Motorway service stations hiring staff to police surging levels of EV ‘charge rage’
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
This was all so predictable!
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
There are already about 850,000 electric vehicles on UK roads and two in ten of the new cars registered in August were EVs.
It obviously has not occurred to Mr McMeikan that that the grid upgrades he demands will cost tens of billions, money which the country has not got.
Instead of moaning about the problem, why is he not attacking the ban on ICEs, which is the root cause of this impending disaster.
Given that the 850,000 EVs on the roads only make up 2% of the total number of cars, I cannot see how any motorway services will be able to cope come 2030, when the roads will be full of EVs.
I’ll give one example.
We always holiday up in Scotland two or three times a year, and we used to stop off at Scotch Corner, for a wee and a sandwich. (We have since found a nice pub that takes dogs instead!)
At lunch time, the car park there is always rammed, and you are lucky to even find a spot. And this happens every weekend in summer, not just bank holidays.
Now imagine all of those cars needing to recharge, which most certainly will. The result will be utter chaos, even if a charger is installed at every car park space.
And it certainly won’t be economic for the Motos of the motorways to build ultra rapid chargers for every car parked up at their services, as they would simply stand idle for most of the time.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The grid can’t supply………. well no-one forecast that situation did they? And the air is filled with the sound of flapping wings, as the chickens come home to roost.
Obviously drivers without foresight.
One of the reader’s comment was from a business man who outlined the tax advantages for buying an EV and they made buying his car a no brainer. There are too many comments for me to find it now but he did have the grace to say he was being subsidised hugely by the majority of us.
Here in the US the US govt subsidizes businessmen like doctors to buy huge SUV’s, like the Armada. This is because the govt classifies such large vehicles as trucks, which gives the owner a much better depreciation rate.
I bought a hybrid van in 2018. I got 7400 dollars from the US govt and 2000 dollars from the state government in tax rebates. My car was cheaper to buy than my wife’s much smaller ICE SUV. The state also gave me 800 dollars to help install a home level II charger.
Irony. My state govt has mandated CA’s zero emissions std starting in four years. My hybrid van at that point my van, the recipient of almost 10,000 in govt subsidies, will not qualify as zero emissions.
‘due to a lack of grid connections preventing him from installing enough car chargers to meet the surge in demand’
I’m not understanding why Moto has a duty to meet demand.
Is this his personal bias showing through?
Absolutely Gamecock. The same applies to every private industry, including power and water supply. Their only duty is to maximise shareholder return. It makes no sense to invest in assets that are not heavily used. They won’t pay for facilities that will be standing idle for much of the time; surplus capacity is anathema for business.
I’m sure there must be economics equations which cover what is the balance between usage factor, investment and return.
This can’t be true. EV drivers are nice, virtuous people who wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone fall into a rage and battle with each other.
Ahem……they are liberals…..the quintessential “only children”.
They are probably worse if they are vegans as well……
Absolutely….. just the same people who wanted to place you in a camp and deny you health care if you did not comply…….
The best answer now would be to stop any government controls on vehicle sales and tax the electricity from chargers to reduce demand. Then let the market decide the outcome.
The article is a depressing view of what might be the future 😦
There is some satisfaction in refueling an ICE car in a petrol station with attended service and paying with cash through the car door window. In ye olden days it was even better with an account and clipboard.
It takes all of about 5 minutes, depending on time at the till, to fill my diesel C Max and get over 700 miles range.
Same with my Audi diesel- 1200 km = 750 miles. At least triple the range of most EVs and at at least double the range of the very few (even more expensive) EV with claimed ranges of 300 miles.
I hope they add the cost of policing the chargers to the cost of a charge. If they have supply problems, simply install a big diesel generator.
I’m thinking a sign on the charger saying, “This charger is powered by a diesel generator.”
Then gather statistics on use . . . which is more powerful? Virtue signaling or getting the car charged NOW?
Strangely, Moto chief executive Ken McMeikan forgot to mention that the UK’s motorway service stations make greater profits from EV’s drivers & passengers spending more money over their enforced prolonged stays at his sites.
Slightly funny … ev charging station rage!!
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My ‘rage’ is that we, ‘the taxpayer’ fund the installation of these chargers. I never heard of any Oil company demanding that taxpayers fork out for their forecourts!
Some facts. A typical EV would be a Nissan Leaf. The current main model has a 40kWh battery – max useable if regularly rapid charging to 80% is just 32kWh despite what anyone claims. Its maximum DC charge rate is 50kW thus half an hour at a rapid charger (however high it may be theoretically be rated) will only give you an additional 25kWh in the battery. “What Car” annual “real world”
mils per kWh test in 2022 showed 3.6m/kWh. Continuous motorway driving would NOT deliver that real world figure due to no regenerative braking effect when cruising.
So at very best a half hour rapid charge at a MOTO service station will at very, very best get you all of 90 miles further down the road but more probably under 80. Cruising at just 60mph means you will be stopping for a recharge after just one and a quarter to one and a half hours.
I live in Kent and have relatives in Scotland ( Coupar Angus ) which is 540miles. and one tank of fuel does it comfortably. Switching drivers on a couple of 30 minute comfort breaks and we do the journey in 10 hours (it is almost continuous motorway).
Even if there were no delays in recharging it would probably require at least 6 recharge stops of half and hour each. In most likely scenarios the journey would probably be so slow and take so long as to require an overnight stop. Not my definition of progress.
But! But! But! We’re constantly being told there’s a new miracle battery just round the corner that will solve all this!
“A typical EV would be a Nissan Leaf”
Not around here. All I see are Teslas. Lots and lots of Teslas. The are very common on the roads around here (South Carolina).
There’s no intention that we’ll all be driving EVs. The intention is to take away car ownership from the vast majority of people.
““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.””
Shortages/rationing: The fruits of socialism.
The real problem is EV charging points removing parking spaces for proper cars.
The solution would be to install diesel generators. (Grin)
What’s it going to be like when hundreds of BEVs are stuck for hours on motorways closed for accidents, or slow moving traffic from roadworks or congestion – aircon/heating turned off to save battery charge. The fun hasn’t even started yet.