Tesco free charging.with VW and useful tip with granny charger

[monkeyhanger]

Agreed, public charging is the challenge with so many people not having off street parking or work charging options.
Our local council recently ran a survey of ev owners to see what interest there might be in having charge points in their car parks. The objective was to see if destination charging would encourage visitors. I tried to point out that it was the visitors they needed to survey, not residents, and that a better question might have been " might you consider buying an ev if local public charging existed?".
Their reply showed my two penn'orth had fallen on deaf ears.

How would the council get in contact with visitors or potential visitors? A nationwide survey? It's a tricky one to fulfill. Local residents paying a visit to the town centre isn't a bad place to start. Maybe also signage at said car parks to encourage users to participate in an online survey You'd?

You'd expect in a place like Oxford, which seems to despise cars, the local councils would be doing all they can to encourage EV ownership like putting in an abundance of chargers.

[Warminster id]

‘ You'd expect in a place like Oxford, which seems to despise cars, the local councils would be doing all they can to encourage EV ownership like putting in an abundance of chargers.’
Same as Bath. It’s a terrible place to Park with very few chargers (apart from the uni). And claims to be a green town

[Utumno]

You'd expect in a place like Oxford, which seems to despise cars, the local councils would be doing all they can to encourage EV ownership like putting in an abundance of chargers.

I don't think you understand the depths to which Oxford loathes private cars generally. They won't be encouraging EV uptake in any meaningful form because it's private vehicles they're against.

[van]

Well, to be fair, which I sometimes am, we are a largely rural council area so they may have been trying to assess if "local" ev owners could be persuaded to do more "local" shopping if there were destination chargers available. And there is a dearth of chargers of any kind near me when I look on ZapApp. Apart from two PodPoints at the Tesco store 6 miles away we're pretty much in charger desert, certainly no "popping out" to charge up overnight from a nearby one.

[bitmanEV]

I personally don't see any issue of using the Tesco chargers as long your still around and move on as soon as some one else wants to 'free load" (as called here)

I'm from the time that the Ecotricity chargers were still free so I shouldn't use them too? Nonsense everywhere I park / go I look around to plug in paid or free it's my choice and I don't force any shop to have them for free but if they are I'm using them

In France I used the Rapid chargers at Auchan Supermarket and they were free same goes for using the chargers at the Nissan dealers if possible and most dealers you even get a free cuppa

[tomstring]

I don’t have my ID.3 yet but there’s a Tesco Extra at the end of my road and the free charging points are often all occupied by small DPD vans which I think is a little unfair

[Deleted User 192]

I don’t have my ID.3 yet but there’s a Tesco Extra at the end of my road and the free charging points are often all occupied by small DPD vans which I think is a little unfair

No different from others treating them as if they own them…

[Daveion]

I dont get that view that if you use something that is free, without payment or cost to the user, that you are treating them like you own them.
Own them as in use them any time you want?
Eject others so you can get your charge?
Being mean and avoiding cost of charging?
In my mind when I take a free Tesco charge is:
Tesco chose to make the chargers free.
Wind blows turbine generating electricity.
Car gets charged thanks to infrastructure.
In return I'm a loyal customer of Tesco.
I don't see any negatives in that even if they are used by people who never spend a penny with Tesco. Its all green and good.

[korky]

I'm still waiting on delivery of my id3 but won't have an issue using tesco free charging if it's going to be parked anywhere near one anyway for a period of time, when i test drove 1 last month i did my shopping there one day and the next day i parked up again but just went for something to eat in a pub nearby
i'd guess that part of the reasoning tesco installed these was to entice shoppers with an EV into their stores as oppose those who may shop at others,
i'm not sure of the T&C's using them either, but for a major company like DPD to park up seems a tad cheeky unless, the guy was genuinely on his way home to do his shop, they seem to be located in the prime parking spots too

[Leccy]

Logic suggests that if Tesco (and others) see a business benefit from providing free to use chargers they’ll continue and hopefully expand it, but if they don’t, they won’t, which wouldn’t be good for EV drivers overall. That said, maybe the percentage of free-loading is below a threshold or maybe they’re doing it for to brand credentials and don’t care who uses them. Personally, my instinct would be to go easy on taking advantage where there’s not a win-win, but encourage it by using free chargers where there is.

[monkeyhanger]

The amount of these free chargers around right now is a drop in the ocean compared to what's needed when EV ownership picks up and those without home charging options start buying because they have to.

Personally, as someone with home charging, digging my lead out, uncoiling it, plugging it in and then re-coiling it and putting it back for 15 miles of charge...I can't be bothered.

I'm going to Costco later. Am I really going to pester the busy tyre guys to activate a charger for for me? Nope.

[tomstring]

Incidentally I was in Hove East Sussex on Thursday and they are installing free vend on street parking bays. (I think Brighton & Hove is the one Green Party constituency in the country). There you go!

[monkeyhanger]

I was at Costco earlier. They have 1 charging point with 2 plug ins. The 2 cars parked there and plugged in would probably be lucky to scrape 2 miles per kWh.

Although EV ownership is still pretty low, the meagre amount of chargers out there still have quite a high likelihood of being occupied before you get there. For me that makes it even more important to to home charge if you can.