In late August 2022, as rising electricity and petrol prices potentially affected the calculation as to whether EVs or ICE vehicles were cheaper to run, JIT wrote ICE vs EV – the Rematch. In the intervening five months, gas prices have fallen to about one-third of their August 2022 levels, and Brent crude oil prices have fallen by about 10-15%, while electricity prices in the UK remain high. We can debate the factors behind high electricity prices until the cows come home (the war in Ukraine? High gas prices? Renewable subsidies and disruption of the National Grid?), but electric vehicles are looking to be less of an attractive proposition all the time. And, as JIT pointed out, this is despite the huge taxes and duties borne by ICE vehicle users, taxes and duties that EV owners by and large avoid.

Reality is starting to hit Councils, which have been very keen on pushing the net zero agenda, regardless of depleted budgets and cuts to other services. Today, the BBC website brings us news that Highland Council in Scotland is proposing “more than doubling the price of using most of its electric vehicle charging points due to increased costs of running its network.” This is because “Electricity supply costs were about £50,000 in 2020 and in excess of £130,000 now.”

Mind you, although cost is very important, probably the main worry for many EV users remains range anxiety, and in a county like Highland, that anxiety must be very real indeed. Highland “council area covers…25,657 square kilometres (9,906 square miles) – which is 11.4% of the land area of Great Britain, 32.9% of the land area of Scotland and an area 20% larger than Wales” (thank you Wikipedia).

Returning to the BBC article, we learn that there are just 85 EV chargers in the entire council area, or less than one per 100 square miles. Worse than that, only “49 are classed as journey chargers offering 43kW and above and 36 are destination chargers of 22kW and below.”

We learn further that:

The cost at its fastest charging points could increase from 30p per kWh to 70p.

Highland said its electricity supply costs had risen 160% since 2020 due to higher energy costs and the installation of more chargers.

It has proposed raising the tariff of its slower destination charging from 20p per kWh to 35p.

Despite these huge proposed price hikes, the Council is reported as believing that motorists won’t be deterred from using the charge points or from switching to EVs, because “it would still be cheaper to use a Highland Council EV charger than a domestic charge point.” If true, this reflects a significant hike in electricity costs in just five months, since in late August 2022 JIT provided us with figures hot off the press (or hot off Ofgem’s website) to the effect that the price cap rate was then 28p per kWh.

In any event, finding a charger might be the first challenge for motorists. I visited the section of the Highland Council website devoted to electric vehicle infrastructure to discover where the charging points are, but my search was unsuccessful. I was told:

ChargePlace Scotland is Scotland’s national EV charging network. It is owned and developed by the Scottish Government and funded in partnership through a public grant from Local Authorities and other organisations.

Just below this information is a button which invites users to “view the map of charge points”. I clicked on it, only to be met with a 404 error message telling me “Sorry, the page you are looking for could not be found” (and so the charging points can’t be found either). That said, even if you can find one, you have to keep your fingers crossed that it actually works. Less than three months ago the BBC ran with a story headed “One in four Scottish EV charging points faulty”. Life for a Scottish EV user without their own charging point was summed up for us in a few short paragraphs:

Laura, who campaigns as Less Waste Laura, lives in a second floor flat in Dundee, with no driveway, so she is entirely reliant on public charging.

“There’s a lot that are broken,” she said.

“And so it’s a bit more of a faff, and a bit more of an inconvenience, and I find it really difficult to charge easily. And it’s become a bit more of a disruptor for my life.”

“At the beginning, when I was driving along the street, you would see another electric car and think, ‘oh hello, how exciting, another electric car.’ And now I’m like, ‘oh my goodness, they’re my competitor’.”

At least Laura lives in Dundee, though I don’t know what she pays to charge her electric vehicle (assuming she is able to do so). Today’s BBC article concludes sombrely by telling us that Western Isles and East Lothian Councils are also proposing similar tariff increases.

I’ll stick with my diesel car for now, thanks.

28 Comments

  2. And cold weather dramatcally degrades the performance of batteries, as my son recently learned.

    Like

  3. If you go to zap-map you can see the locations of chargers around the UK. In Highland, the pink ones seem to be ChargePlace Scotland. Some people seem to put their home chargers on the map? Some may be private or semi-private. You can also read reviews (under “chat”) to hear what the punters have made of the chargers.

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  4. Thanks Jit,

    That was fun. The first one I clicked on said “out of sync – check with provider”. The second one said “possible issues”. I gave up after that!

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  5. Hunterson7; cold also reduces the charging rate. This can be quite dramatic for cars without sophisticated battery management which controls the battery temperature to optimise charging.

