The Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 (UK)

[NewbieT]

I missed this. It’s had a few mentions here but thought I’d attempt to summarise. Legislation comes into force 24 Nov 2023 (lots of staged implementation dates) and covers England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Abbreviated summary:

From 24 Nov 2023 (in 2 weeks)

• Price transparency: pence per kWh either on the charge point or through a separate device. Total price for charging an electric vehicle may not increase once charging has commenced. [Good to know that the price you pay won’t go up at peak times mid- charge].
• 24h helpline prominently displayed on or near the charge point.

By 24 Nov 2024

• Contactless payments for public 50kW+ [Would include Superchargers open to non-Teslas]
• 99% reliability obligation for networks of rapid charge points.
• Reliability reporting.

By 20 Nov 2025

• Charge point operators must provide ‘Roaming’ access. [YES!! ….Electroverse gets a helping hand….This might apply to Tesla too as I don’t think this is limited to public charge points which could be an interesting dimension]

Open data: Availability data is made available to the public free of charge and in a machine readable format. [Lets hope Tesla update 3rd party charging availability in the car in real time]

Penalty up to £10k per charge point for non- compliance. [Let’s be realistic here. It’s a maximum, it has to first be enforced, not remedied or appealed etc.]

There isn’t anything on AC vs DC metering. Maybe they think this is already adequately regulated. Nothing on OCPP ‘plug & charge’ maybe one for the next iteration of regs. Appreciate you’ve got to walk before you can run.

Happy for anyone to correct any of the above.

The Public Charge Point Regulations 2023

These Regulations are made using powers in the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 (c. 18). They impose certain requirements on charge point operators that operate public charge points.

www.legislation.gov.uk

Maybe consultations do work and the .gov does listen?

Gov Open consultation: Future of transport regulatory review: zero emission vehicles

Gov consultation: Future of transport regulatory review: zero emission vehicles DfT proposals: introducing a statutory duty for Local Authorities to plan for EV infrastructure mandated charge points in new & existing non-residential car parks Rapid Charging Fund (for England only) DfT...

teslamotorsclub.com

[UK] HAVE YOUR SAY! - Government Electric vehicle charging market study

The Competition and Markets Authority is carrying out a market study into electric vehicle charging in the UK. Time to have your say.. until 5 Jan 2021 The CMA has launched a market study into the electric vehicle charging sector in the UK. We are considering 2 broad themes: how to develop a...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Tony Hoyle]

"99% reliability obligation for networks of rapid charge points." Unless there's a massive loophole a *lot* of companies are going to fail this.

Heck, only Tesla seem to get close.

 

[ACarneiro]

99% availability is going to be incredibly onerous on charge providers.
I’d expect prices to go up, some to go out of business or both…

 

[NewbieT]

99% availability is going to be incredibly onerous on charge providers.
I’d expect prices to go up, some to go out of business or both…

I just think they’ll ignore it, wait for some enforcement and at the last minute make a promise to do better.

 

[spdpsba]

99% availability is going to be incredibly onerous on charge providers.
I’d expect prices to go up, some to go out of business or both…

It is 20 billion dollar business and everyone wants a piece and Tesla even now occupies almost 60-70% of that business.

 

[qwickshot]

The person who runs the official tesla owners club in the U.K. has had tesla confirm to him that all open V3 chargers will have their stalls replaced with V4.

No word on V2, I’m guessing they’ll close again at the end of next year if they are not swapped out like Tebay.

 

[Nick77]

What's "Roaming Access"?

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I wonder if the 99% availability will be site level or stall level? Site level would be much more achievable especially with many sites now getting 4+ stalls. I think I’d be happy if a site is considered available if 75% of stalls are available and sites need to be 99% available.

 

[qwickshot]

@Nick77 Being able to pay using a 3rd party service or aggregator - a bit like a fuel card for company car drivers. It enables you to essentially have one card to rule them all.

Octopus Electroverse being one example. There are loads of others, even Shell recharge lets you roam across multiple operators in their app. Even All Star do an EV fuel card now for company car drivers.

