Forum Topic

New Charging points/spaces in Chiswick

As the owner of an electric car, I personally like the idea that there will be a few more dedicated spaces for electric cars to charge. However, I live in the Mid Chiswick Area where so far we only have about TWO points in the entire area, compared to loads in Glebe and Gunnersbury.  I can't see that there is a plan for any more in our zone. I have to wander around charging late at night after parking restrictions end or at the weekend to find a free spot to charge.  Will I be only able to use these dedicated charging pointsin other CPZs during evenings and weekends or will I be able to use them at any time? And will people with electric cars from outside the Borough also be able to use them.And when if ever will the Traffic People respond to my requests for information about whether we will ever get any more charging points in our own Mid Chiswick CPZ? Would be so grateful if somebody could point me to the answers.

Jackie Elton ● 338d32 Comments

How bizarre!

Philippa Bond ● 322d

In a fascinating turn of events the EV bay outside our house was removed today after only bing painted a couple of weeks ago. Some chap turned up with some black paint and went over the white lines. Looks awful of course and presumably it was initially painted by accident but I wonder how much that cost then?

Chris Blackwell ● 322d

Sometimes our streets can seem just like car parks with cars hardly moving out of them at all.

Philippa Bond ● 323d

I don't think that you can put a slow down down to just a worry about lack of charging points or a worry about range anxiety.  Improvements are happening all the time.  What has happened is people have had to concentrate more on other things like insulating their homes and keeping costs down over the winter.Those who need cars whose cars were already ULEZ compliant are quite likely to wait a little longer.

Philippa Bond ● 323d

EV charging spaces occupied for max 9 hrs a day. Other vehicles likely to occupy for twice this time. Scheme is yet another scam to get fines from motorists.Hapless EV owners already see poor / time consuming investment .

Richard Jones ● 323d

It doesn’t matter about incentives etc. Industry not cowardly politicians will lead the change. Investment shifts to electric vehicle production lines and all the money is drained from petrol and diesel. They’re not investing in both.

Paul Campbell ● 324d

I thought the general opinion on this was that the incentives had been taken away too soon.  There seem to be more fleets changing but fewer individuals.  I got the impression they have not measured how many people have changed to alternative methods of travel.

Philippa Bond ● 324d

Jackie - absolutely agree! We need a clear signal regarding EVs and for these incentives to be followed through, not half hearted attempts.

Chris Blackwell ● 324d

Sales for them has drop not sure if it's because of the lack of charge points or lack of journey distance.

Janice Evans ● 324d

Chris, I sympathise. I think they are imposing this stuff without listening  eitherto those of us who drive electric or petrol/diesel cars. The key to success is the satisfaction of the electric car user but without alienating everyone else. . I’m still a believer but the greater the mess they make of all this, not sure if it will last. Especially as they chip away at the incentives that really matter.

Jackie Elton ● 324d

On the one hand I am all for EVs in principle but the reality is the charging infrastructure is simply not there (yet) and range anxiety is a huge issue. Consequently the EV parking bays in our road have effectively lost us three parking spaces which to a petrol car owner like us is a bit of a pain to be honest. I suspect that many petrol car owners will simply not switch to an EV until EVs double their range and there are as many WORKING charging points in petrol stations as there are petrol pumps.Can't see that happening.

Chris Blackwell ● 325d

Plenty of info here!  I wonder how much is still up to date.https://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/documents/s178564/Appendix%201%20-%20EV%20Charging%20Strategy.pdf

Philippa Bond ● 325d

https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/ev-charging-fines

Philippa Bond ● 325d

Interesting post.The glaringly obvious answer is to allow EV owners to charge at any of the spaces in the borough.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 326d

As an EV car owner and still moderately keen,  I am fed up with the ignorance and poor strategy of Councils including Hounslow. They are not listening to the EV car users. Or even the non EV car users. They give preference to poor operators like Source who score worst on customer satisfaction.  If chargers don’t work or  swallow all your money,  people wont use them.  Some parts of Chiswick are full of charging points, in Mid Chiswick we have just 2!  Why.  But we can’t park and charge in the other zones. The benefits of cheaper parking  for EVs are being  quickly eroded.The current Hounslow strategy is bewilderingly unclear and has been rushed through without discussion. So after  a few years  or persuading and enticing us  to switch, I suspect we will be left high and dry. And our friends who refused to switch are smugly saying  I told you so. A bit like my experiment with LPG car.  Incentives dried up and that was that. What they need to do is,Listen to the users,  there are plenty of us around.  They know who we are. Regulate the prices and monitor performance of the operators.. have reporting process. Keep the parking  and tax incentivesThen there  might be hope.