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  6. So now Ford have followed Tesla’s lead in cutting the price of their Mach-e.
    Like Tesla, they seem to have done this with no warning so folk who just took delivery will be a bit miffed. This will also mess up residual values which will displease the lease companies.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. “EV: Wales’ electric vehicle charging strategy embarrassing – report”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65069542

    Progress towards getting more electric vehicles on the road in Wales has been described as “embarrassing”.

    A cross-party Senedd committee looked at the Welsh government’s plan to develop a network of charging points.

    The chairman of the committee, Plaid Cymru MS Llyr Gruffydd, said its strategy had been beset by “broken promises and inadequate progress”…

    …Fewer than half of the Welsh government’s main commitments had been delivered on time, while work on some of the others had only just begun, many months after the deadline, a report by the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee found.

    It said the lack of progress calls into question the Welsh government’s ability to deliver, especially in rural areas where the lack of electricity grid capacity is a significant issue….

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  11. “Warning ‘no go zones’ for electric car chargers due to power shortage
    The warning comes as a total of 8,800 chargers are needed across the wider Glasgow region by 2026 to meet predicted demand.”

    https://news.stv.tv/west-central/warning-of-glasgow-no-go-zones-for-electric-car-chargers-due-to-power-shortage

    Some Glasgow locations could be ‘no go zones’ for potential electric car chargers as there may not be enough power to cope in every area, a meeting has heard.

    Petrol stations are among places people could see new chargers being installed as a huge push for more infrastructure kicks off.

    A total of 8,800 chargers are needed across the wider Glasgow region by 2026 to meet predicted demand.

    It comes as the sale of new petrol or diesel cars is to be banned in the UK by 2030.

    Presenting details of a charging infrastructure study, Mairi Joyce, of consultancy Mott MacDonald, told Glasgow’s City Region Cabinet: “Within Glasgow city region there is going to be a significant requirement for an increase in electric vehicle charging infrastructure.”

    Reporting on feedback from Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) Ms Joyce said: “Generally there is sufficient capacity in terms of overall power but there may be localised issues with particular areas.”

    Speaking at the meeting earlier today, she added how there would be initial assessments taking place of where there might “be potential constraints as a result of the electricity network.”

    She said Scottish Power will engage on an ongoing basis to understand what locations may be “problematic” and work with local authorities to try and alleviate any concerns…

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  12. They’re going to install electric chargers in petrol stations? Maybe they’ll position them so that the long queues inconvenience planet destroying petrolheads trying to fill up their tanks at the pumps. What could possibly go wrong?

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  13. “Hundreds more rapid charging points installed in UK to help drivers go electric
    Fast charging stations that allow for longer journeys are being added in regions beyond London”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/28/hundreds-of-high-speed-electric-car-chargers-installed-across-uk

    Charging companies are plugging the gaps in the UK’s high-speed charger network, with hundreds added this year outside London in a shift that will help end the “range anxiety” that holds back some would-be electric car buyers.

    The capital and the south-east still have far more chargers of all speeds – ranging from slow to rapid and ultra-rapid – than the rest of the country. But the presence of high-speed chargers, generally used for quick recharging on longer journeys, is increasing in other regions as electric car sales surge….

    Surge? Really? No evidencing link supplied, I note. Meanwhile:

    …Willson said there were “blockages in the system” preventing a faster rollout of chargers, including electricity grid connections, which are lagging far behind demand.

    London still far outstrips the rest of the country in terms of the total number of public chargers. That is partly because a higher proportion of households in London do not have private parking, but it also reflects the fact that the more affluent London market is more attractive to charge point operators.

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  14. I don’t know what’s worse – the incompetence of the SNP/Green Government in Scotland, or the Tories demanding that they up their game with regard to the EV policy:

    “Scottish Government could miss electric car-charging target by 12 years – Tories
    The Scottish Conservatives said ministers needed to ‘urgently up their game’.”

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/scottish-tories-scots-scottish-government-government-scottish-b2417393.html

    “Progress is going at a snail’s pace and that is all too typical of the SNP/Green Government’s woeful record on environmental targets” [said] Douglas Lumsden, Scottish Conservatives

    Based on these figures, the Tories have suggested it could take until 2042 – 12 years after the deadline – for ministers to reach 30,000.

    Douglas Lumsden, the party’s energy and transport spokesman, said: “These eye-opening statistics lay bare the fact that this SNP/Green Government are miles off delivering electric charging points needed to meet demand across Scotland.

    “It is simply pitiful that fewer than 200 charging points were added to the network over a spell of 10 months. Progress is going at a snail’s pace and that is all too typical of the SNP/Green Government’s woeful record on environmental targets.

