A Guide To Electric Car Charging Networks (UK)

hi guys no if you just bought or ordered your Eevee you're probably wondering how the hell you access the various you get charged networks because it is a total mess and it takes ages to get your head around so that's what this video is about it's a guide to the UK's charging infrastructure let's go [Music] now I'm going to break this up into the national networks and the regional networks but the regional networks are so numerous I'm not going to go through them one by one what I will do however is show you how you can find out what you need to do to access each of those regional networks if you get me so the national networks there are quite a few we have of course Tesla which is quite straightforward I'll come to that in a minute we have Gini point charger car Paula II Connie from Northern Ireland insta volt pop point shall we charge and chanceplay Scotland okay so let me start at the one you're most likely to run into eco true cities the electric Highway this is the ones that you see at the motorway service areas and if you use the motorway network you're probably gonna come across one already now to access the electric area you can't use an RFID card anymore you have to use an app this is basically available on iOS or most Android devices you can also ring them if it's during the times that they are open which I believe is 8 to late at the moment and pay over the phone by every debit card if however you don't have a smartphone or there's something wrong with it and they are short you cannot put fuel in your electric car that is how ridiculous the situation is with the electric highway they are the only charge networks in the motorway service areas and without one of these you can't fuel your town next is poor looks like charge master and this is a bit complicated so I'm gonna bring charge care and charge play Scotland into it as well because the kind of interlinked just bear with me on this one now but pull the network has two ways of accessing it you can either access it on Paul the instant app on a smartphone which is basically their pay-as-you-go if you like or using the pull of RFID card now to get this you have to sign up to a monthly subscription I believe it's seven pounds 85 per month at the moment it makes charging either free or cheaper on the rapid charges so I'll leave it up to you whether or not it's worth subscribing to because if you do enough charging it actually pays for itself in the subscription however having an RFID count does make accessing these points significantly easier because the polar instant app isn't exactly known for its reliability for 7-pound 85 a month personally I always subscribe even though some months go by and I never use it because it's always there if you need it and quite frankly it's the price of one couple of lunches a Netflix subscription it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things now I mentioned charge akka and charge player Scotland this is a bit complicated it's bear with me on this one if you're up a charge for Scotland card you can access the Scottish Network you can also access the charge your car Network because it's the same back-end basically if you have a charge or car RFID card you can access the charge your car network of course and the one in Scotland they are interoperable but it probable you I mean if you have a Palo Plus subscription RFID card you can access the charge your car network because paula bought charge your car however if you have one of these even though it's the same back network you cannot access the Scottish one so to summarise Portlock gets you access to paula and charge your car charge your car gives you access to charge your car and Scotland Scotland gives you access to Scotland and challenge your car so even though it's pretty much the same company one CAD doesn't get you access to all three networks god this is gonna need a few edit points now ultimately it's gonna be up to you which one you prefer what makes sense to sign up to to access the charge account network is 20 pounds per year to get you an RFID card now this just gives you access to the charge your car and the Scottish Network but if you're already subscribing to the Paul applause does not mind getting your charger can it can't unless you need to go to Scotland however what you can do if you've got Paul the plus and you want to go to Scotland is just get a charge plate scotland card and that cost you 20 pounds a year so basically it's the same thing how did they get a charge your car card and a poor look ad or a chat with scotland card and the public ad got far too complicated I really don't know if this is gonna make sense even after he said they stick together so out Paul for Christ's sake GU point is fairly straightforward you can pay nine pound to get a nanofied decal so you don't need a phone or a date to signal however you can just use their web app to access their charge network it's quite straightforward and it's free to register so at the very least register with Jeanie point and if you need to access it you don't have to about doing that at the roadside for nine pounds I will personally get an RFID card if you think you're gonna use some Gini points on a regular basis because it's always going to work form doesn't always work doesn't always have a signal it's not always fully charged econ is basically Northern Ireland's national network it's free to join and free charge but you do have to sign up and they will send you an RFID card so if you live in Northern Ireland are you going there get that before you go insta volt is a small but growing network of roughly charges around the UK and the reason I love them so much even though there's not many around is because they have only one way of accessing them and you're gonna love this it involves using currency a debit card contactless payment basically so you can use your