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Deleted member 68495
Guest
I have just been reading an article on the Which? website with regard to the use of electric car charging points and if I was ever thinking about buying an electric car (I'm not) I would thinking again. If you do short journeys and you have a home charging point then I see little reason not to own an electric car but move away from that little niche and the world of car charging becomes something out of Escher's wildest imaginings.
According to the article, there are at least 60 different companies offering charge facilities and each one of them has an app that, for the most part, you have to use before you can charge your electric vehicle. There are a myriad of charging rates, speaking both electrically and financially, and you have to know how much charge your car can take and not use a charger that supplies more than that because you will be paying for a charge-rate you may not be able to use, plus depriving a car-owner whose car CAN use that charge rate for using that charge port. The rates are so high that an average diesel car is at least as cheap to run and often cheaper. There are different connectors depending on your car and a choice of AC or DC outlets and apparently, if it wasn't for the EU, there would be more connectors than there are.
It seems to me, from reading the article, that if you own anything other than a Tesla, which seems to be much more organised, you are setting yourself up for a world of pain if you go down the pure electric route. Things would have to get a lot more simple before I even considered buying an electric car and I'll not go into the rise in 'charge-rage' that seems to be cropping up more and more in the press and social media.
I think I'll wait for hydrogen fuel cells to make their mark and quietly run my 70+ mpg diesel until that time arrives.
According to the article, there are at least 60 different companies offering charge facilities and each one of them has an app that, for the most part, you have to use before you can charge your electric vehicle. There are a myriad of charging rates, speaking both electrically and financially, and you have to know how much charge your car can take and not use a charger that supplies more than that because you will be paying for a charge-rate you may not be able to use, plus depriving a car-owner whose car CAN use that charge rate for using that charge port. The rates are so high that an average diesel car is at least as cheap to run and often cheaper. There are different connectors depending on your car and a choice of AC or DC outlets and apparently, if it wasn't for the EU, there would be more connectors than there are.
It seems to me, from reading the article, that if you own anything other than a Tesla, which seems to be much more organised, you are setting yourself up for a world of pain if you go down the pure electric route. Things would have to get a lot more simple before I even considered buying an electric car and I'll not go into the rise in 'charge-rage' that seems to be cropping up more and more in the press and social media.
I think I'll wait for hydrogen fuel cells to make their mark and quietly run my 70+ mpg diesel until that time arrives.


