TfL opens an EV charge hub in Woolwich

[Stinsy]

How much is the electric though?

15-25p per kWh = very reasonable.
50-75p per kWh = rip off.

I assume they are keen to encourage those who do not have off-street parking and therefore their own charger to buy an EV. However if those who have driveways can access 4.5-5.5p per kWh charging it doesn't seem fair to charge those who don't extortionate rates.

[dan_b]

Looks like the tariff is 30p/kWh for contactless, which is actually pretty reasonable I reckon.

[Stinsy]

Looks like the tariff is 30p/kWh for contactless, which is actually pretty reasonable I reckon.

Yes 30p is "reasonable" certainly I'd be happy to happy that for a speedy top-up on a rare long journey. But for people who are using it as their sole means of charging, they're still paying 6x for the electricity that someone charging at home with a ToU tariff would pay. It doesn't seem fair that an employee doing a 50mile round-trip commute but who doesn't have access to home charging pays such an astonishing premium compared with their boss (with a similar commute) who has the luxury of a driveway.

Another point: Why build a brand new charging facility but limit the charging capacity to 50kW? Sure that was considered "fast" many years ago, but lots of current cars are 100-350kW capable. In future, I'm sure that many/most cars will be capable of accepting a charge rate several times what these chargers can deliver. It seems that we're building infrastructure with already-outdated technology.

[Mr Gus]

Stinsy.

How about BOSSES of big companies (with parking) that the fella with the 50 mile commute is doing puts some WORKPLACE CHARGERS in, a scheme running for multiple years in the past, present & future? often big companies are paying less for their electricity, this could be a "benefit" or low cost charge to hook into a trickle charge (less local system stress) & taken off weekly / monthly from pay? ..would reduce massively the need to pay public charger rates, RFID fob per employee to measure / charge accordingly.

Would you balk at work if you were charged 10-14p per unit? (type thing)

& screw the "no fair" aspect, folk in the countryside don't get reduced fuel costs for what are often trips to the town / city for employment, it is what it is & fast chargers are expensive bits of kit.

However, there "probably" a way that an EV, owner in the future could visit a charger at a reduced cost & have it at a discounted preferential partner rate there is nothing to stop that sort of thing ..akin to a tesco clubcard, so who's to say.

We "could" cry foul that the city of london has taken up the vast majority of installed / company investment, fast chargers this year out of a total of 5000 a vast qty are set for there, but that would be irrational.

Personally hope that the idiocy of massive SUV car size & alleged right to park on roads gets addressed, not popular but if you cannot park it on your property then bearing in mind all that alternate city transport that is utilised unless you have frontage, garage, driveway et al.

I too wondered how long the council had been sitting on "plans" for this charger with 2012 tech charger speed.

[dan_b]

You can certainly make the case that TfL should have chosen a different EV charge supplier than ESB for these units - but TfL has been installing these ESB stalls across London for a while so I guess it was part of a wider supply deal. As you say 50kW is not really cutting it today, let alone next year. But again it comes down to cost. Each of those 50kW stalls are about £50k. And at the moment, with current regulations, its the chargehub installer that pays for the cost of the grid reinforcement. So they probably did some sums and figured that was the most they could install for the cost vs their expected return... But perhaps they could have chosen the new Kempower units with the smart power distribution system - these dynamically load balance between all cars at all times based on each car's demand and capability. Then they could have had 150kW stalls on the same grid connection - as we know no EV draws the full charge rate for the entire duration of the charge....

Coulda shoulda woulda.

In other news, I used a Tesla Supercharger at a busy site on Friday evening (all 8 stalls in use) and got charged 38p/kWh instead of 24p/kWh- Tesla now has variable rate pricing based on demand/business/time of day...

[Stinsy]

Stinsy.

How about BOSSES of big companies (with parking) that the fella with the 50 mile commute is doing puts some WORKPLACE CHARGERS in, a scheme running for multiple years in the past, present & future? often big companies are paying less for their electricity, this could be a "benefit" or low cost charge to hook into a trickle charge (less local system stress) & taken off weekly / monthly from pay? ..would reduce massively the need to pay public charger rates, RFID fob per employee to measure / charge accordingly.

Would you balk at work if you were charged 10-14p per unit? (type thing)

& screw the "no fair" aspect, folk in the countryside don't get reduced fuel costs for what are often trips to the town / city for employment, it is what it is & fast chargers are expensive bits of kit.

However, there "probably" a way that an EV, owner in the future could visit a charger at a reduced cost & have it at a discounted preferential partner rate there is nothing to stop that sort of thing ..akin to a tesco clubcard, so who's to say.

We "could" cry foul that the city of london has taken up the vast majority of installed / company investment, fast chargers this year out of a total of 5000 a vast qty are set for there, but that would be irrational.

Personally hope that the idiocy of massive SUV car size & alleged right to park on roads gets addressed, not popular but if you cannot park it on your property then bearing in mind all that alternate city transport that is utilised unless you have frontage, garage, driveway et al.

