Why the empty public charge points?

You don’t have to walk far around any city to start spotting pavement cable hazards, here’s one I spotted when out for a run this morning, not even an attempt to reduce the trip hazard with a cable cover!

Just another 33 hours to go before the charge is complete….

At the same time you might notice that a lot of public charge points are….empty.

These chargers in Waltham Forest cost 48p/KWH + £1.50 fee. Cars are very rarely spotted using them..

Why? Most EV owners have quickly realised that public charge points are monumentally expensive compared to charging at home (8.7p/KWH for an overnight tariff, vs. a minimum 38p/KWH for the lowest priced public chargers, and they go as high as 80p/KWH).

So it’s not surprising people are opting to charge at home. Unfortunately many Councils are not taking the problem seriously, probably because the number of EV owners is still very small and the threat posed by trailing cables is not very visible yet.

This will all change when (sadly) the first high profile personal injury claim is made. It will be interesting to see if the local authority in question will take some liability for not providing a safe home charging solution.