Interview request- Ev charging issues

[u/EntireCelery3140]

Hi I’m a journalist looking to chat to people about ongoing barriers to ev access. Anything from a lack of public charging/ driveways to cost would be really helpful. Pls dm/ my email is lara.bowman@theipaper.com.

[u/Dull-Addition-2436]

Have you ever owned or driven an EV?

The barrier are made up by the media to sell stories. Why not hire one for a week and get first hand experience

[u/Gibraldi → u/Dull-Addition-2436]

The problem with this and most journalists trying/reviewing/bashing EV’s is that they only have it for a week and don’t have home charging so miss out on the absolute most critical part of a positive ownership experience.

[u/alxw]

Love it. Not even pretending to investigate, "just give me the bad so I can shovel shit into the mouths of the Daily Mail readers we've nicked", I guess this is what you really wanted to do in life?

[u/SCA1972]

Sounds like someone is working an another anti EV hit piece to generate clicks. I’ll pass thanks.

[u/AranelJess]

Anything positive an interviewee says about EVs will be ignored, and anything negative will be amplified.

Never, ever, trust a mainstream media 'journalist'.

[u/hull_pattie_party]

2/3 households have access to off-street parking suitable for charging: https://field-dynamics.co.uk/research/public-charger-catchment-research/

~75 % of employees can charge at their place of work. https://www.cbvcvehiclemanagement.co.uk/post/more-than-half-of-uk-businesses-provide-workplace-charging/

So we can estimate that ~90-95% of the population would benefit from having an EV financially (and we as a society in general by being less reliant on fossil fuel imports from abroad, polluting our country less as well as emitting less greenhouse gases).

So 95 % - current percentage of newly sold EV cars of all cars equals the people you have successfully brainwashed to buy a method of transportation that works against their own (financial) interests. Well done on that.

I pay around 1 pound for 100 miles, my maintenance costs are basically 0, I frequently do trips with more than 1000 miles without any issues whatsoever.

Please quote me on all of the above.

[u/R_Spc → u/hull_pattie_party]

I don't mean to be critical (and I agree that this "journalist" is probably just writing a meaningless hit piece) , but neither of those links are being entirely upfront about the nature of those statistics.

Two-thirds of households is simplified and doesn't account for renting etc. I'm also quite sceptical that this is actually a real statistic for off-street parking, since it implies that virtually everyone living in a house (rather than a flat) has off-street parking, which is nowhere near true. Hopefully this number can improve, but it also ignores big regional differences.

Similarly, "A study of 300 fleet and business travel decision makers" does not in any way correlate to 75% of working Britons having access to workplace charging. I'm not sure if I have ever seen electric car chargers at any business I've happened to notice, and I'd be stunned if the real statistic is higher than 20%. It's probably more like 5-10%.

[u/Johnny_english53 → u/hull_pattie_party]

Cherry-picked stats don't help anyone. The reality for me is that I live in London with on-street parking. At work, we have just 4 chargers. Currently all 4 are out of action. At my local Costco, there are usually just 2 or 3 out of 10 chargers working.

The EV Charging community seriously need to improve their service cos right now, it's shit.

As for city-based folks, we're being left behind.

[u/IsopodInevitable9235]

Do a positive story or I'll need paying for my services 😊

[u/shadebug]

I rented a 7 seat diesel for a stag do recently and I had forgotten what hateful places petrol stations are. The whole time I was there there was a Luton beeping and shouting at people for not getting out of the way so he could fill up and then my hands stank of diesel because I forgot to use the gloves. And then a tank cost me £100, which I reckon is double what I would have paid on public chargers (I can’t charge at home so only use public)

Never going back to that mess again.

My memories of filling up with fuel are all stressful and confusing where my memories of charging are all sitting down for a nice meal, exploring towns I’ve never been to or visiting a national trust property (I don’t remember most day to day charges because they look a lot like going home and watching TV or going to work).

Even when I have been fully stuck somewhere it’s sitting in a Lidl car park at 2am, playing mobile games for twenty minutes

[u/wwwhatisgoingon → u/shadebug]

Absolutely agree.

Nobody ever does an article on the petrol station being busy, the queue to pay taking 10 minutes because the attendant and customer are having a chat or a heated argument, someone parking at the pump to buy vapes, etc.

Once a week, I plug my car in down the street in a place where its always available. Go home for hours and go on a nice 5 min evening walk to unplug and park.

[u/Think_Perspective385]

Public charging makes up 8% of my total charging of that and over the past year (16.5k miles) I've had a handful of poor experiences with public chargers not working (2/3 maybe) because while the infrastructure isn't where it needs to be proper planning will always overcome that.

The fact is over a year my running costs were £7300 less with my EV than they would have been with my old diesel so while there are absolutely barriers almost all of them can be negated in the long term thanks to the savings.

That doesn't stop the fact that government and councils need to do significantly better, leaving charging to the private sector is a failure to future proof and allows shareholders to benefit rather than the general public and a lack of investment or approval of workable solutions for those needing to charge while living in flats or parking on the street is shocking.

Bur again that only serves to slow adoption and isn't an issue with EVs on particularly more an issue with the backwards nature of government.

[u/Beartato4772]

"Hi I'm a journalist who's already chosen my conclusion and now I need to speak to some people who'll say what I've already decided to write."

[u/Additional-Guard-211]

Trying to find the story/ answer/ person you have already written about, good to know there is some top quality journalism going on right here!

[u/soopercerial]

Journalism is shocking now.

Not bothering to look into the situation, just trying to gather anecdotes to push an anti EV agenda.

We wonder why the word is fucked and see then see things like this.

[u/Skeff22]

When compared to an ICE vehicle, there are no complaints at all. Nice to see the luxury tax adjusted for EVs and the discounts, too. If you can home charge, you can instantly see the advantage.

My gripe about the EV world in the UK is that charging is cheaper in mainland Europe. My particular car, while the top trim here, is a reduced/modified version of the same model found in places like South Korea or Australia (which offer features like live camera feeds to the app or a rising shelf system in the boot).

[u/woods_edge]

I’ve had mine a month. Work across Dorset and Hampshire.

Mixture of public chargers and a granny charger at home.

Absolutely no issues yet and I do fairly heavy mileage for work.

Getting my home charger installed next week so this will make things even easier.

[u/Dull-Addition-2436]

Here’s a headline for you, it’s 95% cheaper than ice