Motorway service stations hiring staff to police surging levels of EV …
Britain’s biggest motorway service station provider has brought in marshals to police “charge rage” among electric vehicle drivers battling for access to plug-in points[1].
Moto chief executive Ken McMeikan warned the UK’s motorway service stations are facing growing “public disorder” due to a lack of grid connections preventing him from installing enough car chargers to meet the surge in demand.
It means many motorists are facing long waits, with angry drivers confronting staff and each other over the lack of charging facilities.
Mr McMeikan said the delays made drivers “very angry and stressed” and warned of the growing risk of “charge rage” on Britain’s motorways.
He said: “People need to drive their EV cars around without range anxiety, without long queues and without public disorder but at peak seasonal times we are experiencing all this now.”
Moto, which runs 49 motorway services around the UK, has already introduced marshalls at Exeter, Rugby and Wetherby to manage EV queues and prevent conflicts during busy periods.
0104 Electric car infrastructure struggles to keep up[2]
Mr McMeikan, 58, who drives an EV himself, said he had told the government of the problem and warned ministers that public disorder incidents would grow.
He told The Telegraph: “I’ve been saying to them that the grid does not have sufficient capacity right now to deliver the power we need at the time we need it.
“If we don’t get that amount of power guaranteed, then in coming years every Christmas, every Easter, every summer holiday and peak bank holiday will be the equivalent of when we have a fuel crisis on petrol and diesel.”
Six-hour queues
Electric car drivers were forced to queue for up to six hours at some service stations across the UK last Christmas.
Unlike a petrol or diesel engine that takes just minutes to fill, a typical electric car will take at least half an hour to recharge. It means many more charging stations are needed to service EVs.
The Moto chief is the latest senior business leader to warn that long delays in connecting to the grid are holding back the rolling out of charging points.
The chief executive of Gridserve, one of Britain’s biggest electric car charging companies, told The Telegraph earlier this month that delays had forced his business to rely on batteries and generators to power up vehicles[3].
Mr McMeikan said: “You’ll see queues of people and public disorder because there wasn’t enough power delivered to motorway service areas… to allow people to charge their car and then continue their journey.
“There is a view in government that, rather than provide the power to guarantee sufficient numbers of chargers, we should be thinking about how we manage queues.”
Public disorder risk
Mr McMeikan said he had repeatedly told Jesse Norman, the minister for transport decarbonisation, that making EV motorists queue would put his staff and motorists at risk of “charge rage.”
“I’ve had conversations with Jesse Norman, with special advisers and with National Highways who are responsible for managing the motorway network. They are all responsible for ensuring chargers are being deployed on the motorways but they are not doing it. They are not addressing the fundamental issue, which is electrical power.”
There are already about 850,000 electric vehicles on UK roads and two in ten of the new cars registered in August were EVs.
Despite recently delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles, the Government last week confirmed that more than a fifth of new cars sold[4] by manufacturers in the UK next year must be zero emission, rising to 80pc by 2030.
New electric car registrations[5]
Mr McMeikan was formerly the chief executive at Greggs and led the rebellion against the government’s 2012 “pasty tax”, which was ultimately abandoned.
He said he now planned to take the government on again, accusing it of letting motorists down by failing to ensure motorway services were given grid connections.
The lack of action has forced Moto to seek planning permission for up to 25 solar farms next to its service stations to “guarantee an amount of power that we require for EV drivers,” Mr McMeikan said.
“I’m so frustrated and so concerned.”
Ken McMeikan, who led the bakers’ ‘pasty tax’ rebellion when head of Greggs, is taking on the government again over EV charging connections
Credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Asif Ghafoor, the chief executive of public charge network Be.EV, said queues seen at motorway services last Christmas[6] had been “a nightmare” and called for the planning and grid connection process to be streamlined.
He said: “Ambitious targets aside, the reality is that every leg of the planning, permissions, sourcing power and building process slows an installation down… Anyone can see this is nowhere near quick enough to keep up with the amount of drivers transitioning to EVs.”
James Court, chief executive of the Electric Vehicle Association for England, which represents EV drivers, said: “Grid connections seem to be holding back quicker deployment.
“We are in a situation where investors are keen to get going, and we shouldn’t need huge government investment now with private companies leading the way, yet we do need a clear plan from the government, as well as reform on planning and connection.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “Around 96pc of motorway service areas already have charging available and we know the industry has plans to install hundreds more charge points in the coming months.
“The Government has put more than £2bn into the transition to electric vehicles, with the number of public charge points across the country increasing by 43pc since last year – putting us well on track to have 300,000 charge points by 2030.”
References
- ^ access to plug-in points (www.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ 0104 Electric car infrastructure struggles to keep up (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ batteries and generators to power up vehicles (www.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ more than a fifth of new cars sold (www.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ New electric car registrations (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
- ^ queues seen at motorway services last Christmas (www.telegraph.co.uk)