The EV Musings Podcast Aug 18, 2025

263 - The Canopy Episode

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Hi, I'm Gary, and this is episode 263 of EV Musings,

a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles,

and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners.

And on the show today, we'll be looking at Canapids.

Before we start, quick reminder that my e-book

so you've gone electric is in its third version.

If you purchased an early version, make sure Amazon sends you

through the updated version automatically.

If you don't have it, the link's in the show notes to buy it.

And you'll know it's the new version

because it has a shiny red EV on the cover.

Now, our main topic of discussion today is Canapids.

So let me set the scene.

It's late in the evening in spring with typical British weather,

which means it's blowing a gale

and the rain's coming down its stair rods.

Look that one up, Gen Z.

You're pulling to the brand new InstaVolt charging hub

at Three Mades Hill in Winchester, ready to charge your EV.

There's plenty of available chargers.

There's a lovely-looking Starbucks beckoning to you.

There's even a doggy rehydration station for books,

the black lab that insists on coming with you,

wherever you go.

At first, you need to get the car charging.

You plug in, swipe the card, and there's system errors.

With InstaVolt, you're supposed to authorize the payment first,

then plug in.

So you've got to replace the cable on the charge unit,

but it's locked in, so you need to retrieve the keys from your pocket

and unlock the car, and then you need to start again.

Authorize with your payment card,

wait for the system to process the payment,

wait for the charger to acknowledge the payment,

plug in, wait for the charger to make the handshake,

and then, eventually, the charge will start.

Now, this might have taken a couple of minutes.

In the middle of the morning on a calm spring day,

this isn't too much of an issue,

but this is Britain.

It's quite dark for long chunks of the winter,

the wind is blowing, and as we've already said,

the rain is pouring.

Now, those two minutes now mean that you're cold,

wind-swept, and soaked through to the skin.

But why?

Because this brand-new SuperHerb

with 44 chargers, drive-through bays,

excellent access on-site facilities,

and everything you would need from a charging site

is missing one thing.

A canopy.

Now, why is that?

I mean, every single petrol station you go to

has a canopy, right?

But with only a number of exceptions,

most charging sites don't have canopies.

And today, I want to talk about why that is

and what the CPOs say about it.

But first, let's set some parameters.

There are over 75,000 charging sites

across the UK at the moment.

A huge number of these are AC only,

and a lot of them are single sites

such as lamppost chargers

or a couple of connectors attached to a car park base somewhere.

Likewise, there are a large number of DC sites

that have one or two chargers located

in the car park of somewhere like Starbucks or McDonald's,

and I'm not talking about them,

although we would like canopies there.

But I am talking about the hubs

of which there are now 673 in the UK.

Large sites custom built by CPOs to entice

EV drivers to their location.

And this is where the issue starts

because there is no consistency

amongst CPOs regarding the provision of hubs.

Take BP Pulse, for example.

They have a great DC ultra-rapid charging hub at the NECs,

has great canopies over the top,

as does their newly converted Cromwell roadside

in West London.

But the next largest BP hub, by number of units,

is actually in Stafford,

and it has zero canopies.

Not any of the other hubs in the West Midlands,

and I know because BP invited me up there

to film them last year.

In fact, the BP Hammersmith hub,

which was one of the first hubs in central London,

and is located less than two miles

from the Cromwell roadside,

has five units all sitting in the open air,

despite the petrol pumps located

20 yards away on the same site

being covered with a canopy.

And we look at Shell.

Most of their locations are extensions

to existing fuel four-corts,

which already have canopies.

But, do the Shell Chargers at these four-corts

have canopies?

No, the only major one that does

is the Shell Four-Cort at Fulham.

This is a converted petrol station,

so it had a canopy already prior to it being converted.

And they pulled that down and built a different one.

Now, there are one or two other ones

with canopies across the network.

I was passing the Shell garage in Borenwood recently,

and noted that they had one.

