EV in Brighton
We have a home charger. The street chargers sometimes include free parking but you have to check you don't need a permit too (the signs are ambiguous); and there are some inside car parks where you have to pay for both!
Around town most of the street chargers required the Blink app. There are a handful of rapid chargers, but if you're coming down from London you will pass a couple of superchargers at Pease Pottage (Gatwick).
Zap Map is the standard app but there's also Electric Brighton.
| Description | Power | Current | mph | Voltage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lamppost | 3.7kW | 16A | 14 | 240V |
| Home | 7.4kW | 32A | 28 | 240V |
| Supercharger | 250kW | 520A | 648 | 480V |
See Tesla Supercharger and evbox.com.
Blink chargers
Outline of the process below. However, it is a bit error prone and a couple of times I've just given up, but the free parking whilst charging is great. They do get ICEd quite often -- perhaps because they're relatively discrete -- which doesn't happen on the very clearly-marked green EV bays in town.
- Register online and add a payment card
- Install the app
- Uses the standard Type II connector
- Find a charger and "check in" to the correct charger (check the ID above the socket)
- Wait for it to churn with a blank screen for a bit...
- You will then get charged £50 (so you need at least that much in the bank)
- When you disconnect the car you will be refunded the difference
- Works out about 61p per kWh
PodPoint
Much slicker than Blink but of course you need another app. There's a couple at the Goldstone retail park and the Amex stadium.
Connectors
- CCS2 "Combo 2" (Combined Charging Connector) -- what a design this is!
- IEC Type II -- the normal one you'll see everywhere
- CHAdeMO -- weird one that you need an adapter for