Jackie Elton ● 326d

It looks like neither Ealing or Hounslow have done a proper inventory of the number of spaces in their CPZ zones and how these changes impact them. There must have been a significant reduction in the number of generally available bays due to car club bays, Lime Bike bays and now these EV charging bays. What is likely to happen is that more and more applications will be made by people with mobility issues to get a designated disabled bay outside their home while more front gardens will be converted to parking. If the council have a statutory duty to provide these bays then parking space is going to become very scarce near people's homes.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 326d

Ealing seem to have introduced a lot of parking bays around the Chiswick area earlier on and there has been no significant complaint as far as I am aware. Parking enforcement does seem to have wound down and they also don't stop people running cables across the pavement to charge their cars.It'll be interesting to see how Hounslow handle this - if they have a profit share on charging from lampposts they might have an incentive to clampdown on residents using domestic supply which might mean EV owners end up paying more.

Mark Evans ● 333d

However if you DO have an EV and find it difficult to find a charging place why not contact your Local Councillors and make a request?  You should be able to find out more about their plans at the same time.

Philippa Bond ● 335d

The 24 kWh battery actually costs £12490.00 Julian.The reason they are so 'cheap' by comparison is the small capacity. The 24kWh battery isgood for only around 100 miles on a colder day. Useless. I drive a hybrid with a range of c.630 miles on £70.00 of petrol, comparable with the Leaf and zero range anxiety.  Hydrogen or solid state cells is the way ahead not glorified laptop batteries.

N V Brooks ● 336d

I don't get it myself A Nissan Leaf battery lasts ten years and costs about 6-7k for a new one. Fine but what about the body being ten years old? No wonder they are dropping in price as the years pass by with potentially no buyers. The good news is many have not got to that point where the car becomes worthless and not wanted

Julian Pavey ● 336d

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Julian Pavey ● 336d

A replacement battery for the Taycan costs £82,000 plus fitting, they plummet in value as soon as they are driven out of the showroom.A three year old Taycan (£121,000 new) can be yours for a little over £50,000. Porsche dealers don't even want them as trade-ins

N V Brooks ● 336d

"from overseas buyers" or "by overseas buyers"?

Andrew Jones ● 336d

Should have also said that most high end second hand cars are being snapped up here from overseas buyers.

Julian Pavey ● 336d

Wow, that's a big fall.Could be a big bargain for someone who wants a Porsche, or it could be an albatross. Time will tell.

Andrew Jones ● 336d

Id be more worried about the price of second hand EVs I was reading the other day that they are plumeting even further as the years go on. A Porsche Taycan is reported as going for under half its value after just 3 years. The report says more and more people are now more than ever being put off buying a brand new electric car while the second hand market continues to drop in value after just a few years.

Julian Pavey ● 336d

In 15 years or so we will look back at the headlong rush into EVs and say why did we ever do that? They can surely only be a transitional arrangement until either cleaner fuels or a much higher capacity form of battery, such as the solid state ones being developed by Toyota due for launch this year. We will then be left with a mountain of difficult to recycle lithium batteries.  The cost of replacing batteries after their c. ten year lifespan is prohibitive so the cars will be scrapped. Hardly environmentally friendly.

N V Brooks ● 336d

If you are using an EV there is no reason why you should not contact your Local Councillors and/or the Councillors dealing with the installation of these to ask about more/how they will work etc.You can find out which councillor has what portfolio on the Council website. Unfortunately some of them although convenient do seem to be a lot more expensive than other alternatives.  So worth always investigating comparisons.

Philippa Bond ● 336d

You raise an interesting point about the use of these spaces. It would make a lot of sense for an EV owner to effectively be allowed borough wide use of these chargepoints so that if there was none available in their home CPZ they could charge elsewhere. For many people this would be in the next street.I don't own a EV so it would be interesting to know how charging actually works - for instance do you know when you put a car on charge how long it will take to complete? How long typically would it take to fully charge from one of these lamppost chargers.The council has a tricky task here. Obviously if you are going to ban people charging across pavements you need to make provision for onstreet charging on local roads. However, over zealous enforcement will make the measure very  unpopular both with petrol/diesel car owners due to the ever more limited parking spaces they have to use and EV users who can't now leave their vehicles in the same space after a charge has completed.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 337d

If they are going to install these new types of parking spaces, it would be great if they explained and consulted more.  I fear these spaces will in fact only be for residents of the relevant wards, not Chiswick, Borough or London wide and therefore won’t encourage visitors to Chiswick businesses and shops.

Jackie Elton ● 337d

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Whilst I like the idea of more dedicated chargers and charging spaces to encourage people to switch over to EVs, the downside is that it takes away parking for non-EVs as only 2-3% of cars on UK roads are EVs or hybrids (I suspect the figure for London is higher, potentially up to 15%).  No doubt there will be some roads which already have a shortage of parking for residents at key times and this cannot help.

Justin Stephenson ● 337d

They will, if organised like Ealing, LBHF. Hillingdon. Harrow and Richmond most definitely NOT be for the exclusive use of residents. Normally, they are unrestricted access and are not normally the most economic option.

N V Brooks ● 337d