Top motoring expert slams lack of charging ports for Electric Vehicles across Northern Ireland

Portadown native Ian Lynas, who has been test driving and writing about vehicles for more than 30 years, says the poor infrastructure of charging ports across NI makes buying and EV prohibitive.

Ian, who is also a judge in this year’s Car of the Year, said: “I do not own an Electric Vehicle but I have test driven several and currently I am testing the new Kia EV6, which has been placed at the number one spot by The Daily Telegraph in the top 10 EVs available in the UK.”

Test driving Electric Vehicles

When he test drives EV’s he only goes on short runs because of the lack of infrastructure in NI for charging.

He said: “It is really poor. Often I find the chargers are not in working order and there are so few. I use an app which alerts me if there is a charger problem or if they are in use.”

Ian has issues with the lack of charging points across the Upper Bann area and indeed NI.

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He said charging points are not in every forecourt and revealed: “I have a friend who has a service station in the north of the Province and he has found the installation costs prohibitive. Perhaps that is the reason why there are so few on forecourts.”

While Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council has installed a small number of charging ports, for example at the new South Lakes Leisure Centre in Craigavon, Ian says there are ‘simply not enough charging ports’.

“Many of the chargers in NI are free. That is good news, while in the Republic of Ireland and the mainland you must pay. For those who have a special home charger, then it is best to charge at lower rates, pop the car on late evening ready to go the next morning,” said Ian who is Road Test Editor for ontheroad.ie (the motoring website for Ireland)

Issues with slow charging ports

“Another problem with many of the free chargers is that they are the slow ones which can take hours to charge your car. I experienced this with a couple of EVs, while a fast charger would have done the job in around 40 minutes.”

For anyone considering getting an EV, Ian said: “They are much more expensive than a petrol or diesel car. Also with the ever changing progress in battery technology, the range available will increase greatly over the next couple of years. Therefore the EV you buy now will not be as attractive second hand when the new models will have a much improved range.

“For now, and this in my opinion for the Northern Ireland motorist, is not to buy an EV but a plug-in hybrid. This offers an acceptable range with the back up of a conventional engine.

“Range anxiety is a constant worry for EV drivers and if the government, when we have one, could do something to increase the number of public chargers then the EV would become more acceptable,

“I recently carried out a survey and 90 percent would not consider purchasing an EV. Their reasons were purchase cost, range and lack of chargers,” he said, adding: “A fellow motoring writer based in Derry says we now along with range anxiety have charger anxiety, I would agree very much with that comment.”

Ian said: “I would say the cart has been put before the horse. We have a great choice of EVs but a lack of chargers.”

Alliance says NI ‘still lagging behind’ in relation to EVs

Meanwhile Alliance MLA Eóin Tennyson says NI is ‘still lagging behind’ when it comes to the introduction of electric vehicle charging provision.

The Upper Bann MLA reveald that in response to an Assembly question, the DFI stated it was still only discussing the matter with officials from other parties in order to bring forward the charging infrastructure.

Mr Tennyson said the Minister must now outline how DFI will implement impending regulations around minimum requirements for electric vehicle charging.

“With the Climate Change Act now a piece of legally binding legislation, it is vital we are doing everything we can to meet our climate targets,” he said. “It is deeply frustrating that Northern Ireland is lagging behind other regions when it comes to the introduction of electric vehicle charging, particularly at a time when England is introducing legislation on the same. Instead, our Department is still at the drawing board and merely still engaging in discussions on the matter.

“EU energy regulations will still apply to Northern Ireland post-Brexit and they have minimum requirements for electric vehicle charging for new and existing non-residential buildings. The Minister must outline how DFI will meet that here. Northern Ireland was once a leader in terms of electric vehicle charging. How we have fallen embarrassingly behind. Whilst other regions are hitting the ground running with action and progress, we are once again spending too long sitting in discussions without any action.”