 

[anarchi]

In the introduction to the legislation it defines what it means by Public charge points in this it says:

“(2) A public charge point does not include—
(…)
(b) a charge point restricted for the exclusive use by—
(i) a vehicle produced by a specific manufacturer;”

Does this mean the a the Tesla only part of the supercharger network isn’t public and is therefore not covered by this legislation?

 

[thewishy]

The person who runs the official tesla owners club in the U.K. has had tesla confirm to him that all open V3 chargers will have their stalls replaced with V4.

No word on V2, I’m guessing they’ll close again at the end of next year if they are not swapped out like Tebay.

I don't think there are any "open to all" v2s.

End of the day Tesla can quite easily just move the sites they didn't manage to get into compliance in time back to closed network status. It's very little skin off their nose.

On roaming, Tesla have a deal with ChargeMap already. Probably not "full compliance", but they've already been thinking in that direction. Personally, I feel like the roaming requirement is the most exciting of the lot - using AC chargers is a total mess with far too many apps. I see Electroverse doing very well out of the whole thing.

Gut feel is the 99% reliability will get "gamed",
DC Charger down?
- Oh, a Mr "please don't fine us" just put in a reservation for the charger for the next week! Funny how that seems to happen?
- A DC charger which is uncontactable and has no status is neither available / unavailable, be a shame if the service engineer accidentally unplugged the comms when they visit and realise they need parts...

But 99% is likely doable IMHO - It'll be an expense that the CPOs would rather not pay, but it's just a question of what SLA you want from the maintenance and replacing old chargers when they reach end of life and parts become difficult. Or if you're servicing yourself, having 1) Parts in stock 2) Well distributed depots 3) £100k of spare parts in the service engineers van.

 

[thewishy]

“(2) A public charge point does not include—
(i) a vehicle produced by a specific manufacturer;”

Does this mean the a the Tesla only part of the supercharger network isn’t public and is therefore not covered by this legislation?

Exactly that. Only "open to all" superchargers are covered by the regs

 

[init6]

99% reliability for a network* is achievable.

CPS already reach that in many areas. Bear in mind that CPS do not own the chargers and are entirely reliant on the owners to fix them when they go faulty. An operator that owns and maintains its own chargers should be able to do better.

* A network is defined in the document:

“network of rapid charge points” means all the rapid charge points owned or operated by a single charge point operator;

 

[Sean.]

I don't think there are any "open to all" v2s.

Aviemore
Dundee
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Inverness
Thetford
Uxbridge
Wokingham

 

[Sean.]

No word on V2, I’m guessing they’ll close again at the end of next year if they are not swapped out like Tebay.

Guessing they’ll be swapped out with V3+ cabs and V4 posts

 

[NewbieT]

99% reliability for a network* is achievable.

CPS already reach that in many areas. Bear in mind that CPS do not own the chargers and are entirely reliant on the owners to fix them when they go faulty. An operator that owns and maintains its own chargers should be able to do better.

* A network is defined in the document:

CPS achieve 99%!? I wasn’t sure if you were being serious and looked it up. The CPS chargers a dodgy as.

 

[NewbieT]

Exactly that. Only "open to all" superchargers are covered by the regs

Some of the regulations only apply to public chargers. Some apply to all Charge Point Operators (inc Tesla).

 

[WannabeOwner]

But 99% is likely doable IMHO

3.5 days (a tad more than that) downtime, per year.

 

[init6]

CPS achieve 99%!? I wasn’t sure if you were being serious and looked it up. The CPS chargers a dodgy as.

You didn't need to look it up, I gave you the link.
East Lothian, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Western Isles and Shetland all managed more than 99% in October. 19 other areas managed over 95%.
The raw data for each charger is also available if you want to do your own calcs.

 

[qwickshot]

I doubt even Tesla are hitting 99% uptime, that’s only 3.5 days of downtime per chargers per year.

Just Abington being out of action probably means tesla can’t reach 99% uptime and that’s just 6 units. Whenever I visit Rugby there is always at least one of the gridserve tritium units out of action.

You can’t help people crashing their cars into charge points and that will wipe one out for probably weeks. The next week some **** cuts all the cables off for the £50 in copper they’ll get and so on.