    “They have failed to meet their emission reduction targets in eight out of the last 12 years and only this week they have had to admit they’ve breached climate laws…”.

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  15. “Electric vehicles: Lack of NI car chargers blamed on grid connection costs”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66912887

    An electric motoring group says grid connection costs are to blame for the state of Northern Ireland’s poor charging infrastructure….

    …The Department for the Economy said a change to the connection costs could lead to increased electricity bills….

    …Northern Ireland’s public charging infrastructure is lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom, with 23 chargers available per 100,000 people.

    UK-wide figures show there is an average of 66 chargers per 100,000 people.

    There are 12.6 rapid chargers available per 100,000 people across the whole of the UK.

    However, in Northern Ireland there are just three rapid chargers per 100,000 people….

    There are so many places I could have posted this – articles on Infrastructure and the dodgy Energy Bill, most obviously. At what point will the establishment wake up and smell the coffee? (Sunak may just have stirred slightly in his sleep last week).

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  16. “£1bn fund to expand EV charging network still not open after three years
    Rishi Sunak unveiled funding pot for expanding charging facilities at motorway services in 2020 but it is not yet accepting bids”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/24/1bn-fund-to-expand-ev-charging-network-still-not-open-after-three-years

    Almost £1bn meant to help build Britain’s electric vehicle charging network remains unallocated more than three years after it was first announced by Rishi Sunak.

    Promised in March 2020 before the first Covid lockdown in Sunak’s early weeks as Boris Johnson’s chancellor, the “rapid charging fund” was meant to support electrical capacity at motorway service stations. It was intended to help fund upgrades to the grid so that more electric cars can be rapidly charged at the same time.

    The fund is still not yet open for applications. A pilot scheme had been planned for late 2022 before it was pushed back to spring 2023, then the summer of this year.

    The government indicated last week there would be further delays after the transport minister, Jesse Norman, admitted to the House of Commons it was still “in the process of developing a pilot … which will open in due course”. Sunak had already been criticised for rowing back on net zero policies.

    Industry sources said the pilot may not launch before Christmas, and warned the latest setback risks delaying the rest of the fund until after a general election, which is expected next year.

    “It’s very disappointing that the rapid charging fund is still not open for business,” said Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, a motoring group. He warned the government was also on track to break a pledge to have six high-powered chargers at every motorway service area in England by the end of 2023….

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  17. “Power vacuum: road to fast charging at UK services has been ‘laboriously slow’
    Motorway services provider Moto tells of serious concern about government’s management of the problem”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/30/power-vacuum-road-to-fast-charging-at-uk-services-has-been-laboriously-slow

    …The need for fast charging will soon be the key reason for visits to motorway services, says Ken McMeikan, chief executive of Moto, which operates them.

    There is a problem: many of the sites lack the power needed for ultra-rapid charging. That could hold back the transition to electric cars as more and more drivers are forced to wait longer to recharge on longer journeys.

    Trowell services, outside Nottingham, a busy stop on the M1 from Leeds, illustrates the challenge. Moto says the services will not gain access to the high power needed for fast charging for at least the next four or five years, and potentially longer.

    The government has long known that there is a problem. In March 2020, Rishi Sunak, then chancellor, announced the £950m rapid charging fund to help to connect services to the grid. Three and a half years later, the government has not spent a penny, with competition concerns thought to be a key factor….

    …Some of Moto’s services have already been upgraded. At Exeter, on the south-west holiday route, Moto has 50 ultra-rapid chargers, using the power equivalent of a third of the city’s homes. Yet the costs of connecting others are prohibitive. One unnamed site would require £24m for just the power connection. Compare that with the £40m total investment made in Rugby (the UK’s most popular services, according to one poll, with 40 ultra-rapid chargers now installed), or Moto’s £38m in annual profits (on turnover of £1.1bn in 2022). McMeikan says the connection cost needs to be “hundreds of thousands of pounds, not millions” to make it viable.

    The data company Zapmap said there are 136 motorway service locations which have charging points, with 912 open access devices with power ratings above 50 kilowatts (kW). However, many of those will fall short of the “ultra-rapid” level of 150kW or more. The government had previously said it wanted six ultra-rapid chargers at every motorway services by the end of this year.

    Melanie Shufflebotham, chief operating officer at ZapMap, said: “Whilst it is clear that the target of having six or more high-powered 150kW+ devices at all motorway service stations will not be achieved by the end of 2023, there has been significant progress and we should see the rollout speed up as the money in the rapid charging fund is unlocked. Having multiple, highly visible charging provision on the motorways is very important for EV drivers.”…

    …That still leaves many motorway journeys waiting for the most convenient ultra-rapid chargers – including some where chargers are installed but still waiting for a connection. And every day more and more electric cars will fill UK roads. By 2030, each Moto site will need 40 to 50 chargers, and Moto’s car charging over a year will need the equivalent of a quarter of an average nuclear power station’s output….