But generally, they don't.

And then we look at Instavolt.

They have several major hubs,

Stroud Park and Winchester Spring to mind.

They took Greenfield or Brownfield sites

and had pretty much full range

for what they could do there.

In Winchester, they got planned permission

for a huge solar array on-site battery storage,

a brand-new coffee shop as well as 44 Chargers.

But did they get a canopy?

No.

Now, GridServe, we all know them

as the company that took over from Ecotristi

and did such a great job with the charging

at the motorway service areas.

Now, I can give them a pass for not putting canopies

over the one or two units they inherited

and upgraded from Ecotristi.

But they've since embarked

on a large slate of new installs at the MSAs,

offered up to 12 units at a site,

and none of them have canopies despite the fact

that they're all on locations with wet-fuel dispensers nearby

that have canopies.

However, when they've gone for the electric four-courts,

of which there are four open and at least one in progress,

they've put fantastic canopies on there.

Osprey charging.

Similar story to Instavolt,

canopies may not be inappropriate,

but they've also opened their own site

at Strawberry Fields in Devon

and didn't put a canopy there for planning reasons.

But some locations do have canopies

as a matter of course.

Most of the MFG sites have canopies,

and again, this is probably due to the fact

that their chargers are usually co-located

at wet-fuel sites that already have canopies.

Although they do have several sites,

particularly one on the A3 near Wimbledon

that has no canopies.

But that's at a car wash,

not a wet-fuel station.

Now Fastead are the other charge point operators

that tend to put canopies on most of their locations.

But not all.

The Angel of the North in Newcastle

is a standalone set of chargers

in a lay-by near the statue.

No canopy, and according to ChargeSafe

when they went to evaluate,

no lighting after dark.

But that is an exception rather than a rule,

and then not all like that.

Now I was at the BEV Charging Oasis

at Manchester recently.

It's a lovely little site

which has replaced an old petrol station

that used to be located there.

And however, despite the fact that

there was already a canopy there back in 2008

when the petrol station was closed,

there is no big canopy

on the finished charging hub.

What they do have however

are small individual canopies

at each charger.

They move behind the charger

and extend out over the top

to provide a nominal level of protection

from the elements.

Now this policy of adding

unit-specific canopies is something

that a couple of other charge point operators

have gone for in a couple of sites.

I could think of Arnold Clark charging

as an example.

So of course the question that comes out

of all these situations is

why don't CPOs add canopies

to their charging locations?

Why not cover the pumps?

Why not chargers?

Or at least charging hubs?

So let's hear what a couple of the

charge point operators have to say about this.

Now last season I spoke with Andreas Atkins

from Ionity about their charger hubs.

He told me

quote

of course we have tested a few

we don't have any in the UK

and I guess it's

does the customer and are they really asking for this?

I would never install a site

we always work with site partners.

There's always the opportunity for the customer

to go inside the building, the site

partner that we're working with whether it's the

Starbucks drive-thru, the hotel

or a retail park.

If there is this question mark

is it actually what the customer wants?

There's always a trade-off between that

and extra costs.

Every site is like a business, it's a PNL

the lower that we can keep the costs

the more advantageous that we can be

on the end price for customers

and particular work that they pay.

End quote.

Now we also had Tom Hearst

country manager from Fastnet on the show

back in season 7, episode 140

quote

so since day one Fastnet as a company has been

building and designing and delivering and operating

what I can only call

I simply call petrol stations

but for electric vehicles

so you'll recognise our solar canopy

with a yellow wing trim

it's fully timber frame for example

where we sit on top of ultra rapid charges

today

I mean it started with 50 kilowatt charges

back in the day but now we're talking

essentially high power hubs

with several ultra rapids from day one

again since the mission

that we have then is still the mission that we have today

and it's just as relevant

it's all about getting you on the road again

as quickly as possible

and that's the area that Fastnet plays in right?

