A Solution To The EV Charge Point Crisis?

The number of chargers is always going to be a limiting factor — let’s solve it.

Photo by Zaptec on Unsplash

In a previous article I decried the diversity of the charging infrastructure, particularly in the UK, with many different companies all vying for space in a growing market.

And, although (thankfully) the hardware connector side of things looks like it’s finally coalescing into something workable the software side of things still leaves a great deal to be desired.

A plethora of different companies, and networks, most with their own propriety apps (all looking for user lock-in via promotions, subscriptions, and discounts) is enough to put off all but the most stalwart EV enthusiast.

The solution here, as I mentioned, is standardisation — a standard charger design, the removal of aggressive unnecessarily competing networking, and a simple ‘tap and go’ approach perhaps with existing contactless payment.

However, the actual number of charges along with grid capacity to serve them all will still remain an issue — perhaps for a very long time and, as a result, stifle the industry before it becomes mainstream.

Home Is Where The Charger Is

If you’re an EV owner the best place to have a charger is, of course, at home.

It’s cheaper as you can available of better electricity rates than those offered from frankly extortionate public chargers, it’s convenient as you can leave your EV plugged in without a queue of irate fellow EV motorists glaring at you from the car park, and it’s, simply, yours.

Surely the best solution, therefore, is to allow people who own chargers to offer them the ability to make them available as public chargers.

Any EV owner with suitable space, a double drive for instance or off road parking, should be able to list their charger on charger networks and set their own pricing.

Immediately the number of chargers would vastly increase and home owners, through setting pricing, can offset some of their own exponentially increasing energy costs in 2022 and still offer cheaper charging rates that existing ‘mass market’ public charging points that already exist.