Another experiment update: Today I had reason to use the public charging infrastructure, and ona bank holiday weekend too, and rather predictably what a $hit show the affair turned out to be. It was everything they say is true and more. You really couldn’t make this up, a total nightmare.
The charging station was in a very busy shopping centre and you’ve guessed it, the queue was absolutely huge. At Wagamama. But not for the EV chargers, I could take my pick of which bay to park in. No wonder that it was quiet though - and you’re not going to believe this, but - every single one of the 12 chargers were fully functional.
What an absolute nightmare it was trying to pay though. It took absolutely ages to get the thing to actually start charging, it must have taken me at least 5 seconds to type the stall number into the app. I even had wait to wait another 5 seconds for it to start charging, and then had to put up with a faster charging rate than expected.
I nipped into M&S to buy some pants and socks - crikey the effect of inflation on men’s underwear prices has been savage - only to be disturbed by the charging app telling me that the car finished charging ages ago and that I might want to think about moving it to free up the stall.
To add insult to injury, it must have been **** Turpin running the chargers because they charged me 40p per kWh, each of which equated to 5.9 miles of driving today, so a horrendous 7.8p per mile. It gets even worse though because the car park only goes and waives the parking fees depriving EV drivers of their right to pay to park.
Who said that driving an EV is low cost? The 22 mile round trip for three adults ended up costing me 29p, well it should have done, but not paying for the parking actually meant that I arrived home with a free extra 31 miles and an extra £1.80 in my pocket that when I set off. Who on earth do they think they are? Hanging would be too good for them.