We exist to allow you

to complete your journey

whether you're carrying out a long irregular journey

or a regular commute

whatever it might be

get on the road again as quickly as possible

and as comfortable as possible

and so for us part of the story then

is it's sitting underneath the canopy

for example

why should you as an EV driver feel any less comfortable

than

a driver of a petrol vehicle

who literally as a given

expects a canopy

for example

from the discussions and those comments you've just heard

is that there are different views on canopies

between charge point operators themselves

and between charge point operators

and customers

Andreas basically questioned whether we actually need canopies

you're not standing outside in the wet

he said except of course

as in the example I quoted at the top of the show

you are standing out in the wet

the fact was the Starbucks on site

when you're connected and charging doesn't

remove the need for covers

while you're doing that important bit

now this is especially

important if you're a disabled driver

who might need to extract a wheelchair

from your vehicle transfer into it

grab the cable place it on your knee

pay for the charging navigate around the charger

in your wheelchair carrying a potentially

heavy and cumbersome cable

and connect it to the car in the limited

time period before the charging

session resets

there's also another aspect to this which feeds

into the bigger charging narrative about

cost simply put

would you rather have hubs

with canopies on them

or would you rather have hubs where the price

of the canopies is put towards

reducing the cost of charging

I've heard a CPO say that to me

at one point on the face of it

it seems to be an appropriate trade off

but in reality none of the

CPOs that have installed canopies

have increased their prices

at these sites nor have they reduced

their prices at locations

with canopies

what do we think canopies at a set price

or no canopies

and lower pricing would you go for that

link to that is the related question

which is given a limited

budget for putting in a hub

would you rather that budget went towards

installing more charges at a site

or installing fewer charges

but with a canopy over them

and that's an interesting trade off

planning for a charge in hub or site

is a complex process

and needs input from many different people

if energy needs to be brought in from the grid

a substation will likely to be built

and this needs to be included

cabling needs to be planned for

as well as the onsite facilities such as shops

and additional parking

all of these things are common across all charging hubs

more or less

but when you then start to include things such as

totems and canopies

it throws the planning into a different level

for canopies you have the additional

issue of site lines

and foundations

so when Osprey Charging put their site in at the Paisley Pair near Silverstone

they originally wanted

a canopy but were unable to add one

due to the nature of the ground

on which they were wanted to put it

there were things under the ground that couldn't be disturbed

when putting the canopy support foundations in

so they had to abandon the idea

I've also been told

that as soon as you add a canopy into

a plan

it immediately lentens the planning process by an additional nine months

for CPOs who need sites to be

up and running ASAP

to start repaying their capital investment

a nine month delay can be an issue

it's often quicker and easier

just to not add the canopy

but I wonder how much of this plays into sites where there are

already existing canopies

but the charges are installed out in the open

there's obviously the cost issue

but how much does planning come into this

let's take a good example

I've already mentioned the BP Pulse site

on the Cromwell Road

this was an existing wet fuel station

that was decommissioned

and converted to a charging hub

as a wet fuel station

it already had a canopy

but this canopy was removed and replaced

with a different canopy design

in a slightly different location

now my understanding from speaking with members of BP Pulse

is that because the canopy was there

the planning permission

was almost built in for the new canopy

they had to justify why it had been moved

the new design had to be approved

but it was less of an issue than adding a canopy

at a site when none existed previously

I suspect this is the same thing that happened

with a shell recharge site

at Fulham

incidentally those two sites also

have the large totems in place indicating

that these are charging stations not petrol stations

and this was also because

they existed in the old site

and their placement couldn't be changed

at the Cromwell Road site for example

the totem is placed at the exit

of the site rather than the entrance

because moving it further forward

to be near the entrance would have cost

sight line issues apparently

so we know the sites with existing

canopies can have new canopies added

or at least get those canopies replaced

