270 - The Season 14 Mid-Season Round Table Episode

270 - The Season 14 Mid-Season Round Table Episode The EV Musings Podcast · Oct 6, 2025

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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

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very quiet this week that's how it is thanks for listening

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.

Ford E-Transit Tesla Model S Toyota Supra

Original notes

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.

Euan's Website

Euan on YouTube

Laura Hustwick-Wilkes is the operations manager at fleet roaming provider Paua.

http://paua.com

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: