Parking in electric bays

[Blinkingheckythump]

I went somewhere the other day where parking was very full, excitedly started to pull into a bay to realise it was an electric vehicle only bay. I didn't park in it and was lucky enough to get the last normal bay. But it did make me think. There was no one in any of the electric vehicle bays and every other space was then full. If you turned up after me would you have parked in the electric bay as a normal car?
Yabu no I would not
Yanbu yes I would

Not if I don't want to get a parking ticket! There are bays at the short ends of the blocks in our permit only area and you will get a ticket if not actively charging during the day (more relaxed when charging overnight).

I would use it. But I'm disabled so the option of going somewhere else to park isn't so easy for me. One of the car parks where I live, they actually removed the disabled bays and replaced them with charging points!
If I was able to walk further or knew somewhere else I could park then I would not use the charging bays but I definitely would if there was nowhere else.

We have those too on my high street @GasPanic . You can park in some of them regardless and other ones you have to be charging.

I don't think it will be long before someone murders someone for a EV parking infringement.

We have the dual use ones too. They’re clearly marked - I can’t recall offhand exactly what they say but they can be used either for EVs to charge or as normal parking bays. So I have on occasion parked in one (wouldn’t do so if another normal space was available). Others are clearly marked EV charging only.

Plenty of people do this.

It's a bay for a specific purpose and so it's pretty dickish to park in it if you aren't actively charging an EV, and that goes for people who leave their car plugged in well after it finishes charging too.

That's awful! Can't believe they replaced disabled bays, terrible call by whoever did that.

It's not an infringement if people are allowed to park there in ICEs !

I think it depends how "ideological" your council is. Some just want to force ICE's off the road. Others want to put in a fair split between ICE's and electric. But it is probably cheaper for them to put in lots of chargers at once. Maybe as the proportion of electric to ICE increases then they will reduce the amount of dual use space by simply changing the signs.

If you are an electric driver and unhappy with the dual use situation the best thing to do is complain to your council and that way you will get more spaces, not be aggressive to an ICE driver if they are parked legitimately.

I've said this up threat too, so councils are definitely doing it. Just another way to fuck the disabled over to make a few quid.

I don't know why I'm surprised really. But I am.

This annoys me too because my gym (council-run) has about twenty parking spaces, and four of them have recently become electric charging spaces. I almost never manage to get parked in the car park now and three of the four spaces are always empty. The only one that is used is the one which is home to an electric car club car. I understand that we need the infrastructure in the future and these spaces won't always be empty, but it is annoying to have to park elsewhere when there are perfectly good spaces always sitting empty.

It's a bit like putting a petrol pump in a car park. They need to ensure all petrol stations also have charging points and then they can stop using up parking spaces.

Yup, we have a couple of times here because again, blue badge bays have been converted to EV charge points, without replacing the blue badge bays elsewhere of course.

Between that and the use of blue badge bays at the front of stores as queuing points or click and collect points, the accessible parking in my town has reduced massively, which isn't great for a town with a high population of OAP and disabled residents.

There has definitely been an increase of incidences where older people have had a go at me for using a blue badge space (you can't see my wheelchair in the car until its out due to the tinted glass, though the huge 'I NEED SPACE BEHIND TO UNLOAD' stickers on the tailgate would be a big hint if they looked!)...

Given I go out less than I used to, yet incidences are increasing, that does suggest there is a problem.

Definitely not. My work has them and only 4 there is a 4 hour slot to charge and on Tuesday several emails were sent all day to remove non electric cars. My colleague has an electric car and needed to charge hers. We went down to plug it in and someone non electric was in the bay she booked. After 30 mins they finally came down. It was extremely busy but they have been told that even in that instance they can't park. They have been told they can park in disabled and lift share if there are no spaces and they start later. Xxx

No, it is not a parking space. If I were driving Dp's electric car and was needing a charge I clearly would. I try and avoid charging his though as there is a real lack of spaces here and they are v often occupied. We really do not have the infrastructure yet for all these electric vehicles!

It's going to be a really tricky time in the upcoming years while the infrastructure tries to reach the point it can accommodate the switch over to majority EV usage. In reality its going to be a good few years before some of the examples given in this thread will have cars charging in them constantly, and therefore the spaces are somewhat 'wasted' for parking.

However unlike disabled or parent and child spaces, there is potential loss of earnings riding on non EV users parking in the charging bays. If they are all full of people just parking and someone who wants to charge goes elsewhere, they charging point owner has lost out of money. Therefore I'm expecting these to be watched by ticket officers right from the get go, especially council owned ones.

It's just thoughtless design, I'm in this line of work and generally clients are given a quota of car charging points they need to install. They so often need to be steered away from putting them all in the disabled bays. The reasoning for this is usually a) it covers disabled people who need to charge a EV and b) the electrical infrastructure doesn't need to be run any further into the car park (the disabled bays are usually closest to the building).

I am very much hoping I have read this wrong but are you saying people are being told to park in disabled spaces (when not blue badge holders) to leave EV spaces free?

Or you could just, oh I dunno, charge your car at your own home?
And if that's not possible due to where you live, rethink the type of vehicle you use when there is v poor infrastructure to support it.

You know that EV drivers can sometimes need to go further than their car's range though? What do you suggest they do then?

Do what we have done and get an extension for your charge cable, park sideways Infront of car blocking the charge bay, plug in charge cable and go have a cup of coffee.

The couple of times the car owner has been there on our return they were told about why it wasn't a good idea to block a charge bay.

Thanks for all the replies. I've not thought of them as being charging bays but as parking bays where a car can be charged. I don't understand why they are in car parks instead of garages though?

Petrol or Diesel cars.

posted to soon...

If you spent £££ on a Dyson hairdryer and you couldn't finish drying your hair, so you were either late to work or had to dry it with a different hairdryer, you'd be a bit pissed off...so why buy an electric vehicle with a limited range?
They're not fit for purpose.

We humans, not just MN posters NEED hydrogen technology.

I think there were grants for them...not entirely sure.

Many chargers in car parks are small so will take over an hour to charge. Car parks tend to be in town centres so this enables EV owners to go shopping whilst charging.

Many chargers have overstay charging so will charge the owner big sums ( up to a pound a minute). If they continue to park once fully charged.