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270 - The Season 14 Mid-Season Round Table Episode
270 - The Season 14 Mid-Season Round Table Episode
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About this episode
A lively mid-season roundtable dives into EV charging challenges, focusing on overstay fees and charger bay blocking. Laura Husswick-Wilkes and Dr. Ewan McTurk share real-world examples, debating whether overstay fees encourage good habits or are cash grabs. They explore the complexities of charger site selection, dwell times, and the impact on driver behavior. The discussion also highlights issues like EV drivers 'ghost charging' and ICE vehicles blocking bays, stressing the need for clear signage, fair penalties, and better education. The episode wraps with insights on battery recycling and renewable energy trends.
Topics:
overstay fees
charger bay blocking
charge point site selection
dwell time
ev driver behavior
charging etiquette
battery recycling
renewable energy trends
fleet charging costs
charging infrastructure challenges
In Episode 270 Gary has another mid-season episode where he invites a couple of guests on and they discuss topics of interest .
In this episode we discuss:
- Charger blocking and what to do about it
- Overstay fees and whether they are good or bad
- Charge point location and why poorly located chargepoints can be an issue.
Guests this week include:
Dr Euan McTurk is a Consultant Battery Electrochemist who has been working on - and driving - electric vehicles since 2009. Having worked on next-generation cell chemistries at the University of Oxford, developed ways to study how electric vehicle cells fail and how to stop them failing (at WMG, University of Warwick) and built up a state-of-the-art 200 kW battery test facility in Edinburgh, Euan founded Plug Life Consulting, which provides technical, strategic and public outreach services to projects involving battery electrochemistry, electric vehicles, energy storage systems and charging infrastructure. Euan is also the creator of Plug Life Television, a YouTube channel on batteries and EVs that explains complex electrochemistry in a way that anyone can understand, and busts common myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles.
Laura Hustwick-Wilkes is the operations manager at fleet roaming provider Paua.
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:
- Solar overtakes gas to become Hungary's second-largest electricity source - Our World in Data - Cool Thing
Episode produced by Arran Sheppard at Urban Podcasts: https://www.urbanpodcasts.co.uk
(C) 2019-2026 Gary Comerford
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Select text to request an explanation
Hi, I'm Gary, and this is episode 270 of EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles
and things that are interested to electric vehicle owners.
And on the show today, it's the season 14 mid-season roundtable episode.
Big round of applause, yay!
This season of the podcast is sponsored by Zatmap, the go-to app for EV drivers helping you find
and pay for public charging with confidence.
So, welcome to episode 270 of the podcast, 270, they grow up so quickly, don't they?
Moving on, our main topic of discussion today is a mid-season roundtable episode.
Now, once again, this season, I'm putting on a mid-season roundtable, similar format to the
finale one, the one that we hold at the end of every season, just held at a different point.
And just like our usual end of season show, I'm going to invite a number of select individuals on.
Each one would present a topic of discussion, which they introduce
up to the panel for a Q&A back and forth.
And when we've set the world to rights, with that topic, we'll move on to another topic.
So, let's first of all introduce my guests.
And my first guest is Laura Husswick-Wilkes.
Laura is the operations manager with the Fleet Roaming Operator Power, spelled P-A-U-A.
They've actually been on the show before when her boss Neil Riddle joined us for an episode.
So, welcome, Laura.
Hi, welcome. Thank you.
Laura's a little bit nervous. It's her first podcast, but she's doing fantastic,
so don't worry.
His next guest is Dr. Ewan McTurk, long-time friend of the show,
having been on several episodes in earlier seasons.
And I believe you've got to record three episodes last season
when you came on and talked about battery chemistry, battery fires,
and charge saint in three different slots.
So, welcome, Doctor.
Nice. Good to be back.
Now, as I said earlier, it's one topic per person
as we move around the virtual table.
So, what I want to do is open the table to Laura.
So, what is your chosen topic?
My chosen topic is talk about overstay fees
and if CPOs are doing it for create good habits,
or it's actually more of a cash grab scheme.
Interesting. Okay, introduce your topic for us, please.
So, I thought I'd just start off with trying to define an overstay fee.
That's always the best way to start off from it.
So, for this, for the sake of the discussion,
an overstay fee is a penalty to a driver
that could be for when they have finished charging
but are still plugged in on a charger,
or they've gone over a time set predefined by the CPO.
And for this discussion,
I wanted to focus predominantly on those
that are overstaying a preset time designated by the CPO
as this could mean that your vehicle
is more than likely still charging,
making use of the infrastructure that is there.
A great example of what I wanted to say
is that I've got a charger that has a type 2 7kiloar charger
that after 90 minutes charges a £50 overstay fee
and £50 is a lot for a 7kiloar charger.
Obviously, this is a slower type 2 charger
and as you've seen, these are mainly for destination overstay fee
overnight charging,
a predominately ones that people will be there for quite a while.
So, I don't know why you'd need to have an overstay fee,
particularly of this example,
where it's £50 after 90 minutes.
This charger is actually located at a park and ride as well.
So, it's definitely one where people will be there
and the assumption is they will be there for a lot longer
than the 90 minutes preset by the CPO.
So, is this a cash grab
or is this trying to set some sort of good habit?
In my view, I fully understand that a CPO,
they need to have high utilisation on chargers.
But surely if a vehicle is still charging
and still making use of that infrastructure,
we shouldn't be penalising a driver that is using it
when this is technically classes
that confirmed revenue for that CPO.
They shouldn't be making that driver leave
on the chance or the hope that there is another driver
sat there waiting to use that charger.