    If, as seems likely, the Labour Party forms the next Government, either alone or in coalition with others who share their views on energy policy, the 2030 mandate for EVs is likely to be reinstated with a great fanfare. Then, when reality dawns, I expect it to be quietly dropped.

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  18. “Britain is still charging towards electric car chaos
    The narrow window of time provided by Sunak’s net zero pushback is being squandered”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/07/britain-still-charging-towards-electric-car-chaos/

    Worth a read in its own right, but relevant her because of this:

    …One look at this country’s woefully inadequate electric vehicle infrastructure and it’s plain to see why demand [for EVs] is faltering: we simply don’t possess anything like the charging grid required to support a real mass conversion away from petrol and diesel.

    So, it can hardly come as a surprise if the vast majority of folk continue to shun electric cars. As the SMMT also notes: uptake of electric vehicles is “greatly influenced by perceptions of infrastructure availability and accessibility”, and the UK continues to fall desperately short on both counts.

    The numbers remain woeful. Yes, 4,753 new standard charge points came online between July and September. It was the largest-ever quarterly delivery and a significant improvement on the same period last year when one new charger for every 38 new plug-in cars was installed. Yet, at one for every 26 this time around, there remains a huge shortfall.

    Meanwhile, a regional divide that has left Westminster with more chargers than Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham combined, looks like it is getting worse, not better.

    Installation was skewed again. London and the South East received four out of five new charge points commissioned despite the region accounting for fewer than two in five new plug-in registrations. Yorkshire and Humberside received just 13 new chargers, while the North actually had 105 chargers taken out of service.

    The figures continue to make a mockery of Whitehall targets. The Department for Transport has said that it wants 300,000 public chargers in operation by 2030. Yet at the current rate, it will be another 25 years before that figure is hit.

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  19. “Inside Britain’s biggest EV hub…where electric car drivers say charging is a nightmare and costs MORE than fuel
    The site at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre has 180 charging points
    However, drivers claim that using it is expensive and paying proves difficult”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/electriccars/article-12786623/britains-biggest-ev-hub-nightmare-paying-expensive-home.html

    Britain’s enormous new super hub for charging electric vehicles (EVs) has a major shock in store for eco-punters – it’s more expensive than fuel.

    Drivers claim that using the nation’s largest ‘Gigahub’ is much more costly than charging at home and paying can be a nightmare.

    The site at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) has 180 charging points operated by BP Pulse UK, a subsidiary of the oil giant.

    At any given time most of them are standing idle, but increasing numbers of motorists are finding their way to the hub that was proudly opened by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt earlier this year.

    Sitting next to a Starbucks Drive Thru on a car park at the NEC, a two-minute detour off the M42, the hub leaves some drivers grappling with its system and struggling to pay….

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  20. Thanks Mark – what an eyesore that is. At least it was already a car park before they turned it into a charging hub. I note from the article that there are 30 superduper 300 kW chargers and 150 rated at 7 kW. The ones that are 40X faster than the majority are obviously not for the plebs, who it should be noted can achieve 7 kW at home with an extension lead run out of the front window.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. I notice that the overnight charging rate for EVs at home is as low as 7p per kWh. I don’t think you can get that rate on standard Economy 7 tariffs. This almost certainly means that non EV customers and those EV owners who do not have the luxury of being able to charge their vehicle overnight at home are subsidising those who do, i.e. another tax imposed on those who don’t go ‘Green’.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Jit: the low-speed chargers would work well for anyone attending an event at NEC for the day as that would be long enough to put in a good charge. I would expect them to be lower-priced than the 300kW ones too, although the article doesn’t mention that.
    7 kW on an extension lead would be pushing it as that’s about 30 amps!

    Jaime J: those low overnight rates are usually part of a tariff where the customer pays a higher rate for daytime/peak hour consumption. It seems unlikely that the suppliers like Octopus would cross-subsidise EVs by overcharging their regular customers. More likely, aiui, is that they have access to very cheap off-peak power, especially when it’s windy.
    Lots of detail discussion here, if anyone’s interested:
    https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=247&t=2038907

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  23. Mike, that may be the case, but as I say, I think you will find that this ‘very cheap off-peak power’ is being provided to EV customers at a rate preferential to non EV customers, given that standard off peak economy 7 tariffs appear to be higher. The EV tariff is also separate from the domestic tariff I believe, so even if daytime charging rates are sky high, if the customer has the luxury of almost always charging their car overnight, then they are quids in.

