AIBU to think they are avoiding parking charges at EV bays?

[BunnyRabbitBella]

I park at my local council car park and charge my electric car. There is a Range Rover that parks at the charging point, they are plugged into the charging point but dont charge their car up..... superficially they look like they are using the charger but aren't.

I'm sure they park there so they dont have to pay for parking....

Should I tell the Council?

I dont pay for the parking.... just the car charging.... if I was just parking I'd pay for a parking ticket.

In this instance maybe one car but ignoring the small infringements might lead to a bigger issue

I'd check to make sure you're not the one breaking the rules!

Because you are staying in the car and charging? Fair enough.

But if so, it doesn’t answer the question of whether you have to pay to park in an EV space.

Ahh ok they’re just a dick then!!

Tbh, I'm genuinely not sure if you're meant to pay for parking when your car is on charge. Generally, electricity charges are quite high for public chargers. I've always assumed that part of the electricity charge was for parking.

Oh the irony that you may well be the parking charge dodger after all 😅 I assume you will check and then if you are suppose to pay for parking you will report yourself?

Tbh, if I got a parking fine I'd take it on the chin..,

The other cars using the chargers dont pay for parking either....

But the Range Rover driver doesnt pay for parking or car charging....

How do you no so well what alllll the other cars are doing and paying for? But you haven’t checked if you need to pay for parking?

It's almost as if I have a pair of eyes?

your eyes can spot all of the others car parking tickets every time? Amazing vision. Why can’t they read the parking charge sign also?

There's enough chargers for maybe 10 cars. Not all the chargers have cars in them.

It's easy enough to see if they have parking tickets...

Okay - I haven’t been to a car park for a while that didn’t have an app for parking rather than actual tickets.

I have never charged my car without also paying for a ticket.

either you live somewhere very different to me or you’re a bit clueless

Don't most council car parks these days have mobile options for paying for parking? I never buy physical parking tickets these days it's all done on an app so someone passing by would have no idea if parking has been paid for or not. Only the traffic warden would know using their handheld thingy.

I highly suspect you are supposed to be paying for parking and the range rover is using the ev parking space as they tend to be bigger and more likely to be empty.

Wow, we have 2 electric cars and I’ve never been in a car park where parking is free if you’re charging. Where in the country are you?
Having said that, I have actually plugged my car in but not started the charge before, when the only available space in the car park was a charging space 😳 . My son is severely disabled and has a blue badge but all of the disabled spots were also taken.

Exactly this

How do you know they’ve not paid to park? Is it because they can’t use a parking app in that car park and have to pay and display?

Only if you are walking around looking for them, and it’s just not likely that a car park that’s installed electric chargers hasn’t also managed to get a parking app.

Maybe it varies in different parts of the country. But where I am, you still get a paper parking ticket...

You enter you car registration and its printed on the ticket...

Yes but it's highly likely there is also a sticker somewhere on the machine for a parking app like Ringo or JustPark. I've just had a count up and I've got six different parking apps on my phone. Very handy if an appointment runs over and you need to add more time to your parking virtually and means I can keep track for claiming them on expenses rather than hanging on to sticky scraps of paper.

It just seems so unlikely that a council carpark would offer free parking for EVs

If it's a council car park you can probably Google it and it will tell you if EVs are exempt and what they parking payment options are .

Do you live in the past? I haven’t seen a paper ticket in years where I live!

All the ones near me you still have to pay for parking. EV Charging is extra.

I have been to one of two where the charging includes the parking fee.
Then again there are car parks where the rates depend on your co2 emissions like car tax

Who knew, not all car parks are the same, loads of them still have paper tickets if you pay at the machine.

I get paper tickets every week somewhere that I park

When you plug in, the car tells you how long it’s going to take to get to whatever max percentage you have set. The length of time depends on car and charger type. Mine is 15 minutes to go from 20% to 80% on the DC rapid chargers. Council chargers where I am are AC chargers which take ages.

The app for my car also tells me when it’s finished charging.