North Wales: Unashamed Rant

[NewbieT]

Sorry in advance but I need to let go of this and get it out.

Charging in South Wales is progressing nicely. North Wales not so much.

Lack of destination charging as well as ultra rapids. Flint isn’t exactly rural Wales. Holyhead Gridserve has 20 min parking fines. Geniepoints are virtually all broken. Instavolt have made some progress but not enough. I don’t want to spend nearly an hour of my holiday sat on a 50kW machine.

Problem is, Welsh gov based in South Wales - they don’t care. Muted doing what Scotland has so no private firm invests and then they don’t follow through. Plonkers. How not to develop a market.

You’d think with Wylfa and Trawsfynydd they’d have a few grid connections going spare.

Reality: low population means ROI is better in England. Welsh .gov would be wise to pay for the grid connections. Make locations with parking available to lease. Start with the station car park in Betws-y-coed and go from there. Bangor and Llanberis obvious locations too.

It’s 2024 people! Wake up. The tourists will stop coming - because it’s just too hard. The locals don’t want tourists anyway but they’re happy enough when it supports the economy. Can’t have your cake and eat it.

Lots of talk and hot air about caring for the environment. Yeah right. Wales should be ashamed. Prove me wrong.

 

[philip295]

I like to tour around the uk. From my experience, charging in Scotland is much easier than in Wales.

 

[NewbieT]

Used to enjoy going to North Wales. This May I’m going to the North East instead - destination charging making life a dream.

 

[ACarneiro]

As you’ll be crawling along at 20 mph at least you’ll find your charge will take you a lot farther….
</sarcasm>

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I remember years ago somebody asked the Welsh government why they hadn't invested and they said it was because there weren't enough people in Wales with electrric cars. Talk about a progressive government looking to drive change.

I don't know which poliitical party were in power when Scotland did what they did, and some might discussion investment since, but overall I thought they did a magnificent job 8 or so years ago. I was happier travelling around Scotland 7 years ago in a car with 2/3 the range I have now than I am traveling around Wales today.

 

[Jason71]

Left to the private sector rural areas would have no postal serivce, no mobile phones, no internet and no electricity.
And yes some of those things are not great in rural areas but what we do have is generally down to either direct govt action or laws forcing the private sector to cover them in return for raking it in, in the cities.
As far as I know there is nothing to force charging networks to install any there they don't want to right now, I could be wrong citation needed, and so if the Welsh govt has not gotten involved then you will get what you get. Its called free market capitalism and it's by far the worst system out there unfortunately, except for all the others.

 

[Zilla91]

Went on holiday to North Wales for a week last summer and it was absolutely fine, no range or charger worries.

I’m not one to sugar coat EV life but it wasn’t bad, just topped up on the 50kwh charger while doing some food shopping at Lidl to keep me going. YMMV.

 

[NewbieT]

Don’t get me wrong it is possible to go to North Wales, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

 

[WannabeOwner]

And yes some of those things are not great in rural areas but what we do have is generally down to either direct govt action or laws forcing the private sector to cover them in return for raking it in, in the cities.

In early EV days I stayed at places specifically because were on the Tesla Destination Chargers Map. Bully to those hoteliers who decided to do that, and to Tesla for giving them the chargers for naught

Attracting tourism ought? to be possible without direct government action

 

[Rooster6655]

Lack of destination charging as well as ultra rapids. Flint isn’t exactly rural Wales. Holyhead Gridserve has 20 min parking fines. Geniepoints are virtually all broken. Instavolt have made some progress but not enough. I don’t want to spend nearly an hour of my holiday sat on a 50kW machine.

Really you want to be able to charge at 7kW at your destinations, there are more and more chargers coming online the latest problem I see is Zap Map has now become out of date and decided to stop adding a lot of chargers/networks for some reason and Plugshare seems to be the best option right now