Motorway Charging Competition Announcement

[Ozzie1989]

Interesting government update published today on the competitiveness of the Motorway Charging network:

CMA to open up electric vehicle charging competition on motorways

CMA action is paving the way for greater investment, greater choice, and competition on prices for electric vehicle drivers, by opening up competition in the charging sector.

www.gov.uk

"We believe that opening up competition on motorways, while ensuring the sector has greater investment, is the right direction of travel – and good news for current drivers of electric cars and for people thinking of buying one.

We’d now like to hear from businesses and drivers themselves on these proposed commitments."

 

[WalkingBootWeather]

Motorway Charging Competition​

Is this like a 'spot the ball' competition but with a map of a service station with chargers removed and we have to put an 'x' where they should be?

 

[Deleted member 6627]

I was really excited about a new forum competition. Feel very let down by this thread.

 

[Ozzie1989]

???

Sorry, should I reword the title?

 

[Exdro]

Is this like a 'spot the ball' competition but with a map of a service station with chargers removed and we have to put an 'x' where they should be?

I thought the same!. Could be: is it the most motorway service stations visited in a given period ? Then report on whether or not chargers were working.?

 

[Fluffykins]

Maybe charging networks should be made to publish regularly, stats about the number of chargers they have, the number of those not available/broken etc, the mean time to repair and the longest time to repair/recommission.

I hope Shell is reading this. According to ZapMap Four Went Ways is STILL out of action, 2, maybe 3 months down the line (and horridly unreliable before that)

 

[DavidGM]

I've used chargers on the M25 over the past two weeks. Cobham services - Ionity 6 chargers with two other cars using. Planned to use my Electric Juice (Octopus) card but charge was Free. 25 minutes to walk to use toilet and have coffee and car charged from 30% to 85%.Had to use the release cable under the bonnet to free cable. Clacket Lane Eastbound - Gridserve 2 chargers each with two stations. Jag ipace parked across both bays on station 1 but it was charging. Parked in bay 2 and connected cable 2. Confirmed connected Ok, accepted contactless debit card, showed "waiting for power" cut off after two minutes. Repeated this twice more.
Changed to cable 1 - this time connected and started to charge so I left the car an went for a coffee.On return 20 minutes later the charger had stopped showing 12 Kw - this added 40 miles to ZS range which was sufficient to get me home but I would not want to rely on Gridserve if I had needed a full charge.

 

[TassiedEVil]

Is it just me but does anyone else spend what they’re saving in fuel at shops/cafe etc while waiting for the EV to charge?
Elastic trousers may become necessary at this rate of consumption…
Apologies if this should be a new thread!

 

[DavidGM]

£3.50 for a medium latte at Costa adds up, but nothing compared to £80 for a tank of diesel.

 

[defeatedbythecat]

Definitely need more competition. Although I am relatively happy with 30p at Gridserve considering how most other networks prices are 40+

Can you charge two cars on a single Gridserve unit yet? All my services I use only have two machines so the chances of one being free is rare.

 

[TassiedEVil]

£3.50 for a medium latte at Costa adds up, but nothing compared to £80 for a tank of diesel.

Ouch!