I too wondered how long the council had been sitting on "plans" for this charger with 2012 tech charger speed.

Hi Gus,

Where I live plenty of houses don’t have the possibility of home charging. Be they terraces, or ex-council semis built with parking some distance from the house, along with blocks of flats. If these people are to ditch ICE vehicles they need to be able to access reasonably priced electricity with which to charge their car.

This isn’t a problem for the wealthy with private driveways, who can access cheap-rate overnight charging for 5p, or peak rate / non-ToU power at 15p.

The solution can be free/reasonably-priced workplace or station carpark charging. But I don’t know of any such programs. However reasonably-priced fast-charging must be available if people other than the wealthy are to give up their ICE vehicles.

[dan_b]

I'm in SW London, in a mid-terrace, with no off-street parking at all. I have shared residents parking bays on-street. Fortunately Richmond Council has installed, and is continuing to install, Ubitricity lamp post chargers which basically solves the problem. They have put in a few Source London posts as well, but they're almost never in use because of their pay per minute tariff, whereas the Ubitricity solution allows you park as normal and charge at 5kW overnight at 24p/kWh.

[Mr Gus]

Stinsy.

Unicorn dreams.
Train station car parks, supermarket car parks & the like are atypically separate entities (ie control of ownership & charges "leased" ..so they will act as a company does, profitably.

In what world do you give away free car charging?

Roads are not for parking on, so part of the transition is to clear out the mindset of "right to park" ..like I say not popular.

Holland (as stated before) builds local area multi-storey car parks, people park there then walk to their homes to keep the streets clear(er) it's a [art solution to a big problem.

However, to cite an example of just how effed up this sort of thing is under idiot govt...
Papworth Hospital (now royal papworth) was forced to up sticks & move to Cambridge city centre, surrounded by houses, squeezing space further, it is all "PPI" ..a new car park (multi storey was built, filled up immediately with staff who already exist & don't have enough cost effective spaces (so expensive they park maybe up to 20 minutes walk away ..thanks NHS ..then they hand over the PPI car park to a mulltinational private company (possibly an offshore entity) who doesn't know its @rse from its elbow with regards to chargers, costs, duration et al.

Hell, Hand cart.
(Because without serious local govt intervention that is a step for change that can & will be utilised for profit with a drip feed back to council coffers) So someone has to take control of the madness clearing up historical streets & more "cramming" of homes in tight spaces.

However, cars need to shift off parking on roads & obscuring pavements, a local council limiting what size can park there would be a start to changing the SUV mindset which by height width poses a problem to get round already tight streets in terms of visibility & prone state of pedestrians , cyclists et al.

Part of the creep towards carbon cut down in cities must surely involve forcing people onto the well catered for london public transport network, I'm wondering what part TFL profits play in the future of E-mobility that aint cars (doubtless setting a legal precedent for the infinitely less well catered "rest of the country")

NB a car space on a crammed street with chargers for E-motorbikes & E-mopeds would also help considerably & require far less heavy draw AND leave parking space for other vehicles taking the future strain off the immediate area pretty considerably, but to date it is all CAR orientated.

I don't know if there is even an adopted standard for connectors for europe wide (& us) countries to ensure compatibility, but if you can change a connection from a 3 pin plug to a type two connector for around £70 then that's the way to up the game.

The city of Annecy (france) has a great big medieval centre yet have planned into it the most elegant of WIDE, well lit well spaced, safe feeling
underground multi storey car parks (very busy) nothing like the pee sodden monstrosities we have (thanks NCP)

(have you seen the new indian E-moped that does around 58mph)? ..how would a few of those change a tight street near you if there was uptake?

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/06/ca ... -revealed/ (yes, a tesla model S features twice on the list)

So, as a first step what if we started charging street permits based on length & width, & made it part of the "heads up" info of buying a vehicle as to what a council will potentially charge you annually for parking on the road? ...a lot less leased Range rovers & the like I bet. (I also dream unicorns)

[Mr Gus]

I'm in SW London, in a mid-terrace, with no off-street parking at all. I have shared residents parking bays on-street. Fortunately Richmond Council has installed, and is continuing to install, Ubitricity lamp post chargers which basically solves the problem. They have put in a few Source London posts as well, but they're almost never in use because of their pay per minute tariff, whereas the Ubitricity solution allows you park as normal and charge at 5kW overnight at 24p/kWh.

When will councils learn Fer Flips Sakes that reasonable costs win users!? (& also make walking a bit further to your car easier to handle)

[Mr Gus]

Yeah, wife had the peak time charge price in Thetford the other week (out in the sticks "technically" but a very busy hub for sure) & a video on youtube seemed to imply the same at a Cambridge tesla stalls site a few months ago.
It had to happen, ..& the rub is that opening up to non Tesla EV drivers for access increases that likelihood of inflated charging costs based on literal "traffic"

Still, more EV = Good