Electric Cars and On-street Charging
The link between ownership of electric cars in the UK and the provision of charging facilities is explored in the following articles.
This
is Money, 23 February 2017, reported that the Office for Low Emission
Vehicles (OLEV) made £1 million available to fund installations
during the current financial year and an additional £1.5 million for
2017/18.
Residents
who want one of the twin charge points added on their street need to
ask their local authority to take up their case, funding then being
allocated on a first-come first-served basis. See:
A
BBC
news article on charging EVs (February
2018)
opened
with the question “What if you live in a flat?”
The
option of
asking
the local authority to install a street charging
point is
described, OLEV
having
set aside £4.5m to support such applications over the next two
years, and offering
to
pay up to 75% of the costs of installation, to a maximum of £7,500.
However, only five local authorities were
said to have
applied for money from the scheme: they are Portsmouth, Kensington
and Chelsea, Cambridge, Luton and Kettering.
Six
councils in London - Richmond, Hounslow, Westminster, Wandsworth,
Hackney and Kensington and Chelsea - have been trialling charge
points installed in lamp posts next to parking bays. These may
be slower than dedicated
charge points, but they are cheaper to install, and do not require
additional street furniture. Government
subsidies have
encouraged
some
employers
to
install
charge points at work. See:
Details
of the goverment’s On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme are
available at:
In
May 2018 Urban Electric Networks Ltd reported a £600,000 trial of
its telescopic pop-up street charging device, the UEone, with Oxford
City Council. Details at:
A
Guardian article dated 9 July 2018 reported government plans “to
install hundreds of thousands of additional charging points for
electric vehicles”. It mentions a study for the RAC Foundation
which found that growth in electric car use could be stalled by
limitations in the public charging network, and AA research showing
that eight out of 10 drivers see the lack of charging points as a
stumbling block to them buying an electric vehicle.
BBC
news 30 Nov 2018:
Tesco,
in partnership with Volkswagen, plans to install almost 2,500
charging bays at up to 600 stores by 2020. A standard 7kW charger
will be available for free, but drivers will have to pay for a faster
service. See:
The
Energy Saving Trust has a web page with further information on the
On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme. See:
An
article by electric vehicle charging point provider Pod Point dated
November 12, 2018 is headed:
“No
Driveway? You Can Still Have an Electric Car”
Options
for charging cars such as workplace, on-street, rapid hubs, retail
and commercial car parks are discussed at:
Another
charging point provider, Rolec EV, describes products designed for
on-street locations, such as marketplaces, railway stations, sports
venues, restaurants, and shopping parks. See:
Go
Ultra Low offers a home charging calculator:
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