so why in places such as

Watford Gap

which has both a petrol station canopy

and a drive through costa canopy

why did the grid serve chargers there

not have any covering

I contacted Gridsurf for comment

but they weren't able to provide

a response before we went to record this episode

now this is something

of a Marmite question

some people want canopies because

they're used to them from petrol stations

some people want canopies because

they've been caught out with chargers that don't work

and they spent too long out

in the elements trying to get them to work

but some people think the money that we

could spend on canopies

could be better spent reducing tariffs

or improving charge reliability

so that we could all charge

first time every time

with no issue

so what's your thoughts

canopies or not

let me know info

at evmusing.com

it's time for a cool EV or renewable thing to share

with your listeners now but many people

are 30 kilowatt-hour Nissan Leaf will have been their first

4A into electric vehicles

fantastic cars, really reliable

and great for pootling around town

but the limited range

of around 100 miles on a really good day

meant that they

weren't much used for anything else

unless you wanted to spend more time at chargers

than you do driving

but an enterprising young

home mechanic

decided to change all that

and he did it by swapping his Nissan Leaf

30 kilowatt-hour battery out

for a newer Nissan Leaf

62 kilowatt-hour battery

and he did it all

on the driveway of his house

in about three hours

he's pretty impressive

he ended up doubling the range of his car

and he loves the result

check out the YouTube video

showing what he did and how he now appreciates

slow moving vehicles on the road

as it helps him get better efficiency

from his battery

I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show

together this week with the help of

Andrea Sackins and Tom Hurst

if you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms

or other general messages

to pass on to me I can be reached

at infoadevmusings.com

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now I know you're probably driving or walking

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thank you why not let me know you've got to this point

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with the words

is it can appear

or can appease

nothing else

thanks as always to my co-founder Simon

you know he's sitting this one out I reckon

thanks as always to my co-founder Simon

you know his latest entrepreneurial initiative

is a mobile canopy

for people on the electric unicycles

keeps them dry in wet weather

and shelters them from sun in hot weather

after I've made our walls skeptical

I mean a canopy on a unicycle

surely that's very close

to being a completely different sort of vehicle isn't it

I mean does it work

can I get to see one in person

thanks for listening

bye

About this episode

Exploring the curious absence of canopies at many UK electric vehicle charging hubs, this episode delves into the practical, financial, and planning challenges behind their scarcity. Host Gary shares real-world examples from major charge point operators like BP Pulse, Shell, Instavolt, and GridServe, contrasting sites with and without canopies. Discussions include customer needs, cost trade-offs, planning delays, and accessibility concerns, especially for disabled drivers. The episode also highlights differing industry perspectives and invites listeners to weigh in on whether canopies should be prioritized or if funds are better spent on more chargers or lower prices.

Dodge Charger Nissan Leaf

Original notes

In this episode Gary explores the lack of canopies at electric vehicle charging hubs across the UK.

Despite the presence of canopies at traditional petrol stations, many EV charging sites—especially newly built hubs—lack this basic weather protection.

Gary examines various Charge Point Operators (CPOs) like BP Pulse, Shell, Instavolt, Gridserve, and Fastned, highlighting inconsistencies in canopy installation. He discusses the practical implications for users, especially in adverse weather, and presents arguments from CPOs regarding cost, planning, and customer demand.

The episode concludes with a call for listener feedback on whether canopies should be a standard feature at EV charging hubs.

The EV Musings Podcast is sponsored by Zapmap, the go-to app for EV drivers, helping you find and pay for public charging with confidence.

Links in the show notes:

Upgrading a Leaf and doubling the range. - Cool thing

Episode produced by Arran Sheppard at Urban Podcasts: https://www.urbanpodcasts.co.uk

Support me:

Patreon Link: http://www.patreon.com/evmusings

Ko-fi Link: http://www.ko-fi.com/evmusings

The Books:

'So, you've gone electric?' on Amazon : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Q5JVF1X

'So, you've gone renewable?’ on Amazon : https://amzn.to/3LXvIck

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Gary Comerford

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