[Julian Thomas]

What if you arrive at the hotel at 11pm and your charge finishes at 3am?

 

[Julian Thomas]

I have answered all day, but the question is asked in a way that can't be accurately answered.

The poll is posed in a fairly emotive way, which doesn't help with getting useful responses. "Blocking" is an emotive word.

 

[Julian Thomas]

Yep. Moved it. Set an alarm.

Then whilst I applaud your bizarrely humanitarian approach, I think you are in a tiny minority. As @Paul said in a previous post, we are trying to make EV motoring easy, convenient, cheap, and appealing to ICE drivers. Setting a 3am alarm when you're staying overnight in a hotel (e.g. for a meeting the following day) is not going to encourage people to adopt EVs, and I genuinely don't believe that those installing the slow chargers in these locations really expect people to do this.

 

[Julian Thomas]

... The alternative is that we won't bother plugging in, and will just do more petrol miles. I'm really not fussed about that - it just doesn't feel like progress.

 

[Julian Thomas]

You can pay a third of that if you charge at home overnight - a pretty good reason to me.

But that isn't the choice. The choice is petrol or public charging.

 

[Julian Thomas]

Only if you have such a small battery. I'm starting to think you just bought the wrong car...

Lol not at all. The journey may be 50 miles, 200 miles, 500 miles... I have the choice to refuel with petrol or electricity, I'll choose whichever's cheapest.

 

[Julian Thomas]

Yeah, it's an emotive subject. Not sure how else you describe it.

I just think if you'd asked it in a more neutral way, you'd have got more accurate answers. Using the word "block" will influence the way people answer (but not the way they actually behave).

 

[Julian Thomas]

I'd park up at Stanmore tube station, about 2.5 hours drive, don't particularly want to stop on the way, and it's only 155 miles. Charge at Stanmore for 8 hours or whatever and when I get back to the car I can get back home without stopping to refuel.

It's all about convenience (I'm lazy )

This is pretty much what I was talking about a couple of weeks ago we drove to Stanmore, where there were about 10 EV spaces (all ICEd unfortunately). They're obviously not designed for people to stand next to their car for 4 hours until it's finished charging, they're designed knowing that people will plug in, jump on the train, and come back when they have finished shopping/working/theatre, etc. that may be 2 hours or more after the car has finished charging.

 

[Julian Thomas]

Which all feels like a really good reason to charge by kWh? People pay for what they use?

 

[Julian Thomas]

I'm having a hard time getting my head around the same people that tell me Tesla are going to release a cheap car with a mega-watt-hour battery (or whatever it is), but that electricity should be free for them to top it up whenever they park.

Tesla are offering their EV owners free electricity for life, I thought? Albeit from super chargers rather than slow/fast chargers. Again, not relevant to the question about "blocking" non-rapids.

I wish you had phrased the original question in a more neutral fashion, along the lines of "how soon do you return to your vehicle on a non-rapid charger?" And offered multiple responses such as "I wait by it", "I set a timer to remind me to go back straight away", "I finish what I'm doing and return later that day", "I would leave it charging overnight whilst asleep in a hotel", etc... I think you'd have got far more useful (and accurate) responses then...

 

[Julian Thomas]

(or somewhere less polite).

Baroness Kramer's arse?

*awaits bollocking*

 

[Julian Thomas]

There could be a car park at the end of my street with free chargers and I wouldn't use them, because I want my car on my driveway, not the end of the street.

Absolutely agree with you. I'm in the incredibly fortunate position of being a fleet driver, so I have a fuel card and reimbursement of electricity on street / at home. But I'm still price sensitive - if a petrol mile is cheaper than an electric one, I need to use petrol. In the same way that I need to avoid motorway services' petrol if practicable.