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  24. Jaime; true some tariffs are for EV users but some are open to anyone. The key is whether, without an EV to charge, a customer has enough off-peak consumption to make the numbers work.
    Afaik there’s no separation of tariffs. However all of these tariffs only work with a smart meter.
    There are lots of these tariffs available from OVO, Octopus, EdF, et al: why would they cross-subsidise EV customers?

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  25. “Hull to get 20 new electric vehicle charging points”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-67626576

    Hull City Council plans to invest £150,000 in 20 new electric vehicle charging points, the council confirmed.

    This includes the council’s first 50kW rapid charger which will be able to power up most cars in about an hour….

    One hour, a rapid charge, eh? I filled up my diesel in less than 5 minutes earlier today.

    A spokesperson said: “This will help tackle climate change and meet Hull’s target to become net zero by 2045.”

    No it won’t. It will make absolutely no difference to climate change whatsoever. I think that might be what’s called misinformation.

    There are only two comments so far on that BBC story (yes, it’s generated so much excitement). This is the first:

    They really don’t have a clue. So they’ll be installing the first 50kW rapid charger which will be able to power up most cars in about an hour. And whilst one car sits there getting nicely charged up so quickly, many others will scurrying around trying to find one with lesser capability that could take two hours or more. Or they could go to a petrol station & get filled up in around 3 minutes.

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  26. “Motorway electric car charge point target missed, says RAC”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67858961

    A target for the number of high-powered electric vehicle charge points near motorways has been missed, analysis from the RAC shows.

    The government wanted every motorway service station in England to have at least six rapid or ultra-rapid chargers by the end of 2023.

    Data from the motoring organisation suggests that only four in 10 now meet this criteria….

    …Rapid or ultra-rapid devices are seen as important for making longer journeys, to ensure people are confident they will have sufficient charge for the trip and that it will delivered quickly enough if they pull over to top up.

    In December, the RAC, a breakdown cover and insurance provider, looked at data from charger locator business Zapmap.

    It found that 178 additional faster chargers had been installed since April.

    However, only 46 of 119 sites now had six of these high-powered charging facilities in place. Rapid charge points can add about 100 miles of range to an electric vehicle (EV) in around 35 minutes.

    Leicester Forest on the M1, Tebay South on the M6, and Barton Park on the A1 (M), had no charging facilities of any kind.

    A government funding scheme aimed at boosting the number of ultra-rapid chargers was announced in November…

    …Jonathan Goodman, UK head of Swedish EV firm Polestar, told the BBC’s Today programme that the charging infrastructure was a “critical part” of getting more people to consider an electric car.

    He suggested that the planning system “needs to be simplified” to accelerate the construction of new charging centres as more drivers take up electric vehicles….

    Like

  27. A determined effort by the BBC to look for solutions to the charging problem:

    “Where will all the electric cars be charged?”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67518869

    However, ultimately, they still have to admit:

    …mobile charging robots aren’t necessarily commercially viable yet.

    Another concern with mobile chargers is safety. “Moving these batteries could be a hazard,” Prof Cipcigan notes….

    …None of these solutions alone will be sufficient to meet growing demand. There aren’t enough lampposts and bollards. Mobile robotic charging may remain niche. And pavement-embedded chargers won’t be suitable in places where the pavements are often sparse or dilapidated, like Los Angeles….

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  28. “UK installs record number of public electric vehicle chargers

    About 6,000 have been installed this year, a quarter of them rapid chargers that can power up a car in under an hour”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/05/uk-installs-record-number-of-public-electric-vehicle-chargers

    My scepticism is undaunted. 6,000 is a drop in the ocean, especially given this:

    Nearly 6,000 new chargers were installed during the first three months of 2024, according to quarterly figures from data company Zapmap published by the Department for Transport. About 1,500 of those were rapid chargers, capable of charging a car in less than an hour.

    Imagine the queues while people wait for an up to an hour for a “rapid”[sic] charger (and presumably for hours for the other 75% of chargers). This remains a fringe activity unless and until they can come close to matching my diesel car, where I can fill put a petrol station in less than 5 minutes, then travel for 6-700 miles before I have to fill up again. The there remains the issue of cost (public chargers are of course much more expensive than private chargers; and electric cars are much more expensive than ICEs):

    The best served region has always been London, which has 221 chargers per 100,000 people, as companies chase a wealthier population more likely to own an electric car. Many wealthy neighbourhoods in the capital do not have off-street parking, meaning EV buyers are reliant on public charging.

    Liked by 1 person

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