You've also got to think of it from a driver's point of view.
They've decided to use this.
It's the slower charger.
It's not one where you plug in, grab coffee,
make use of facilities and then leave again.
It's one where you know you're going to be there for a while.
If you then penalise that driver,
the likelihood is that driver won't ever come back
to this charger again.
You've lost the chance of having reoccurring revenue
and people will tell people about it.
I had this bad situation.
I had this bad experience happen
and they'll tell those people.
Those people will tell those people.
You've then got a whole group of anodges,
group of people exactly,
that don't want to use these chargers
because of the overstay fees that they're going to get.
So my last point on it is that,
before I open it up to everyone to talk about it,
is I know that EVs are shifting.
We're shifting very quickly from the earlier adopters
to the mass adoption phase.
So overstay fees,
I understand are probably going to need to be used
to create the habits.
But I don't understand how this is fair for drivers.
It's not protecting drivers.
It's not making people want to use these chargers.
So, and I hate to say it,
is there a point that we should be regulating
overstay fees to protect the driver
and to keep it fair for all?
CPOs so that they can have higher utilisation
and correct habits,
but drivers so they're not penalised for this as well?
My big question is, is it a cash grab?
Oh yes, absolutely.
Move it on.
No, I'm sure Ewan has a lot of thoughts about this.
So I'm happy to open it up to him.
But I think at some point,
I want to come back and expand a little bit
and talk about overstay fees as a general concept
rather than just in the fairly narrow band
of what you've just mentioned.
So Ewan, do you have any thoughts on this?
Certainly do.
So when you mentioned a park and ride
that has a 90-minute time limit
on a 7 kilowatt charge point,
that immediately put me in mind
of Livingston Designer Outlet,
which has a multi-storey car park
that has one 7 kilowatt type 2 charge point
on every level of the multi-storey.
They used to be absolutely rammed.
And then in the infinite wisdom of the owners of that site,
they decided to introduce a time limit after two hours.
And funnily enough,
those charge points soon became vacant
because nobody wanted to have to pay the overstay penalty
thankfully after much nagging and attempts
to get through to the relevant people
within the Designer Outlet.
They have actually extended the time limit to four hours,
but there is still an overstay penalty.
So City of Edinburgh Council,
when they introduced their newer tranche
of charging infrastructure,
they also introduced overstay penalties.
And they were installing 50 kilowatt rapid chargers
that were predominantly
for the use of Edinburgh's growing fleet
of electric taxis, hackney caps,
but they were only giving a 30-minute time limit
on a 50 kilowatt charger.
And such was the brand of a charger that was installed.
You might not necessarily be getting the full 50 kilowatts
because it's probably semi-defunct.
I suspect that half an hour time limit
was considered fair by committee,
but not everyone in that committee
actually owned or drove an EV.
And before you know it,
the councillors that did own and drove EVs
were vehemently campaigning alongside
EV driving residents and visitors to the city,
saying, you know, we need to be extending that time limit.
We like the fact there's an overstay penalty
because it keeps the network moving,
but it needs to be fairer
so that this newer kind of generation
of bigger-bastery EVs
can actually take on a meaningful amount of charge.
The Type 2 charge points at the park and rides
have a time limit of 16 hours,
which is entirely fair, I would say.
So, yeah, that's actually worked out really well.
And what you found in the likes of the Scottish EV drivers club,
Facebook page, and so on was paradoxical.
It was kind of the polar opposite
of what would have been happening in England,
I would imagine,
because quite a lot of charge by Scotland
was free to use initially.
It was the local authorities and the likes
of Livingston Designer Outlet,
the owners of that infrastructure that set the tariffs,
rather than a central kind of like instable or osprey.
And it's like, we own the hardware,
we set the tariffs.
So EV drivers in Scotland
were actually begging local authorities
to charge them a tariff,
because it meant that, you know,
that means that you're not going to get the freeloaders,
you're going to be able to get onto the infrastructure
and use it when you need it.
And that would be followed up
by time limits and overstay penalties that are fair.
So in Scotland,
we've seen what happens
when you don't have time limits and overstay penalties.
It gets ugly, it gets infuriating.
We need them.
But for goodness sake,
make sure that you're applying a fair time limit,
given the location
and the type of hardware in question.
Yeah.
I think it all boils down to
what is the behaviour you're trying to promote
by putting a time limit in?
And if it's a case of the people who were staying on the charges
because they were free,
if you're encouraging the behaviour to say,
well, yeah, it's free,
but we don't want you to stay on there
from 0 to 100% just because it's free,
there are other people who need to use that.
And I think if you put an appropriate time limit on that,
and an appropriate overstay fee,
that will encourage the right behaviours.
But the example that you started with Laura,
which is a seven kilowatt charger
with a 90-minute time limit before the overstay fee,
that's not necessarily encouraging the behaviours that we want
because with all the best will in the world,
what are you going to get off
90 minutes at a seven kilowatt,
which might get you 40 miles, 44 miles on certain vehicles.
And it's interesting because I was reminded of a post I read yesterday,
and this is where I kind of want to open it up a little bit.
Sarah Sloman, friend of the podcast and known to all of us,
posted that she was at a Tesla supercharger
and they've now introduced what they're calling a congestion fee.
And it's, for all intents and purposes,
it's the same sort of thing.
And they're saying that at peak times,
if you charge for more than 80% of the battery,
you charge 50 pence a minute as a congestion fee.
