My god, what a lot of complete rubbish on one forum, and in my view I'm afraid Philippa, you have spouted most of it. So here's some facts. 1. Hounslow's website states, "With electric vehicle charge points now outnumbering petrol stations by 2 to 1". I'm sorry, but that's just sorrowful incompetence if that's the case. It needs to be much more.2. Many of them are Source London. Look them up on trustpilot - you wouldn't use them. So when you see empty parking spaces with dedicated charging points, you can be pretty sure they are Source London. So why are they empty? Because they are an absolute ripoff. If you see someone charging there, you really should go up and give them sympathy and advice, because they're probably a bit thick. Source London charge by the time you are connected, not by the electricity consumed. It leads to people paying c£35 for about 100 miles of motoring (see reviews, or You And Yours on R4). It's a despicable business model, operated previously by the sons of French billionaires, now by Total, which makes it worse still, but originally installed by (you guessed it!) those geniuses at TfL! Source London are apparently going to switch to kWh charging (from their bad publicity on "you and yours"), but at 80p per kWh!! Ubitricity (see below) is 24p per kWh. FM Conway 28p!! This is a disgrace, and it's a disgrace that LBHounslow are supporting these people. 3. Lamppost chargers. In LBHF, they put dedicated charging bays next to them, free parking, but maximum stay 4 hours. In Hounslow there is no such foresight. Most chargers have internal combustion engine SUVs parked next to them - you simply can't park close enough to charge your EV. The charging point might as well not exist. Typically I have to visit 10-12 charging points before I find one available. This is, once again, the work of that traffic genius, Hanif Khan, soon to stand in Chiswick for Hounslow Council - well he will be standing if he's waiting to plug in his car - better get a Range Rover like Steve Curran. I saw an electric VW getting a £65 ticket from Hounslow while charging his car, because he was 100m outside his 'zone'. Probably the only charging point he could find before he had to go on some business so he could pay taxes to fun LB Hounslow. Even Alanis would find that ironic.4. Conway FM - lamppost chargers - half the chargers don't work (I think, but I can't be sure) because the app doesn't work - literally - everything is working with the charge point until you try entering your credit card. It won't accept it. These charging points really are the chocolate teapot.5. Ubitricity - owned by Shell - apart from being mainly unavailable since they are occupied by SUVs, due to LBH not putting in designated charging points, these usually work - except for the annoying box that you tick to save your credit card details, which it doesn't save and asks you to enter every time. I'm guessing the CEO of Shell has never used this service, since it's properly rubbish. Yet how many million is he paid - and has anyone at Hounslow pointed this out to them?
Amanda Smith ● 1647d