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Another Ecotricity Rant

2K views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  nipri 
#1 ·
Not venturing out much or far since last March.

However, back in June 2020 I had reason to venture out to Northampton to see a customer. I took a route that meant I could stop at Cherwell Services on the M40. I did so twice over the period of a month. On both occasions the Charger unit that offered CCS charging was powered off and not functional.

I did call Ecotricity at the time and they said they were waiting for a component to repair it. Accepting this I had no reason to venture that way again. That is until today. Once again the CCS charger was powered down and not functional. I called Ecotricity and they confirmed it was faulty. I asked when they thought it would be repaired. The agent advised me that they did not have to tell me. I then asked when the unit had last been functional. Again the agent advised that they did not have to tell me.

I then called the MOTO Service Station Duty Manager to advise that the EV charger was not working and that I would not be stopping to spend money in their restaurant. The duty manager told me it was not their problem as they don't run the car park!

At this point I gave up and found a nearby Polar charger.
 
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#2 ·
The problem is that Electric Highway that runs the chargers is hemorrhaging cash, they loose over £1M a year and have debts of £7M , they are supported by the dozens of other Ecotricity companies that are making a lot of money. Their main asset is the service station concessions which I'm sure they would be glad to sell on if the price was right, that's unlikely, so there is little chance of improvement for motorway charging.
 
#3 ·
I've said this before but I believe that Ecotricity's motorway service station monopoly is one of the biggest impediments to EV adoption in the UK.
I think it's highly likely they've had many offers to share sites with the other charging networks with more funding resources but for some reason they don't want to share. Surely a shared site would provide more income than a single broken charger?
Yes I know there are a couple of showcase shared charging stations in the pipeline but it should be all of them.
One would almost suspect they have an agreement with Tesla to preserve Tesla as the only practical motorway charging network.
 
#4 ·
I have been running an electric car for 6 years and can confirm Ecotricity simply cannot be trusted to have a working charger and certainly not to help over the phone. I remember a journey to Bristol and back from surrey where we stopped at 5 chargers at different locations and none of them worked! Ended up charging in a car park. I recall they used to offer 24 hour phone support but they knocked this down to 9-5 operation several years ago, not a great loss as they used to be and still are hopeless.
Such a shame as motorway charging is key to adoption.
 
#5 ·
Interesting story / interview at electrifying.com with Transport Minister Rachel Maclean.

At least six high power chargers in every motorway service area by 2023
Larger sites will have up to 12 points providing speeds of up to 350kW
Service level agreements would ensure that the points were available for at least 99% of the time
 
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