And they're trying to encourage the behaviour, obviously,
of getting people off the superchargers when they hit 80%,
which is generally when the charge speed starts to slow down
to allow somebody else to come on who's at a lower state of charge
and will therefore get a higher charge speed,
put more energy through and earn more money
for our good friends at Tesla.
So it is definitely a behavioural impact.
And I think when people don't consider that,
that's when you get the issue of,
well, is it actually behavioural or is it a cash grab?
I think also with Tesla,
they've actually had that for quite a while.
I don't know if they've been implementing it.
So I wrote a blog back in 2024 and used that as an example.
So they've definitely had that for a while,
but I don't know if they've been implementing it much.
There's so much questions towards that as a congestion fee
that as a driver,
you don't know what you're going to be charged
because there's so many questions around it.
It could be great.
It's all full.
And obviously with Tesla,
you know if vehicles are going to come up to those charges
that they're trying to move you off.
It makes sense,
but there's too many questions around it
to know what you're going to be charged.
It's not fair on the drivers
that actually will need that 100%.
So it could be like,
I need X amount of miles to get home,
but I need to get my vehicle to 100% or 90%
because I would just want to put my foot down and get home.
I don't want to stop again to charge again somewhere else.
It's not fair to then cause a problem for those drivers
because of the way they charge.
Well, there is a case to say that it's actually quicker
to go to another charger
when your state of charge has dropped down to 70% or 60%
and charge up.
Then it is to stay at that charger
and try and charge up to a higher state of charge
at a lower rate.
Haven't done the figures myself,
but I'm led to believe that that's how it works.
Before we move on, Laura,
I know with power, I think I'm right in saying
that you tend to capture overstay information.
Definitely, yes.
Do you have any stats that you might be able to share
with us from that point of view?
Yeah, definitely.
So we've done a quick check of the last six months
of charging across all of our fleets
and we've found that just over 2% of all transactions
have got overstay fees associated with them.
And with that, they're on average about 10 pounds
per overstay fee.
So you can see the 2% actually just start to
have huge implications towards fleets.
We actually found that one fleet
and we were working with them before this,
that they found that 20% of their total cost of charging
were overstay fees.
That is actually a...
It was ice vehicle drivers
that have moved across to electric
that didn't have the education to know
that there were such thing as overstay fees.
So they were just plugged in,
they didn't know any different,
started to get all these overstay fees.
We broke it down and showed the fleet managers
and they were able to then stop those drivers
from getting those overstay fees.
And now I think they were sat at about 2%
at their last check for overstay fees.
So they're still getting them just not as much.
So it's thousands upon thousands of pounds
that are being spent on overstay fees.
Ewan, do you have any information
on the most egregious overstay fee
that is being charged?
Not in terms of financial terms, no,
but I do know that the likes of the Tesla Supercharger,
you've got to think about 10 minutes
to move your vehicle once it's completed charging,
excluding the congestion fee,
or you start getting hit with like a pound a minute.
I don't know if there's a cap on that,
but the kind of the Shadden Floyd associated
with there being just an infinite limit
and someone who's treating rapid charging infrastructure
as long-stay parking, they deserve that
unless there was some genuine emergency.
But if you are just treating that as a special space
just for you and you don't care about anyone else,
those sort of people are only going to respond
when they're hit in their wallet.
And that's why we need these overstay fees.
I think the worst example we've seen
was there was a Ford E-Transit van
that was plugged into the same Central London
on-street charge point for five days straight.
And that, you know, they only needed about five hours
to actually charge their vehicle.
And here they were, you know,
five days later just hadn't bothered moving it.
So the charge point operator in question
was a bit skittish about the idea
of introducing overstay penalties
because they didn't want to be seen as being draconian.
They didn't want to, as you mentioned earlier, Laura,
punish EV drivers for using their network.
But here was an example where other EV drivers
were being prevented from using the network.
That was a strong case for introducing overstay penalties.
And as I say, the Scottish mindset
because of everything we've been through
with Charge Place Scotland and the various local authorities
and the kind of misuse and abuse of the network
because there were no overstay penalties initially.
Most Scottish EV drivers, I suspect,
would be very happy to see overstay penalties
provided that they are fairly designed.
So yeah, I'm very much in team overstay penalty camp here.
I think the worst thing I ever came across
don't think I'm going to name names,
but there was a reasonably large hub
part way up the EB1.
That hub is the actual charges
are no longer there at that hub.
So it's since been made defunct,
but the local council used to charge their vans,
their electric vans on there.
And I went up, my parents live up north,
so I traveled up there and in the vehicle that I had,
I had to stop at that.
I only had 100 mile range, so I stopped at that.
I went up two days before Christmas.
There was a van on there that had already been on,
27 hours.
I came back the day after new year,
so seven, eight days.
That same van was still on there.
Hadn't moved.
And when I spoke to the charge point operator in question,
they said, because according to the website,
it's a 10 pounds overstay fee per hour.
And I thought, right, good.
So presumably you've built the council X thousand pounds.
And the feedback that I got was,
yes, but we only apply that for the first two hours.
So basically you got a 20 pound overstay fee
and it was able to stay on there for about eight days.
For goodness sake,
that's some cheap parking, isn't it?
Actually, you do bring up an interesting point
because there are a lot of tradespeople,
the likes of your sort of DPD vans and so on,
not to single them out.
There are large fleets that are going electric.
This is great to see.
They don't necessarily have the depot charging infrastructure.
This is where the likes of peer to peer
depot infrastructure sharing is brilliant.