form by a contactless payment though does it or just a debit card and you pick the kilowatt hour no sign you're not not stupid app nothing just morning what point is basically network of rapid and fast charges they have an app which is free to sign up to and you just paid to use they also have an RFID card which you need to access some of their older charges and it's probably worth getting as well because it's free and it just means you've got that backup just in case shall we charge is basically the oil giants electric charging network that put in a few rocket charges in some of their petrol stations to access that you get a free app called smooth with a V and that is charged per kilowatt hour the app is free so you months will get that on your phone Tesla of course have their own charge network it is only for Tesla cars you don't need anything to access it you just literally plug the caring it knows it's a Tesla it starts charging if somehow you managed to plug a test the charger into your car he just won't work so don't even bother trying now there are a lot of regional charge now it's out there so how do you access them now as I said there are ton of them and I'm not going to go through them one by one but if you do need to find out how to access the ones in your area or if you travel in somewhere you want to know what is in that area then go to zap - map comm putting the course go to where you're going and then you can search for the charge points in the area if you click on the icon it will come up with who rooms that particular charger it also tells you how you can access it so if you've got a charger from a network that I have not listed yet or you've never heard of it before that will tell you how to access it and that is quite frankly the easiest way to do it if you're going on a long journey or if you just want one in the local area and you want to charge your car so to summarize this is what I would recommend every electric car driver out there get the electric hang where app of course is free to sign up to it's free to download at your debit card to it and then you can access the electric highway if necessary to access the puller Network get the Palo instant app just in case you need the pay-as-you-go function and you're not subscribed even if you aren't subscribed to the pole the plus RFID card you might as well get the app anywhere because it doesn't cost you anything to download this is a monthly subscription of course but it makes life a lot easier and you can access the charge your car network which is a 20 pound annual fee normally so it kinda it's worth it for seven pounds like five per month for me Gini point just register on their website and you can use their free web app or if you want make life a lot easier pay nine pound for that RFID card and you can access a Gini point charger instable just needs a debit card so that's nice and easy all you need to do to make sure you have your wallet on you he can Ian nahban Island is an RFID code that you have to send off for so if you're going there or you live there send off for it before you trouble pop point have an app and it's easy to use females will get that because it is free and you can get a free RFID couch so you might as well apply for that at the same time so recharge if you're lucky enough to find one again is just the smooth app so get that it's not costing you anything if you live in Scotland of course get the charge player Scotland RFID card which is 20 pounds a year or the charge your car RFID card the bits could both do the same thing so just get one of them both right so that lot should give you access to the Paula inste vault gene your point pod point the electric eye where shall recharge just where Scotland II can it caught my this is a nightmare I hope this is gonna make sense to you because quite frankly even though I'm sorry with all the information in front of me I keep on getting it wrong if anything this highlights the fragmented nightmare nature of the UK's charging network now the government in November 2018 a blocking legislation which basically means that you have to have easy paging go access to every charge network in the country however the government unfortunately have decreed that something like an app is an acceptable way of accessing a child's network why they didn't just sit look you have to access it using or something people buy things with money everyone has access to a contactless payment if they have a bank account so I really don't see why that shouldn't be law but no no where you have to go down the stupid and proof so I hope that's helped a lot quite frankly thinking about what I've just done over the past however long I've been doing this it doesn't make that much sense to me well I'll tell you what can you imagine if all the petrol stations made people use an app to put fuel in their cab people would kick off and that would never visit that petrol station again for some reason electric cars that can get away with it the electric charge networks anyway it's it's bonkers I hope that helps you if you are getting or you just got an electric car use that map plug share something like that to find out what charge points you're going to access and what you need to access them ultimately you need to do some of your own research the networks I've given you on here cover most of the UK and you should be alright if you get everything just mentioned but there's always the old point of course so there we go I hope you like that thank you for watching and I'll see you soon

Channel: Electric Vehicle Man

Views: 63,466

Rating: 4.8970976 out of 5

Keywords: Nissan, Leaf, Electric, Cars, Vehicles, Zoe, Tesla, uk electric cars, uk charging network, ecotricity, instavolt, pod point, Polar, ecarni, charge your car, uk charge points, charge points, cyc, electric highway

Id: XEBPtVDZj34

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018