Paul .... That will only happen when they can add punitive charging prices (as they currently do with ice fuel ... being far more expensive than even a remote Highlands corner petrol station, in spite of huge turnover, buying power and ease of resupply) ... the operators would just threaten to pull out and the Govt would back down .... they couldn't even get them to provide food 24/7 as they were set up to do ..... with most falling back on a Costa kiosk after 9.30 as a fig-leaf to providing for travellers.
K
AIUI if you get someone like PodPoint to operate your charger you can specify what rates you want to charge for electricity, how long you allow cars to charge for, and how much the punitive over-time charge rate is?
I would have thought there's plenty of incentive for service area operators to install more charge points as demand grows. A rough rule of thumb is that it takes about half an hour to add 100 miles of range at the moment, so for people who regularly do long motorway journeys beyond the charge range of their car it's going to be a pretty fraught business for some time to come, probably for 5 to 10 years I'd guess.
The EV benefits analysis really makes sense in for the regular short/medium range with home overnight charging use case, but in many others. Fortunately this is where most users sit, and that's where the manufacturers are aiming, in the up to 200 miles per day segment.
Bigger batteries giving longer range are all very well, but they take a long time to charge and what's the point of lugging around all that weight if you never need it? You can always hire something for the odd occasion when you need to drive a long way in a short time if it's not part of your regular journey envelope. For everyone else ICE vehicles will still be around for decades. Our Landy is only 20 years old and has only done 130k miles or so, so it'll easily see us out, as will the Morgan. EVs certainly aren't the solution for everyone, but for many they are, as witnessed by their sales growth.
