[Paul_Moxhay]

Has anyone tried to use this?

It is paid for by the government and operated by Pod Point. It seem to have almost no charge points on the database and to make matters worse, the map and search on the web site seems not to work.

I wonder just how many millions of public money is going to Pod Point to do this rubbish! It makes me very angry that so much is being wasted on government run EV projects.

http://www.nationalchargepointregistry.com/

 

[dpeilow]

Yes it's well out of date. Hardly any Polar ones on there either.

Pod Point really are a waste of space.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

I have just fired off the following letter to Pod Point. I have made it clear that it is an open letter and that their response will be publically posted:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have gone onto the the National Chargepoint Registry web site. Unfortunately the web site looks unfinished and is not working. Please can you tell me when you will have a working web site and search facility listing the nations installed charge points for use by drivers?

Where do you get your data? I did a search on Bristol and it has shown there to be just one 13A charge point! Exeter gives a blank screen as does Plymouth. Basically the search does not work.

As it is not working could I ask that you either take it offline or clearly mark it as not working until the data is loaded and the search is working. It is not fair on drivers who try to use the site. They will assume that if charge points are not on the NCR then they don't exist. There is no information on the NCR either.

As this is public funded I believe that it should be the most comprehensive online database of installed EV charging infrastructure in the country. As it stands it is probably one of the worst.

Regards

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

I have just sent the follow open letter to OLEV. I have never received any reply to any email I have sent to OLEV so we will see if they can be bothered to respond.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have tried to use the NCR today to search for charging stations when planning a trip from my home in Saltash, Cornwall to Preston.

Unfortunately I found the web site to be completely unusable and the data almost non-existent.

I see that that the NCR is operated by Pod Point. Can you please tell me just how much OLEV is funding Pod Point to manage the NCR?

What is the objectives of the NCR? Is it to create and maintain a comprehensive database of EV charging locations in the UK? If it is then when is it expected that the NCR will have sufficient data to be useful to drivers because until it is it is a total waste of time. Do you have other objectives with the NCR that are not driver focussed?

I am hugely concerned that public money is being spent on the NCR for little or no benefit to EV drivers and I would urge that OLEV reconsider the purpose behind the NCR and ask whether the current spending is actually delivering anything at all useful.

From where I am standing it looks to me like it just a gravy train for Pod Point!

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Today I had a reply from Pod-Point. Here it is:

Dear Paul,

Thank you for your email.

POD Point were contracted to deliver the NCR to a specification provided by the Office of Low Emission Vehicles.

The outcome of that project can be found here: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/national-cha ... t-registry

POD Point is not responsible for NCR content – content is provided by a variety of partners. The main scheme in the Bristol Region is provided by Source West – you may wish to contact them if you have questions on charge points in their area.

Beyond that, any questions regarding the NCR should be directed to the Office of Low Emission Vehicles.

The website at www.nationalchargepointregistry.com was a proof of concept site produced to demonstrate what the NCR could be used for. It is one of a range of sites which use the NCR as a data source. Thank you for alerting us to the search issue – we will take a look at that.

--
Regards,

Tolu Akinrele
POD Point Ltd.
t: 020 7247 4114
f: 0207 788 9631
w: www.pod-point.com
a: 4th Floor, Cityside House, 40 Adler Street, London, E1 1EE

This reply is interesting in many respects.

It suggests that Pod-Point do not currently manage the NCR, at least that is what I took from it. Then who does?

It also displays a huge degree of passing the buck over to OLEV. If Pod-Point are not managing the NCR now then why did they say they would look into the search issue.

They also suggest that the only input of data to the NCR in the Bristol area is Source West. If that is the case then it is not surprising that there are no charge points listed!

I think this demonstrates the degree to which the NCR, OLEV, Pod-Point and many other companies that are raking in the public money are not actually delivering any value to the EV driver. If the NCR cannot be used then why is it there?