UK electric car owners using domestic leads to charge up
Lack of infrastructure leading to dangerous practices, says charity
UK electric car owners are using unsuitable extension leads from their homes to charge their vehicles due to a lack of infrastructure, a consumer protection charity said on Thursday.
A survey of 1,500 electric vehicle owners conducted by Electrical Safety First (ESF) revealed that 74% admitted to using domestic multi-socket extension leads to charge from the mains in their home.
This was despite almost 90% also being aware they should not be used outdoors and more than half leaving cables running to their vehicle while it was raining.
Growth in electric car usage has outstripped public charging point supply by six times, the survey found.
In 2014, there were almost 26,000 electric cars registered in the UK with 3251 charging locations. However, by 2018, the number of vehicles increased to 186,386 with only 6669 charging points.
In 2009, the then London mayor and current Conservative Party leadership contender Boris Johnson pledged to make Britain the "electric car capital of Europe", with 25,000 charging points across the city by 2015, serving 100,000 vehicles - a far cry from the numbers revealed in Thursday's survey by ESF.
By June 2014 only 1,408 were operational in the capital.
Research also found that 75% of respondents who used a domestic extension cable admitted to ‘daisy-chaining’ leads to reach their vehicle, risking electric shock and fire.
ESF technical director Martyn Allen said the research showed “a direct link between a lack of electric vehicle infrastructure and vehicle owners charging dangerously”.
“We warn EV users against giving in to temptation to use standard domestic extension leads to charge their vehicles outside, and never to ‘daisy-chain’ them together.”
He added that owners should take advantage of a government grant scheme subsidised the cost of a specially designed home charging point.