV, believes the charging industry has “painted itself into a corner. You’re telling people that it’s easy to charge because you could just charge while you’re parked, but now you are saying: ‘Don’t park too long. You have to get back to your car and move it’.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new- ... -kqvdzrt9f
