Around 75% of electric car owners are unhappy with the charging experience, according to Which?

A survey conducted by leading UK consumer watchdog, Which? showed that nearly 75% of electric car owners are frustrated with the charging experience. 

Which? asked 1500 of its readers how they were getting on with their EV. As well as a dissatisfaction rate of nearly 75%, the survey also showed that 43% of participates said they had experienced technical issues when charging and 40% said they had been faced with a non-working charger.

A shocking 61% of those surveyed have had issues whilst trying to pay to use a charger. And 18% avoid using public chargers due to the lack of payment options. Few charging points offer contactless payments and instead require the user to pay via an app on their phone.

Lack of availability for charging points

When Which? asked EV owners to estimate how far the nearest charging points were, 45% said their nearest charging point was more than a 20 minute walk away from their home. 

Michael, a property developer from Cheltenham told Which? "'As more people started to use EVs it became a pain to find a charger that wasn't in use, so the half-hour recharge stop could be an hour while you wait for a charger to become available." Some respondents of another survey said they've had to spend nights at a hotel because they were unable to charge their car on the road.

The government must improve its EV infrastructure quickly if EVs are to make up the majority of cars on British roads in ten or so years time.