Ev charger shortaged10 Mar 2020 07:02
They've got the only electric car in the village. Tiffany Snowden and her husband bought their second-hand Nissan Leaf a few weeks ago and love it. It's smooth to drive and, she says, "It's got quite a lot of power to it". But there's a problem. It's a pain to charge up.
That's because, in the North Yorkshire hamlet where they live, it's a race home every night to get a parking space outside their house. If they succeed, they can plug the car in to mains electricity overnight. If they fail, the options are limited.
"The closest charging point to us is about 10 miles away," says Mrs Snowden.
This is a dilemma that could face an increasing number of drivers. The government says that in just 15 years the only new cars on the market will be fully electric vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen-powered alternatives.
While the number of charging points around the UK has increased by about 50% in the last 12 months, according to statistics from EV charging site Zap-Map.com, there are noticeable gaps in provision around the country.
A recent report from Capital Economics suggested that fleshing out the UK's charging network will cost £45.9bn between now and 2050. There are even fears that the electricity grid won't be able to cope as thousands more EVs get plugged in by their new owners.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionThe number of charging points has risen by 50% over last 12 months
Is the UK ready for the electric vehicle revolution, then, or is the whole movement doomed to stall?
The Snowdens are hoping that their local charging problem will have a local solution. The government has allocated £5 million in funding for councils to spend on residential charging points.
However, when Mrs Snowden asked her council about this, a representative told her there was little space in the village for charging bays. Plus, they added that the expense of upgrading infrastructure for such facilities was significant. Improving cabling and substations alone could cost "upwards of £75,000", they said.
The representative advised Mrs Snowden to ask whether the local pub could install a charging point instead - because it has parking space available and, potentially, spare electricity.
In the meantime, the Snowdens intend to upgrade their home charging point and will have to carefully plan where they charge up and how they use the roughly 80 miles of range they get with their 2014 Nissan Leaf.
"I think we've kind of gone about it perhaps a bit backwards in getting the car first," she jokes. "We kind of jumped a bit into it but I think we just have to face it now, really."
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