I'm going to single out first bus,
a first group for this,
because they are massive electric bus depot in Glasgow.
They've opened this up to other electric fleets
and to an extent members of the public as well.
Because the buses are obviously out during the day
and it's only during the wee hours of the night
that they're actually back charging.
So you've got this incredible asset sitting there
that your taxis and your delivery vans can use.
What you conveniently forgot about
with the first bus depot in Glasgow is
39 pence a kilowatt hour for public rapid charging at that site.
How could this Scotsman forget such a bargain?
Laura, do you have anything to say
to bring this topic to a close?
I'd probably say that I have obviously seen
quite a few different overstay fees
that are implemented.
I think my highest one,
for example, was for a fleet of about £500.
They got an overstay fee
because they lost the car keys to the vehicle.
So, and they couldn't then move the vehicle.
So there was all sorts that went on with that one.
So it's under that weird situation
where actually they didn't really want to be there
and they had no choice
until they could find those keys.
But for me, it's, I have to agree,
I think overstay fees are needed for charges.
But they need to be fair for all.
They need to be fair so the CPO isn't losing out.
But drivers aren't being penalised for, you know,
the opportunity to have clear signage,
clear rules that stipulate,
this is what will happen,
this is what you will get.
And to know that actually, yes,
on it, let's say for the Type 2 one,
yes, you can have the 16 hours on charge for free.
And after that,
that is when you'll start to be charged an overstay fee.
It needs to make this crazy thing called common sense.
And if they had common sense
and applied it to the overstay fees,
then I am 100% all for it
because that's what creates the good habits.
Fortunately, if CPOs are trying to then cash grab,
you're going to see people
not want to charge on the public network
because of that reasoning.
As my mother used to say,
the problem with common sense is
it's not actually that common.
Very smart woman.
Thank you, Laura.
Excellent topic.
Ewan, won't you like to talk about?
So quite a lot of you will know me
through my battery,
electric chemistry, consultancy,
and plug back television and so on.
But I do have my side mission,
which is charge saint,
which is an app that allows EV drivers
to report blocks and broken charging infrastructure
directly to someone who can do something about it,
whether it's the charge point operator,
car park operator, or the local authority.
So over the last 18 months or so
that the app has been live,
we've done some real world trials
with charging networks.
And we've had hundreds of reports in
from across the UK
with excellent detail
as to the nature of kind of Bay blockages.
And it's not always the kind of standard stuff
you would think of.
And really until now,
we've not had a good idea
of just how big a problem
icing and Bay blocking in general actually is.
So I suppose based on the learnings
we've had so far,
now that we've actually got eyes on the ground
in the form of EV drivers
who can report this to someone
who could do something about it.
My question is,
how big an issue is icing and Bay blocking
and what more can be done
to solve this if it is an issue?
Now that's interesting
because I'm going to talk a little bit
about a related topic later on,
which is to do with charge site placement
because I think a lot of what you're talking about
is directly related to
where the actual chargers have been put.
Laura, any thoughts?
Definitely on that.
I think there's different types of versions
of charger blocking
and one that I've recently come across
was EVs that are parked in the EV charging bay
and pretending to charge on the chargers.
So they've even to the point
where they've got the type to your cable out,
they've plugged it in
but you can see that the end
that's supposed to go into the vehicle
is just sat there.
It's not actually in the charger.
So not only are they completely blocking the bay
but they're making it seem like
that they've done it on purpose.
It's not one that I've just gone,
oh, I didn't know it was a charging bay
and they've gone and done that.
Another example that I've had
and it was some recent airport on LinkedIn
was disabled bays that have got EV charging on
and the signage wasn't clear.
So there were diesel, petrol and diesel vehicles
parked in these EV charging bays
and I got angry at them.
Personally, I never went and spoke to them,
I'm not that brave
but from a distance was like, why are they here?
Like, you can't be doing this.
This is, these are for chargers
and it wasn't until they left
that I noticed underneath where the cars are parked
there was a disabled bay icon
and I'm going, can people park there
that I've got ice vehicles?
But now you're blocking a charger
and I then realized I looked underneath my own car
that I was parked in one of those bays.
So was I in the wrong
as an EV driver?
I was charging my vehicle on a charger
but it was a disabled bay
so am I now blocking that charger
for someone else that needs it?
And I went around in a whole situation in my head
and I had no clue who was in the wrong
and who was in the right.
And so I didn't know
if anyone was blocking chargers over that
but I think it is a huge problem.
We've got other ones that have happened
where I've come across lorries
in service stations on, you know
your grid serves your Tesla sites
when you're on the motorways
where it's later at night
and there's no vehicle parking for their HDVs
because they're full
so they're parking in the public car park area
but because of where the chargers are
the trucks and the lorries
are parked over the charging bays
so then I couldn't go charge the vehicles
and they couldn't move their vehicles
because they were on their
their wind-down time
so they're not allowed to move those vehicles
and we were stuck in this whole stalemate
and I'm like I don't really want to be
walking around trucks either
like later at night by myself
but I think it's a huge problem
and I don't know how to fix it
without, you know, again penalizing drivers
that are doing it
I think it's a huge problem
and fully agree.
Right, so you and a couple of things then
from a charge-same point of view
if somebody reports
exactly what Laura said there
there's a diesel van
it's parked in a disabled quote
disabled bay
which is actually also a charging bay
how has that dealt with?
