How to charge an electric vehicle (EV) is one of the biggest concerns people have when working out whether going electric is right for them. If you live in a flat, for instance, or don’t have off-street parking, gaining access to reliable charging can seem a bit tricky. But it may be easier than you think.
I made the move from town to country with my kids a couple of years ago, to a house with a driveway and a home charger. But before my rural life began, I lived in London, in a terrace house with no parking, and ran electric cars for five years using charge points in all sorts of locations. It worked out much cheaper than filling a car with petrol, and wasn’t half as stressful as I thought it would be. It will be even easier for you now.
First, download an app such as Zapmap, which gives you a comprehensive map of the UK’s public charging points (more than 55,000, and increasing by the day) – showing their locations, how powerful they are, and whether they’re working.
All this is vital info because, even if you have lamp-post charging on your street (accessed via your phone, and cheaper than most other forms of public charging), or public charging points nearby (in car parks at supermarkets, offices, hotels, leisure centres, restaurants, and more), you will need alternatives in case they are in use. So you need to get a good feel for where your nearest points are, and how fast they are.
A so-called “fast” charger actually takes up to eight hours to fully charge an EV, depending on the power output – ideal for charging at home or while at work. When out and about, though, you’ll need “rapid” chargers. These are much quicker: you can add 100 miles to your range in about 30 minutes (depending on your car, its battery size, and so on). Big motorway service station charging hubs often have “ultra-rapid” chargers, which can deliver 100 miles’ worth in about 10 minutes – but not all EV models can take power this quickly, and the cost of the charge will be more than petrol. We’ll take a closer look at longer journeys and motorway driving in next week’s column.
A growing number of home owners are renting out their charging points and driveways to other local EV drivers when they’re not using them – you can find a map of home owners who have signed up to the scheme at co-charger.com. And remember, if you live in a flat, or rent, you can get up to £350 off a charging point installation through the government’s Office for Zero Emission Vehicles chargepoint grant.
There are various innovative ideas in store for the future: for example, when your car is running out of juice, you’d just pull up to a battery-swap station from your car brand and sit in the car while a fully charged unit is swapped in. The Chinese EV brand Nio does this, but it isn’t available in the UK as yet.
For now, if charging access remains difficult for you, it’s still possible to go electric – in part. A plug-in hybrid EV combines a petrol engine with a smaller battery. Many hybrid cars are now good for 50 miles of electric running before you need to use the engine. So, if most of your driving is local, you might only need to find a charger once or twice a week, while you have the backup of a fuel engine for long journeys.
I hope this has charged you up!
Erin Baker is an experienced motoring journalist and campaigner, and the editorial director at Auto Trader, the UK’s largest automotive marketplace. Learn all about going electric with more real-world advice here
