Electric Brighton Newsletter - Winter

Here is our Electric Brighton Winter newsletter, covering local EV news and updates for the city. A warm welcome to all those of you who are new to our newsletter and thank you for joining our Hug the Plug campaign!

Local news

Lamp post charger access improved

Line painting on 22 lamp post charger locations was finished just before Christmas, and Brighton & Hove Council are now moving on with plans for more marked bays. Three additional locations are pending their traffic regulation orders and a further ten locations have been compiled. We will keep our map of charging locations updated as plans progress and we advise anyone who is regularly experiencing difficulties accessing lamp post chargers to contact the Council's EV team (electric.vehicles@brighton-hove.gov.uk) to make sure they are aware.

New 7kW sites live soon

Twelve new 7kW sites are due to go live by March, with many having already been installed. All the 7kW locations have dedicated bays and some of these new locations will also benefit from new "NETX" technology, which enables the chargers to serve more vehicles at once. The technology is already installed in Regency Square Car Park and will also be installed at Bernard Place, which is doubling its bays to 4.

Rapid Charging Hubs almost done

The groundworks and line painting are now all complete at Victoria Road (Portslade), Preston Park and Ashton Rise and they are awaiting the arrival of the charging hardware. All of the city's rapid charging locations will benefit from new "IBAY" camera technology, which will not only serve to prevent ICE-ing and overstaying, ensuring maximum availability but in the future will also allow EV owners to book a charging spot in advance. IBAY is currently scheduled to be installed at the rapid locations during March, with all works complete by April.

The rapid charging hub at Brighton Racecourse is facing some delays due to legal issues, however, this will not affect the go-live timings of the other locations.

Electric Blue updates

Charge point operator Electric Blue have been working hard to improve their service in Brighton & Hove. A number of changes are underway to meet the challenges of operating hundreds of charge points in the city. They now have dedicated 24/7 staff on hand in Brighton & Hove, with targetted site visits to faults within 2 hours. So if you're having any problems at all, do phone their support as it will help to get things back on track ASAP. There are many other planned updates in the pipeline, which we will be sharing more news of later this year, as their work continues.

City's fastest ever Rapid Charger goes online

Anyone in a rush to charge now has a new option, at Shell Hove, opposite from Hove Park on Old Shoreham Road. The 150kW Shell Recharge charger opened in January and is kitted out with CCS and CHAdeMO connectors. Vehicles that support this higher rate of charge, can receive enough energy to drive 9 miles - every minute they're plugged in. Charging is a flat rate of 39p/kWh, payable via charge card, smartphone app or contactless payment. Find out more on our location page here.

This is now the fastest charger available in the city, a crown it could hold for some time as the long-awaited Tesla Supercharger for Brighton is now slated for 2022.

New chargers almost ready from Brighton Energy Co-op

The Brighton Energy Co-op have been busy and the first of their solar-linked EV Charge Points is almost ready to go live. Funded by the Next Generation Community Energy Programme, they have now partnered with Pod-Point who will take care of the charge point management and user access side of things. This allows their solar sites to benefit by selling their locally-sourced solar energy to their customers, employees and visitors for use in EVs. They currently have 10 chargers planned across 6 solar sites, all of which are due to go live in the first half of the year. What a wonderful community energy project!

You can find out more about their work and stay up to date via their dedicated EV page.

2020 Survey results

Thanks to everyone who contributed to our annual survey of EV owners in the city. We compiled the results into a report, which is available on our website. As usual, we passed our report on to the council for their consideration and they shared their response to the survey. After the survey highlighted some of the problems people were experiencing, it's really encouraging to know that many of the issues are being addressed and that there are more improvements on the way.

Local EV ownership update

Latest Government data for Q3 2020 shows that plug-in vehicle ownership in Brighton & Hove had a massive increase of more than 21% from Q2. Despite the global pandemic, 2020 was a big year for electric vehicles, which remains the fastest-growing vehicle segment, whilst petrol and diesel sales slumped. By our projections, plug-in vehicle ownership in the city will likely be around in Q1 2021. In our annual survey, concern over climate change was the #1 reason EV owners in Brighton & Hove had made the switch to electric.

Gerard Sauer talk on Electric Vehicles for U3A

Some of you may know Gerard Sauer from community meetups like the Sussex EVs or through his work with Brighton Energy Cooperative. Gerard has a wealth of automotive industry experience and is very knowledgeable on electric vehicles and the technologies they use.
He recently gave an online lecture with Worthing U3A to talk in-depth about electric vehicles; covering everything from the technologies they use, the energy which supplies them and their pros/cons. The talk is well worth a watch for anyone who wants to know more about EVs from someone who really knows the topic very well - and is full of fascinating anecdotes. The full talk is on YouTube now.

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 the transition away from fossil fuel vehicles in Brighton & Hove, then please check out some of the ways you can support us.

Thank you for your support,

Tom, Electric Brighton

Our Supporters

We're grateful to our supporters in helping us to promote electric vehicles in Brighton & Hove, and beyond. They're great!

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.