So that does depend on the nuances
of the traffic regulation order
the TRO
or the equivalent for private land
so TRO is typically something you'd find in public
your council-owned car parks are on street
if a signage that says EV charging only
then there's a piece of legislation
that says a traffic warden
can come along and slap a parking fine
on your windscreen if you're misusing that bay
so have they defined that bay as
dual-purpose blue badge holder
or EV driver
doesn't matter if the EV driver is able-bodied or not
or the EV driver must also be a blue badge holder
now there's these nuances which
you know if we were in North America
there would be a probably a totem pole of signage
that would explain this
but we are a bit more kind of reserved in the UK
and we make it just a bit more kind of concise
and then direct you
well I say direct you
they don't tell you
go on to the council website
and we explain it in detail
but that's what you would end up doing
and it'd be buried in a page somewhere
within various sub-directories of the council website
but in terms of what we would do
if that local authority is signed up to our services
or if that charging network is signed up to our services
we would automatically have matched the location
the charger ID
we would know it was theirs
so we would forward that report onto them
and you know your your traffic wardens
could be dispatched in real time to investigate
if the rules were such that
yeah this bay is purely for electric vehicles
whether the driver is a blue badge holder or not
but it's designed so that EV drivers who have blue badges
can access it more easily
or they can decide that
I suppose on the flip side of the coin
if there is no blue badge in the EV
and it's actually a bay that is exclusively for blue badge EV drivers
then the traffic warden could be dispatched as well
and depending on the legislation where you are in the country
potentially the the PCN you know the penalty charge notice
could be dispatched via the post without the parking manager
or traffic wardens having to leave the office
so that's what we would do
but it does come down to the differences
in these traffic regulation orders
and the rules between public land and private land
so yeah when it comes to the enforcement side
it does depend on that exact site
but nonetheless even if no enforcement comes of it
this is invaluable evidence
because it shows that there is confusion
and it shows that something needs to be done
to clarify the matter
basically that evidence although we cannot
see any kind of instant digital justice
you know PCN set through the post and stuff
we can build up that groundswell of evidence
that EV drivers are trying to use this charge point
but can't it might not be an overnight fix
but it builds up the evidence that will eventually
mean that bays will be accessible when you need them
right I want to come back and ask you a little bit about some data
because I know you've got some nice statistics there
but before I do that tell me about the guy who thought he had his own
personal public charging space
yeah yeah someone got very protective over there
incredibly public on street lamp post charge point
and they literally chained and padlocked their type 2 cable to it
so that even if the charge point operator went
you know what now this is ridiculous
we're terminating this charge session
so it would unlock the charge point
you physically couldn't remove it
that is the most ludicrous petty example
of self entitlement that I have seen from any EV driver ever
and this is the sort of evidence that again
ANPR cameras and stuff you know
babe protection cameras probably wouldn't pick up very easily
ground mounted sensors certainly wouldn't
traffic wardens would okay I mean they would eventually
when they're going past on the beat
but it's just that again EV drivers are constant eyes on the ground
we've got that omnipresence that no other solution has
and these reports genuinely thank you to every single EV driver
who's reported issues no matter what they are
via charge saint because they're building up a picture of
not just your vanilla oh this is a petrol car parked in an EV charging bay
it's building up a surprisingly complex picture
of some of the issues that we're going to need to overcome
and nip in the bud going forwards because I bet you there's nothing
in any TRO out there or any terms and conditions from a charging network
saying thou shalt not padlock and chain their type 2 cable to our charge point
yeah now linking what you've just said with what Laura mentioned earlier on
because she talked about people parking up with an electric vehicle
plugging in or pretending to plug in and actually using it as as a parking space
now intuitively when when I hear you talk about this
my mind immediately goes to oh well it's the big blocker the people who cause
most of this are internal combustion engine people
they're parking there they're not charging they can't charge
and sometimes they're doing it out of ignorance sometimes they're doing it out
of spite but I know you've got some data to sort of
qualify exactly what the major causes are of
bay blocking so can you share that with us please
I certainly can so if there is a if there's no TRO in place
what we've found is that three-quarters of the bay blocking incidents
are straight-up icing and then 26% are EVs betraying their brethren
but if you put a TRO in place that suddenly becomes a 50-50 split
it's actually 52% icing 48% you know bay hogging by EVs
so it's slightly rigidity figures actually if you look at the
proportional split but yeah if we if we then look at the absolute figures
with no TRO in place versus having a TRO in place
although you've reduced icing substantially there is in absolute terms
an actual increase in the number of EVs that are seeing signage
saying EV charging only they somehow miss the bit that says charging
and go that's a special space just for me
so more EVs misuse charging bays from what we've seen so far
that actually say EV charging only whether that is you know parking but not plugging in
or parking and charging but leaving the cable plugged in for days on end
or exactly what you said Laura the kind of I think it's called ghost charging isn't it
where you pretend to plug in and in fact one of our earliest reports
we received from a charge saint user was exactly that so to the naked eye that vehicle was charging
to a traffic warden that vehicle was charging because not only was the cable plugged into
the charge point but unlike what you said about oh you know it's sitting loose or something
it was properly plugged into the EV as well but there had been no attempt to activate
the charging session and they proved this by taking a photograph of the cable you know the
plug in the charge point and then the second photograph they'd managed to take the cable
out of the charge point the type two charge protocol is that if a charging session has
been activated the cable shall be locked in place until the EV driver returns and stops
the charging session and unlocks their vehicle so we know for a fact that there was no attempt to
start that charging session and we also pull live data from the back office of the charge
point operator if they're a customer of ours so yeah we have all that evidence to say
you never even attempted to charge that then gets sent to the charge point operator and
