Nina's Blog - Monday 23rd May 2022

@ArishMell It has slightly improved since your visit, no piped music. The rest described it to a T.

No queue for the charger and the charger worked perfectly, 8 stalls altogether, 3 in use.. But I have a Tesla, it might be a different experience for others. My experience of non-Tesla chargers has been dismal but I haven't tried one since 2020.

@ninalanyon No music.... I wonder if anyone else noticed.

Using a Little Chef once to break a long journey, one my companions asked if we'd realised what the syrupy "angelic choir" music, at low volume, was. We hadn't.

"It was all songs advertising the chain", he replied. "A sort of subliminal advertising."

As for the public charging-points, I don't know if you have to pay for the electricity yet but that must come. It's time the Government got a grip on the car and charger makers and ordered all charging stations to be of two standard types (a.c. and d.c.) - I think they are going that way anyway - and all to be fitted with pay-at-charger equipment offering the option of paying by card. Not force you to use a 'phone you might not have or which has no coverage in that area, and probably adds agency fees. And the price to be displayed clearly, in kW/h.

They can do that with petrol and diesel pumps, so there is no excuse.

@ArishMell None of the chargers at motorway service stations are free as far as I know. Even in Norway the fee structure is a mess with a mixture of per minute and per kWh charges usually both. I calculated that at some chargers it is almost as expensive as it would be to fuel an ICE car of a similar class.

Tesla is different, there you pay only per kWh. But you must move the car within five minutes of finishing charging or they charge a pound a minute idle fee. Tesla are starting to open their network to other brands of car but I don't know what sort of fee structure they will apply. I'm lucky, my car has free charging at Tesla chargers.

@ninalanyon It looks as if unless the authorities move fast to control the trade and make it open and honest, many many electric car owners are going to be ripped off right, left and centre by the charger and phone companies.

In the UK, I am told by an EV owner, if you have a high-rate charger installed at home it must be fitted by a professional installer and fed via a so-called "smart" meter separate from the household meter.

That of course will be academic for all those owners, estimated as up to half of all British motorists, for whom charging at home would be impossible anyway.

How does Tesla reimburse the electricity company if the charging is free for Tesla car owners? I wonder if recovers the money from the owners of its rival cars.....

How does it know how long it takes anyone to drive away from the charger? Does the equipment contain a camera with number-plate reader?

@ArishMell The Tesla charger and Tesla cars talk to each other through the charging cable so Tesla always knows who to bill. When it gets close to the target charge level it sends a message to the owner via the mobile app.

At the moment only a few specific other brands can use Tesla chargers and for them it is slightly more complicated they have to use the app to start and stop charging.

But for the actual low level charging control there is a standard machine to machine communication protocol and I think that includes a unique identifier for the car so there is no need for ANPR. I don't know how it will work for other brands but Tesla can tell where Teslas are. But I have never encountered a car parked at a charger but not plugged in.

I agree that many of the other chargers are a rip off. It would be in the interests of the companies to standardise. Where I live in Norway there is a station that has eight Tesla stalls and eight from another company. Even though there are far more non-Tesla cars it is almost always the case that 6 out of the 8 Tesla stalls are in use while only 1 or 2 of the others are.

@ninalanyon I see. I can understand why Tesla does that. It is trying to avoid charger-hogging. Even before helping Mr Musk's household bills.

Yet I wonder why the companies are so intent on using portable 'phones to pay for the charging? It forces anyone using an electric car to buy something he or she might not otherwise need or want; and is a potential (!) hidden way to extract more money from the driver.

It interests me as an observer. I will never be able to own a battery electric car, which I think will in time be no cheaper to run than their i.c. counterparts; and be far harder to sell second-hand.

@ArishMell Tesla owners don't need a mobile phone when using Tesla chargers. The app is just an added convenience. It means you can leave the car while it is charging and not have to guess when it might be finished. You can do everything else you need with the screen in the car.

@ninalanyon Ah, I see.

I wonder if the other manufacturers will follow suit. Yes, I can see the advantage of the system telling to abandon your coffee and rush back to let someone else at the machine!