Electric Vehicle Charging in Havant Borough

If you want to know where you can recharge an Electric Vehicle (EV) in the Borough of Havant then this article is just for you.

Electric vehicles such as the Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf and Mitsubushi Outlander PHEV are no longer the eco-hippy-save-the-planet car choices, they are cars that can be found in supermarket car parks up and down the country, what’s more some of the electric cars go rather fast…

There are many different types of electric vehicle but there are only two types that can be recharged via an electrical outlet:

• Battery and a petrol engine, aka PHEV: Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle, the petrol engine fires up when the battery is flat, example vehicles include Toyota Prius Plugin, BMW i3 REX and the UK’s bestselling EV, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.
• Just a battery, aka BEV: Battery Electric Vehicle, example vehicles include the Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf, and Tesla Model S. These cars are 100% electric and don’t use petrol. One thing to remember, if a EV is 100% electric the only way to ‘re-fuel’ the car is to plug it in, if the battery goes 100% flat then the car has to be recovered by a breakdown lorry. This is can be a real issue for EV drivers when they travel to an area that doesn’t have a publicly accessible EV charger!

The Borough of Havant comprises of the villages and towns of Cowplain, Waterlooville, Purbrook, Leigh Park, Havant and Emsworth, the borough has approximately 124,000 residents. Quite a few of these residents drive an electric car. What may surprise you is that in the borough only has one location with public EV chargers; this location is the Waterlooville Sainsbury’s. There’s no cost to the driver to re-fuel, the electricity is paid for by Sainsbury’s.

Additional EV charging points intended for use by Nissan’s and Toyota’s customers are located at the WKB Nissan and the WKB Toyota dealerships on The Hambledon Road. Please note that drivers of other manufacturer’s cars should seek permission from WKB prior to hooking up!

We are unaware of any public electric car charging locations in Cowplain, Purbrook, Widley, Bedhampton, Havant, Leigh Park, Emsworth, or Hayling Island.

I drive Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, most of my miles are ‘green miles’ using the energy generated by my solar panels, I am fortunate in that I have off-street parking and I can recharge at home. I know of many electric car drivers that don’t have off street parking, they rely on public chargers to keep their cars on the road.

I am convinced that the borough does need more car chargers but I’m not sure it is a responsibility to leave with the council. The electric car charger recently installed by Fareham District Council has a £1.80 connection fee then electricity fees of 30p per kWh. Recharging with electricity rather than fuelling my car with the equivalent amount of petrol works out twice as expensive. A real world example, recharging a Tesla 90D in at this Fareham car charger  would cost over £30 yet recharging at the nearby Whiteley Shopping Centre or the Winchester Supercharger is free.

As an aside, I wrote to Havant Borough Council and they advised me that there are no plans to install charging bays in the borough but if government grants become available they will revisit the decision. If there’s anywhere that needs a couple electric car chargers then it’s Hayling Island for visiting tourists. A couple of 50kW Rapid Chargers would be well placed at HBC’s Tourist Information Office at Beachlands, parking is available and electrical supply shouldn’t be an issue due to the Funfair next door.

The image below is map of local electric car chargers. Do you see the urban sprawl/popular holiday beach destination that is sparsely populated by electric car chargers? That’s the borough of Havant.

If you are interested in a map of local and not so local chargers, then head on over to www.zap-map.com.