ideally the local authority as well the local authority can then dispatch a traffic warden
who can with great confidence check the cable again and go all right okay there's your parking
fine yeah laura did those figures shock astound you or is it kind of that's pretty much what i
thought i'd say that's pretty much what i thought i know i've been driving i've only been driving
EVs for about two years so but i've seen my fair share of every explanation you get except
for padlocking your type two charger to it which i appreciate the mentality of that going i want
this charger i could fully understand it from that point of view but i've seen so many different
versions of charger blocking from both sides and even that where people have tried to start a charge
or they've just plugged in the ghost charging as you said because you can see the colors on some
of the charges and people that don't know so you know family friends that i've had with me
and i've gone that car's not charging what do you mean it's plugged in i'm like it's not even started
but that it's still this color it means it's not charging they're blocking this bay for someone
so for me that doesn't surprise me all it makes me sad as someone in the EV industry that are
seeing other EVs doing this because you're giving everyone a bad name you're giving the industry
the vehicles that bad name which we just don't want we've been fighting for so long to remove you
know all the food from it and then just to have people do that you're like come on but on the flip
side it's not up to them to do that you know it's not to them to to tell people EVs are great
you know they're just getting on with their day they're selfish and they don't care as much as
we do unfortunately so it sadly doesn't surprise me i wish it wasn't like that though i really do
yeah and i think as with all the things that i tend to discuss on on this podcast a lot of it comes
down to education because yes you're always going to have the selfish people who are gaming the
system but you're also going to have the people who genuinely think oh well this is an EV space
i've got an EV i'm going to park here i don't need to charge but it's for parking isn't it
and i think there's an education aspect to say no there is no such thing as EV parking
there's EV charging or there's parking and the two are completely different things
and i think if you get to the situation where somebody has had one two three visits from the
traffic ward and as a result of somebody to report them on charge saying to i think that
education starts to become a little more a little easier to pass over doesn't it cool definitely
yeah yeah i mean yeah we've seen that um to be honest it's been an education piece for
operators and local authorities as much as for EV drivers but you know as you say laura there are
some people who don't realize it you know they see the kind of EV only they somehow miss the charging
and if you're an EV newbie you'd be amazed how many EV newbies just think okay this must be for
parking rather than plugging in you know you can just sit here as well um and then you know
someone will kindly tap them on the shoulder and say by the way you know that's for charging
you know if you need to park just go and park in a regular bay they're like most most of the time
they seem to be quite apologetic you know that there'll be innocent mistakes and to be honest
EV dealers need to um you know do the education piece and quite frankly not enough of them are
obviously we've got brilliant associations such as EVA England who are very good at embracing
new people to EVs and providing the kind of training and etiquette and that kind of
hive mind um which just brings everyone up to scratch on on the quirks of driving electric
really quickly but there'll be many people to whom they are completely unaware of all this
and they're just kind of going it alone and that's where we need to make sure that it's as
obvious as possible that you should not be doing this and if that does involve giving you a sting
of a pcn parking fine but you do that once and you very quickly learn not to do that again
yeah totally agree totally agree time is creeping so i want to move on if you don't mind you and
thanks for that topic excellent one i want to bring up a topic that kind of piggybacks on
the two things that we've already discussed here so let me say charge point site selection
now let me explain a lot of what we've been talking about today can be boiled down in
most instances to poor site selection and placement of charges and a prime example
as we've already talked about is icing if you put charges in a car park near the main entrance
to the shop that's where people are going to park it as a free space so they'll ice charges that that
are there you yourself Laura said that when the power went out in your house this week
you got in your zoo you headed to motor services at scotch corner and one of the reasons you
chose to hook onto the medium power charges there rather than the ultra rapids was that
they were closer to the entrance the rapid charges are back at the far end of the car park
i did the measurements it's 24 meters versus 100 meters and those medium power charges are
i also notice right outside the travel lodge hotel entrance so i can imagine that they would
also get ice quite a lot by people parking there for the hotel now on the subject of hotels we had
andreus atkins from ionity on here recently talking about the ionity deal with village hotels
to put ultra rapid hubs in at hotel sites now these will by definition take up parking spaces
at a site which traditionally needs overnight parking not ultra rapid parking although andreus
did give a good explanation on the logic behind this and i'm not contesting that if you want to
hear what he said i'll put a link to that particular episode in the show notes a dwell time is also an
issue and again we've touched a little bit on that when when you were talking about the
seven kilowatt charger with a 90 minute overstafy on that if i'm stopping for a meal at your
restaurant do i want a charger which will fill my car in only 40 minutes meaning i've got to
get out and move it in the middle of the meal or do i want a slower charger that will
allow me to spend a couple of hours plugged in while i eat and not have to worry about
whether i'm blocking the charger or not so given what we've already talked about today
what are the panel's thoughts on dwell time and the impact that has on charger site selection
who wants to take the lead on this um yeah you you raise the the point about ionity
going in at um you know at village hotels with large ultra rapid charging hubs to be fair and i
apologize if i'm basically repeating what andreus has said i've seen some tesla hubs at hotels for
example eurocentral in glasgo the tokota hotel there there's a very successful tesla charging hub
because that hub is at the back of the um the car park so it's not well it's very rarely iced and
it's kind of out of the way of where hotel guests are going but also those ev drivers are going
to want to pop in for not just a whiz and a sandwich but a whiz and a nice scone and cup of tea
because it's a very nice hotel so actually it works out really well i mean that hub was designed from
the days of the supposedly kind of well to do model s drivers and things like that of the kind
