Brighton & Hove Council EV update regarding feedback from the EV Owners Survey 2021

Our recently published results of our EV Owners Survey 2021 highlighted some of the improvements and problems that local EV owners are experiencing.

Parking Strategy and Contracts Manager, Paul Nicholls, has shared the latest update on the Council's work to improve EV infrastructure in the city:

Bays blocked by non-electric vehicles
Before converting a charge point bay to an EV recharging only bay the council has to advertise the change and consult with residents. We have a rolling programme of consultation, prioritising bays where we’ve received complaints about them being blocked. All fast and rapid chargers are already signed and lined as for electric vehicle recharging only. By April this year over 200 of the 300 public charge points will be signed and lined as for recharging only, with an aim of a further 100 to be added over the next year. We appreciate your patience while we consult with residents on these ongoing changes.

Bays blocked by electric vehicles
In line with the survey results we’ve also received an increase in the number of complaints about EVs overstaying at charge points in some cases for days and preventing other EV drivers from charging. To address this we will be installing bay sensors at some key chargepoints to identify vehicles parked significantly longer than required for charging. Enforcement action may be taken against the small number of EV drivers blocking chargepoints.

The App
We’re sorry for any issues experienced by customers using the old app. After the survey was carried out a new app EB Go! was launched in February to address some of these issues and provide additional functionality. As expected we’ve seen significant month on month increase in successful transactions from 12,000 kWh in January last year to over 38,000 kWh in January 2022, just for lamp post and fast charger sessions. Any issues with setting up a charging session or feedback on the new app can be emailed to support@ebcharging.co.uk or by calling the support line number on the chargers and will be used to improve the customer experience going forward.

Lamp post chargers
We’re pleased to see the three fold increase in use of the lamp post chargers. We expect further increases as more lamp post chargers are converted for EV recharging only. We continue to receive requests for lamp post chargers from residents. As such we have submitted a bid to the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) for part funding for a further 50 lamp post chargers. If the bid is successful these will be installed late this year.

Fast chargers
We appreciate the feedback on the speed of charging at ‘fast chargers’. We are working with UK Power Networks to identify locations with sufficient grid capacity for 22kW chargers rather that 7kW. Following this, we are working on a bid to OZEV for part funding of over 50 of the 22kW chargers to be add to the network, should we be successful.

Rapid chargers
Since they were installed last summer the rapid charger hubs have been a popular addition to the charging network, as reflected in the survey. The public funding for these was from the OZEV rapid taxi charger fund, which is why 4 of the bays at each hub are for e-taxi charging.

Overall it’s good to see that almost all of the ratings from the feedback in your survey have improved compared to last year. We’re aware that there is a lot more that still needs to be done in terms of improving the customer experience and expanding the network in the right way.

We'd like to thank Brighton & Hove City Council for contacting us with this update. Last year was a huge year for EVs and 2022 is likely to be even bigger, as EV adoption continues to take off. It's reassuring to know that further improvements are in the works to help deal with the electric transition in the city.