Electric Brighton Newsletter - Autumn 2020

The following is our newsletter which is emailed out to our mailing list every few months with local EV news. If you'd like to subscribe, head over to our Hug the Plug campaign and fill out the form.

Hello!

Welcome to our Electric Brighton newsletter.
As always, welcome to those of you who are new to our newsletter and thank you for joining our Hug the Plug campaign!

Local news

Lamppost charge points update

Brighton & Hove Council and Electric Blue have now completed their installations of lamp post chargers, with 200 installed in the city. Many of you have been asking about the dedicated, marked bays for improving access. Well, line painting is finally due to go ahead, with 22 lamp-post locations being scheduled to have marked bays painted during November. As always, you can see these locations on our dedicated charging map, which now includes improved location filters. Anyone who is regularly experiencing difficulties accessing lamp post chargers should contact the Council's EV team to let them know.

New 7kW chargers being installed

The next phase of charge point deployments is now well underway, with new 7kW chargers popping up around the city. Existing locations such as Islingword Road, The Level have had new units for a while now. London Road Car Park has recently had its points upgraded with the new Schneider 7kW units, which are awaiting commissioning, and there are more units coming to other council-run car parks and existing on-street charge points. The replacement for the now decommissioned 7kW charger at Bartholomews has been installed, on the seafront near the Queens Hotel. With all the existing locations being upgraded and new locations being added, there will in total be over 70 fast-charging outlets in the city. Plus, there are additional locations further afield being considered, for Saltdean and Portslade. You can see all these new locations on our map of planned charge points.

Rapid Chargers being installed December - January

We can barely keep up with all these new charge points! Work continues on the Rapid Charging locations. After sending out over 3000 letters to residents near the charging locations, public concerns and feedback were presented at the Council's last ETS Committee meeting (and you can see some of the comments from local residents). The number of objections was below the level requiring committee approval - and so, with this informal public consultation stage complete, the locations are now scheduled for installation during December and January. These four locations add 8 new public charging bays and 16 electric taxi charging bays. The hardware is planned to be Siemens QC45 units, which provide 50kW DC CCS and CHAdeMO, plus 43kW AC charging. Find the locations on our map of planned chargers, with details on the Brighton Racecourse location now updated to reflect the latest plans.

New Community Car Club being formed

Local resident and founder-director of the Brighton and Hove Community Land Trust, Peter Clarke, is looking at setting up an all-electric Community Car Club. Members of the scheme would pay to access zero-emissions electric vehicles without the need to own and maintain their own. If they wish - members can even convert their own EVs for shared use within the scheme. Peter is just getting started with the project - if you'd like to get involved or register your interest for being a member of the car club, then drop Peter a line. We think this is an excellent idea and are fully behind it - we will be hoping to promote the scheme however we can.

Supercharge your EV Ownership with the free Electric Together app

We are collaborating with local EV owners, Arjo and James, who have developed the world's first owner-powered EV product recommendation app, Electric Together.

The app allows its members to share the EV products they love, giving everyone a unique and shareable EV profile, which can include members' vehicles, charging points, insurance and energy suppliers. Members can receive rewards from any supplier that offers referral codes, including Tesla, Octopus Energy, and Bulb - simply by adding them to their profile. It's a convenient and simple way to recommend services to friends, find out which suppliers are popular - and we think this collaboration goes hand-in-hand with our Hug the Plug campaign.

Electric Brighton are one of the first groups to get early access, so go and grab a cool user name now at app.electrictogether.com
And if you fancy, you can even nosey at my own profile here.

Electric Brighton news

Throughout the summer we've been working hard to keep our website up to date, here are some of the changes we've made:

• Updated locations - We've been working hard to get all the locations on the map, along with accurate parking data. Thanks to everyone who has contacted us with details of any incorrect information we've been able to fix - please don't hesitate to contact us if you notice anything wrong about your local chargers.
• Charging map filters - Our map of chargers in Brighton now allows for filtering by slow (lamp post) chargers and by charge point operator.
• New FAQ entries - We're continuing to update our FAQ now and again with new information, such as Can you get a parking ticket for parking in an EV-only bay? and two recent sponsored posts: Does an electric vehicle need servicing? and What is Vehicle to Grid? Browse our full FAQ for more answers to common questions, and let us know if you think there's something we should add on there!
• Annual Survey - A quick heads up as our 3rd annual survey for local EV owners will be sent out in coming weeks. Keep an eye on your inboxes for this opportunity to share your experiences of charging in the city.
• New supporters - We've been working with Octopus Energy and Rivervale, who are both supporting Electric Brighton this year. They've been a big help in allowing us to continue our work promoting the transition to electric vehicles in our city. Thank you both!

To keep up to date with EV news and updates, you can follow us on twitter. If you have any news, suggestions or feedback then feel free to drop us a line on twitter or email us hello@electricbrighton.com.
If you would like to support Electric Brighton and our efforts to speed up our transition away from fossil fuel vehicles, then please consider becoming a Patreon.

Thank you for your support,

Tom, Electric Brighton

Our Supporters

Octopus Electric Vehicles are conducting a trial of their new cutting-edge Vehicle-to-Grid service, Powerloop, across the South and South East - including Brighton & Hove. We've been helping to spread the word on this great product and Nissan Leaf leasing deal. Find out more about Powerloop.

Rivervale is Brighton's #1 Service and MOT centre for cars and vans - If you need an MOT or service for your EV, give them a call and receive a free multi-point vehicle health check with any service or MOT booking made, by quoting "Electric Brighton". Rivervale also offer all makes and models of new and used electric vehicles, and are exclusive dealers of the Maxus eDeliver 3 electric van.