of mid 2010s it's one of the first in scotland if i remember rightly so that works really well
likewise village hotels i seem to remember from our um you know from our our rockers days at
fully charged live farm bro everything electric farm bro now the village hotel would always be
rammed and it would be you know great fun to be good food and drink and stuff that don't drink and drive
but um you know obviously if they're if they're putting in ionity chargers there that makes
sense because you've got refreshments you've got a so you've got food you've got somewhere
quite nice to be whilst you're charging your car for 20 minutes so that totally makes sense
what doesn't make sense is what i've seen with um is it premier in who's teamed up with
genie point yeah it is who've teamed up with genie point who are putting in solitary 50 kilowatt
rapid chargers nobody who's passing by is going to go to those they're going to go to the village
hotel and use ionity because they're faster and most cars these days are capable of charging
over 100 kilowatts rather than 50 it was just hashtag so 2015 so what you've got is the actual
hotel guests um basically every random group of new arrivals every night having to i don't know
form a whatsapp group to decide which 30 minute slot they're going to get to rotate and charge
their cars that's awful so yeah that's my rant on rapid chargers at hotels laura um for me i
i want to say i prefaced the fact that i chose the charge that i did was because i was actually
going to be there for a while because i didn't know when one of my electrics was coming back
online i know the zoe can't really it can do rapid charging but it isn't that fast so it
makes no sense for me to have gone to those higher power chargers i might as well go to the
the medium power charger that was there it just so happens it is in front of the doors
and i could walk straight in but i've seen that a lot of times at scotch corner where
there are ice vehicles in front of it or there are EVs that i just parked in them and not charging
but for me it's the right chargers in the right places that is what it has to come down to
a really good example of that is mark and veil services i absolutely love those services
every time i go to birmingham for anyc any place like that myself i always pick pan up we drive
down and we always stop there and we stop for food but they have got the insta ball ultra rapid
chargers they've got ev point rapid chargers but they've got osprey at the 50 kilowatt
chargers that are there as well without fail i guarantee i will go to the osprey chargers
not to the ultra rapid because we stop for food for that exact reason i don't want to be blocking
a charger because i know we're going to be there for an hour and a half plus because we talk too
much together so we will sit there and talk and i know the car will be full when i get there
but it's finding the right chargers for those right locations the genie point chargers that
are in hotels will help also have overstafis on them i've know that because we've got fleet
drivers that have gone to those hotels to stay overnight and they've plugged in not read
you know all that signage that is always there on all of it and somewhere in very very small
print it will tell them that i think was with genie point it's 90 minutes and then it's 10 pounds
per hour that you were plugged in so if you are there overnight let's say and you don't know that
they've got overstafis you plugged into that cable you've gone to bed it's gone to sleep
and you've woken up with nearly a hundred pound fine but you didn't know that there was
overstafis there like that is the wrong type of charger to have there flip side i think ionising
village hotels is probably a good idea because they also do a lot of conferences there i've been to
quite a few conferences in village hotels and i've seen ionity building them there and gone
hang on a second that makes perfect sense because then i can plug in do that and get going again
once the conference is finished or on the lunch break that you have sometimes you can plug in
during that time frame so it's a lot of education that we've already talked about but it's finding
the right charges and i i wholeheartedly unfortunately don't agree with having charges at
the back of a car park either being usually myself just driving alone female i drive at any
time of night as well i don't like walking across car parks from the middle of nowhere
where you know there's everything at the back of the car park to have to walk to the front
of it i really don't want to be doing that i want to be able to park as close to
possible to the front where it's there's more light there's more people and i feel safer i don't
want to have to then start removing my safety to charge my vehicle further away so other people
are happy about it i'm selfish in that way no that's a really good point and if i may jump in
sorry gary i saw you were so excited about that but yeah i mean you obviously you've
raised a brilliant point about personal safety as well as accessibility and and electrical safety
and so on and it's worth pointing out at this point the trailblazing work of charge safe on this
because that was one of the the no-brainer things is don't make it a dimly lit corner of the car park
but um of course charge safe which has just been acquired by safer charging so it's now
wrapping in electrical safety and kind of high quality standards of installation there as well
but um yeah it makes so much sense for charge point operators local authorities whoever's installing
charging infrastructure when it comes to site selection hardware selection the design of the
site as well engage the experts safer charging and charge safe because it's pocket money to get that
high quality consultancy to get it right versus hemorrhaging money by having a lack of utilisation
because everyone's going next door because their hubs vastly superior to yours and then you have
to rip it out and start again and um another quick thing to chuck in as well is um we need
to be not just looking at the the kind of location of the charge points in isolation we need to be
engaging any separate car park operators because I was recently driving down to Cenex Expo from
Edinburgh so I stopped at Stafford where Eon has a shiny new charging hub in the the city centre
and they are blisteringly quick chargers it's the fastest my my only fives ever charged so
nice one Eon however when I got out the car I looked at the signage and it said
if you leave this site on foot you will instantly receive a fine because of the ANPR that's around
the site this retail park I looked around I was like okay what is there what is there that's going to
keep me entertained for 20 minutes there's a majestic wine warehouse and a gym so I've got nowhere to
have a whiz in the sandwich which meant I had to stop on the motorway services on the way down
from Stafford to Milton Keynes anyway we need to be bringing car park operators independent
car park operators into the fold and saying this is charging people need to go and grab a
whiz and a sandwich it's rapid charging and do not penalize them for leaving the site on foot if
that site does not have the conveniences that are required and that's fantastic because that brings
in a whole load of different aspects because as as you've said there you've got that offset
