What’s the deal with the public charging points as regards time you can be parked there. The ones local to me seem busy but what’s to stop someone parking there for ages even after their car is charged. Also if you pull up to a point and someone is there, can you queue or do you need to sit in the car and wait to see when an owner returns which could be a long old wait.
Public charging points
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Burt2000
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It’s all Pretty much as you have said. Yes people can hog them but it rarely happens unless they are a bit of a **** as nobody likes it when this happens, it’s poor charging etiquette lol. Yes basically you can wait/queue but unless it’s going to be available in like 10-15 mins I usually drive on. Demand is a lot higher than it was a year ago due to a lot more electric cars on the road, afaik there is to be more chargers available soon but they will not be free to charge at like they are now.
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How do you know when one is nearly finished if the owner isn’t there? And if the owner isn’t there then I guess you have no idea when they will return.
A lot more chargers are needed for sure but I guess there are currently a lot of people who will take a free top up when they really aren’t needing it at that time.
A lot more chargers are needed for sure but I guess there are currently a lot of people who will take a free top up when they really aren’t needing it at that time.
Coog
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On some of them you can see a status bar for the level of charge the car has. You can see when the charge started on an app as well. Theres also an app you can use to ping someone to let them know you're waiting and they can respond. Not used it yet.
Maybe I've been lucky but I've not had to wait for longer than 10 mins. Normally the fast chargers have a quick turnaround and any others I've been to have been empty anyway.
Realistically though for all it costs it's as handy to just plug the thing in at home. It's like having a fuel pump on your driveway, no messing or waiting or queuing and over night the car is full. Worrying about charging points only becomes a thing when you're going to do 200+ miles.
Maybe I've been lucky but I've not had to wait for longer than 10 mins. Normally the fast chargers have a quick turnaround and any others I've been to have been empty anyway.
Realistically though for all it costs it's as handy to just plug the thing in at home. It's like having a fuel pump on your driveway, no messing or waiting or queuing and over night the car is full. Worrying about charging points only becomes a thing when you're going to do 200+ miles.
rdcross
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It's only a matter of time before free charging is no longer an option once it becomes too popular. Even though it's attractive to charge for free, being free means a lot of the chargers generally become broken and can be left for a period before being repaired. With people paying in the future it will hopefully mean better maintenance for chargers.
But as @Coog said there's no need generally for charging in public apart from it being free at the moment.
Burt2000
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That is on eco ac, when you turn it off it jumps back up again about 30 miles. I dunno if there’s something wrong and it maybe needs an update, met another owner and she said the same thing hers won’t go over 145 or so, hers needed something replaced as it would not go above 90 miles about 2 weeks after she got it. I’m not too bothered as it’s a lease but if I was relying on the quoted figure I wouldn’t be too pleased.
hutchy_belfast
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Sooner the better fees come in for the public charge points. They are all getting hogged by folk full charging their cars on them leaving them all day etc. Either that or an X hour limit on free charging. Can't remember the last time I saw a working public charge point not in use.
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Agree that a time limit on free charging would be a good plan as so many chargers are hogged. There is one local to me where one guy parks his car everyday, it’s in a busy public car park so firstly it’s easy for him to get a space if he is there early to charge and then he just leaves it everyday. Something to hit a charge for charging and parking after x hours would maybe get people to move on.
Coog
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Haven't really had any problems accessing them, though the fast charger on Boucher seems to be quite glitchy and rarely works without a faff.
Haven't the time or inclination to wait for slower ones unless its somewhere I'm planning to spend some time at, which with all that's going on at the minute is pretty rare.
Lidl Holywood and andytown (and presumably ards in future) have 22kw chargers on the easygo network which are never used as far as I can tell. If you haven't already it might be worth signing up even if it's to use if you're stuck.
Also had confirmation from a mate what happens when the battery gets low. Crawling at 40mph before the car totally stopped and needed recovery. When it says zero range it means it lol
Haven't the time or inclination to wait for slower ones unless its somewhere I'm planning to spend some time at, which with all that's going on at the minute is pretty rare.
Lidl Holywood and andytown (and presumably ards in future) have 22kw chargers on the easygo network which are never used as far as I can tell. If you haven't already it might be worth signing up even if it's to use if you're stuck.
Also had confirmation from a mate what happens when the battery gets low. Crawling at 40mph before the car totally stopped and needed recovery. When it says zero range it means it lol
stevieturbo
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Can you not just unplug someone's car if they're hogging it ? Or is there a safety emergency stop button to stop them charging ?
hutchy_belfast
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You need the car key, plugs are mechanically locked in and need released.
Mark Irwin
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Traffic warden can give someone a ticket if they are in an EV place and not charging (say the charge has finished). Needtocharge app can alert owner if you really need to charge but this is dependent on the person also having that app! Also, I would suspect that those thoughtlessly hogging the chargers would not bother to put this app on and it is more likely to be used by conscientious people. You should know when your charge is due to finish and move it before this as last 10% of charge slows down anyway.
Mark Irwin
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It locks into the car too - in VW you have to press the open button twice to release it.
Ecarni ones have a % meter running on the screen, although finished isn't necessarily 100%. On my car it only charges to 79%.