Transport User Voice – September 2022 – Charging ahead

25 August 2022

Electric vehicle drivers’ experiences

The number of electric vehicles on our roads is increasing but how can the experience of charging be improved?

Sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans will end in 2030 which means many people will soon be charging up instead of filling up. We are building a new survey to measure the user experience of charging an electric vehicle at services on England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads.

In our latest pilot survey we talked to around 350 road users as we tested different approaches to measuring the charging experience.

While this was a small-scale survey and not intended to be representative of all those charging a vehicle, there were some useful early findings. Among the electric vehicle users we spoke to, around half were satisfied with their chargepoint experience. The main problems mentioned included them being broken, only one customer at a time being able to use some chargepoints, queuing to plug in and lack of support when things go wrong. We found that electric vehicle users are an engaged group of consumers are willing to share and feedback information if it helps drive improvements. They do have concerns about chargepoint supply keeping up with demand as more people start driving electric vehicles. They also talk about often encountering problems with chargepoints and would like to see efforts to resolve these issues.

Transport Focus is engaging with the Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles, National Highways and chargepoint providers as we work towards the launch of the new survey later in 2022/23.

Read the report here.

 

Back to newsletter.