between I'm going to take Scotch Corner for example it's a hundred meters from the high
power chargers back to the the main site there and they are way at the back of the the
car park there's there's literally nothing behind them after that so you're going to have to walk
through somewhere that's potentially quite dark potentially quite scary passed a hotel which
you know you never know who's looking out the windows and watching you as you go past all that
sort of stuff but you've then got the flip side to that is we all want some nice rapid charges
at a location so if they're not putting them there where are they putting them so they
may end up bringing them a lot closer to the main building so there may be additional groundworks
involved which will then increase the price to the cpo which will then have an awkward effect on the
price that we pay for the charging so at some point there's going to be an offset from the one
to the other there and the whole area of your touch on it you and site selection so where
in the country are we going to put a charger but once we've got that site where on that site
is the optimal place to put a charger a bank of chargers bearing in mind groundwork costs electricity
supply safety accessibility facilities you know like let you say that citing staff are
fantastic having high-powered chargers there but if you've literally got to stay there for
25 30 40 minutes while your vehicle charges and you cannot leave that's not a particularly
well-designed and well thought-out site isn't Laura any thoughts on this before we move on
no i'm crap with our eyes i think oh i always look for we said a whiz and a coffee usually for me
is have they got starbucks and have they got toilets usually the starbucks answers that one
i usually end up at mfg sites because they're in petrol forecasts but they've usually got
food and facilities and they've got really good facilities on site quite close by to the
chargers and it's all it up because it's petrol forecasts already so they've already got all the
facilities in place and they've put the chargers in in the right places so for me i normally
try and tend towards those types cpo's where i know that i can go get stuff that i need to do as well
so it's encompassing all but i think it's true i but people are still learning it is the best
thing to put here people are learning they've put the chargers in they've gone all right
let's see how they go you know years ago let's talk and they're still learning now what is
that what do evi drivers need you know you've got insta what with their their sites that they've
put in the winchester super hub bamboo as well as big sites that they've learned okay drivers need
toilets they need coffee they need food they need this they need that shopping facilities not just
to look around some wines which i wouldn't mind doing but you know you need something there
for people to do as well it's it's not just charging it's not boring charging it's
making all charging destination charging basically it needs to have something there for people
wonderful ironically or not ironically as soon as we finish recording this i'm going to get in my
car and i'm going to drive up to my mum's and i'm going to stop at mark and veil enjoy it's time
for a cool evi or renewable thing to share with your listeners so do either of my guests have
anything interesting to share laura i was going to let you and go first with this one i think
he's got a good idea you and what have you got for us so yeah um an exciting development in the
world of battery electric chemistry looking at the circular economy so one of the the big movements
that we've seen throughout the 20s is that electric vehicles have been moving towards lithium iron
phosphate batteries which don't contain nickel don't contain cobalt means they're very ethical
means they're very cheap it also means they're more difficult to recycle economically because
of the low value of the materials so there's a risk that it will end up with stockpiles of lfp
batteries well the uk is now one of the world leaders on lithium iron phosphate recycling
so the relib project which is at birmingham and lester universities they have some world-class
electric chemists who've managed to recycle some heavily damaged over discharged lithium
iron phosphate batteries and economically recover and restore and reuse those materials
for the first time and incidentally the supply of those lithium iron phosphate cells
came from my vintage electric mobile my old puja 106 electric which unfortunately having been upgraded
to lithium iron phosphate in the early 2010s ended up parked on a very steep driveway on the
west coast of scotland which gets very rainy and the bolt-on battery management system for
lithium iron the cover would come loose on that water got underneath the bonnet fried
of the battery management system which forced discharge the cells so they were in a right
state when they were delivered to the relib project they have managed to economically and
impressively recover and restore just about the most messed up lithium iron phosphate material
you could imagine so anything coming out of a well-designed well-managed electric vehicle
mass produced here you test the model 3s mg4s and so on you're looking at being able to
recycle them economically even easier michael evill renewable thing solar power is now
hungary's second largest source of electricity i've been overtaken natural gas as a power source
nuclear energy is hungary's largest source accounts even more than 40 percent solar overtook
gas in 2024 to become the second largest source at about 25 percent and coal share has fallen
from about 30 percent in 1990 to 6 percent in 2024 and this shows renewables are rising
while fossil fuel use falls which is fantastic the ev musings podcast is sponsored by zap map
the go-to app for ev drivers helping you find and pay for public charging with confidence
see what charge points are available right now with live availability
and unrivaled uk charge point coverage at your fingertips pay at thousands of charge points
within the app or with the zap map charging card join over a million ev drivers download zap map
and charge with confidence so i hope you enjoyed listening to today's shows put together this week
with the help of laura huswick wilkes and dr ewan mcturk many thanks for your help thank you
in 10 weeks time we'll be doing the end of season round table and i think i've lined up an
even more stellar cast of panelists than this one if that were even possible more details
later in the season but let's just say it'll be some of the eb's heaviest hitters on the charging
user and industry size so stay tuned for that if you have any thoughts comments or criticisms or
other general messages to pass on to be i can be reached at info dv musings dot com on the socials
i'm on blue sky at ev musings dot b sky to social i'm also on instagram at ev musings
where i post short videos and podcasts extract regularly why don't follow me there thanks
to everyone who supports me through patreon on the monthly basis and through coffee dot com
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them on amazon check out the links in the show notes for more information as well as a link to
my ev musings newsletter and associated articles now i know you're probably driving or walking
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