ChargePlace Scotland 4+

We downloaded this app and signed up to the direct debit before we left England for our holiday in Scotland. I received an email saying that our DD was successfully set up. At the first charge point we stopped at it appeared we were blocked from charging so I phoned the helpline (which is very good) and they unblocked me. Charged successfully. At the next charge point we had to phone the helpline again as we couldn’t stop the charge. At the third charging place in Pitlochry two out of four chargers wouldn’t work. We almost gave up but we were successful on our attempt at the third one. Today we tried charging in Aberfeldy and again the charger got stuck in our plug. We were about to phone the helpline for the third time but with locking the whole car and unlocking it finally released. (This wasn’t the first time of trying). Since we weren’t desperate we decided not to try again as we didn’t want to be delayed and miss some timed tickets we had. On our way home tomorrow we will wait til we get to England to charge with a debit card. Next time we come here we will order the card rather than using the app.

This is an awful app. I have a PHEV company car (not by choice but for tax reasons) and the closest charging points locally (Auchtermuchty and Falkland/Pillars of Hercules) all use this app. It’s not just a case of hitting start on the app, plugging in and walking away; often I get a “timed out” message or charging appears to have started but when I return an hour later nothing has happened. I have to wait five minutes to make sure something is happening, and even then I’m still not 100%! I’m glad I don’t have an EV, or rely on the battery in my hybrid, the ever reliable petrol engine gets me where I need to be. Given the huge increase of EV’s and PHEV’s on the road, the infrastructure desperately needs to be fixed otherwise folk will continue to stick with ICE cars. The reason I give two stars is that the customer service team are great, when I’ve had an issue (4 times out of 10 so far) they’ve managed to fix it there and then. The app developer needs to do some work and fast.

The app is okay but I think there is number of features that could be added to improve the app / the whole network. I have reported faulty chargers in the past to help stop others arriving at broken chargers, report them, check the app & they still show as being available. I have been told that there is updates to the app coming but no idea of when.

Here are my suggestions - 1 - Being able to set a specific maximum time to charge / end time. - 2 - Give permission for your charger to be disconnected from the charger after a certain time to allow others to charge. - 3 - Show that there is a potential issue with the charger being reported recently / the recent history of repairs on each charger. - 4 - Push notifications / email notifications if the charger is disconnected / interrupted. - 5 - Push notifications / email notifications when a specific charger becomes available. - 6 - Show your vehicles live charge % level in the app.