I had an inspection today at work ..... EV charging points was on the report!

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pioneercollector

pioneercollector

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OK last week we had a building survey / Insurance inspection ( Sigh ) One of the 'To Be addressed' sections was the placement of our EV charging points, apparently due to the continued and increasing risk of the vehicle catching fire we have to move the charging points away from the building ..... WTF! We have been using the same 4 electric vans for over 8 years and using these charging ports...

Only this month are we changing the vans to the newer Nissan Townstar's * That is another moot whinge about the new pricing structure, thank you Nissan

So i have to potentially spend 1000's of £'s digging up our carpark, placing new cabling in, new charging points blah blah because some 'child' from the insurance inspectorate thinks my vans are going to self combust and set fire to the above ground offices.....

Rant over

PC
 
Luckily i still have a nice Diesel Luton bodied truck ..... It was very strategic at the time to bin our two Diesel vans and buy 4 EV's ..... I got them brand new for around £60k for the 4, as opposed to £126k full price.

Move on 8 years ..... sigh

And i have just had a call from our fleet pool that the EV i dropped off this morning needs bushes, discs, pads, and suspension ...... it has done 92500 miles .... hard miles ...

Is it cider O'Clock yet ?
 
pioneercollector said:
One of the 'To Be addressed' sections was the placement of our EV charging points, apparently due to the continued and increasing risk of the vehicle catching fire we have to move the charging points away from the building ..... WTF! We have been using the same 4 electric vans for over 8 years and using these charging ports...
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As you're probably aware, insurance risk inspections often focus on "flavour of the month" items and clearly your insurer / risk assessor is currently spooked about the risk of EV charging fires.

FWIW, where I worked we'd had forklift charging bays in the same location for years without issue, and all of a sudden the risk assessor changed and the new one had a bee in his bonnet about it, insisting that the charge points had to be moved, there had to be localised fire control measures put in place - including additional fire detection - and a clear exclusion zone surrounding the charging location. After doing all that, a couple of years later the risk assessor changed again and when asked if we could make changes to the charging bays to free up some space, asked why the hell we'd gone to the expense and effort of what we'd done.
 
I would try another insurer.

We get this all the time, an insurer we worked with for years all of a sudden has an odd requirement at renewal time - either they no longer cover this or that, or they hike the premium because we have it as they decided it is now 'a high risk' - we just look for another insurer who does not mind.
 
pioneercollector said:
One of the 'To Be addressed' sections was the placement of our EV charging points, apparently due to the continued and increasing risk of the vehicle catching fire we have to move the charging points away from the building
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What a load of nonsense.
 
Apart from charging points a proper charging "fuel" stations, I would thing that pretty much all charging points are bolted to a building of some sort...sounds like they are trying it on to me.
 
Hi , well I am fortunate although I live in apartment I have my own carparking space and a charging point could easily be attached to the building.

Could it be that the power supply is not man enough for the job and that is the reason for insurance company taking this stance or are they saying this to all customers with battery cars to lose the business.
 
Could you add fireproofing measures to the building where the charge points are situated?
To be fair, we tend to not leave vehicles near our building overnight due to arson concerns.
 
Not sure about your local Lidl , in ours (and Morrissons) carparks the EV chargers could not have been placed further away from the building if they tried. Maybe the planners knew something that we are only just now hearing about.

But , there is a massive flaw in both car parks . If (in the very , very, very and highly unlikely event) that one (or both) charging EV's burst into flames while plugged in to either station every car in the car park would be stranded as the chargers are right next to the only exit in both cases.

And only a mad person goes close to a burning EV . Pretty sure the firebrigade would not allow anyone ner them either.

It's not a big deal , just something I have noticed .

Where are the EV chargers situated in your local supermarket ? I must say I never really gave them a thought until I saw film of how EV's burn.
 
Boyband said:
Hi , well I am fortunate although I live in apartment I have my own carparking space and a charging point could easily be attached to the building.

Could it be that the power supply is not man enough for the job and that is the reason for insurance company taking this stance or are they saying this to all customers with battery cars to lose the business.
Click to expand...

I don't think that the utilities or National Grid are in cahoots with the insurers on this - they are separate commercial organisations and unlikely to cooperate in this way.
 
Petrol Pete said:
Not sure about your local Lidl , in ours (and Morrissons) carparks the EV chargers could not have been placed further away from the building if they tried. Maybe the planners knew something that we are only just now hearing about.

But , there is a massive flaw in both car parks . If (in the very , very, very and highly unlikely event) that one (or both) charging EV's burst into flames while plugged in to either station every car in the car park would be stranded as the chargers are right next to the only exit in both cases.

And only a mad person goes close to a burning EV . Pretty sure the firebrigade would not allow anyone ner them either.

It's not a big deal , just something I have noticed .

Where are the EV chargers situated in your local supermarket ? I must say I never really gave them a thought until I saw film of how EV's burn.
Click to expand...


These are the public EV charges at my local Aldi:

Screenshot-20231120-230858-Maps.jpg


Would be interesting to know if the flats above (and indeed, the entire building) are having difficulties in finding an insurer?
 
Item on tonights local tv news about charging points fitted in lamp posts in the Portsmouth area all being disconnected until proven safe. A council initiative but apparently the installers did not check with SSE.
 
OP

Which insurer was it?

The are ways to mitigate this exposure (tis an exposure) that avoid the cost and hassle of moving them

Happy to help if it's a real issue as attending to such issues / insurer recs is one of my many hats
 
markjay said:
These are the public EV charges at my local Aldi:

Screenshot-20231120-230858-Maps.jpg


Would be interesting to know if the flats above (and indeed, the entire building) are having difficulties in finding an insurer?
Click to expand...
I remember that being built. We did a lovely job in Bloomfield Road in that hot summer of 1995.
 
Change your insurer.

As time goes by, views of acceptable risk change.

I’m sure many will know this Shell petrol station built underneath a very, very expensive block of multimillion pound flats near Baker Street station on the Marylebone Road.

Would never be countenanced today, but “made sense” Before The War.

IMG_1888.jpeg
 
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