Car 101: What's 'EV charging etiquette'?

Monday, 17 October 2022

Not every EV uses the same kind of plug - here are the main ones in New Zealand.

Electric vehicles are slowly but surely taking over. Sales are ramping up and various announcements every few days continue to show carmakers’ intent to ditch combustion. But while the improving supply of EVs is all well and good, the infrastructure side of things needs to keep up.

Generally speaking, New Zealand is in a pretty good space for public EV chargers. ChargeNet reports more than 280 fast charging stations across the country, with plenty more under construction.

You’ve also got other companies like Evnex and Hikotron, among others, that are working to offer publicly accessible AC smart chargers that offer less power than the DC fast chargers but adapt to reduce the load on the power grid.

There are more and more chargers popping up each day but there’s a certain, often unspoken way to use them.

Having lots of chargers on offer is a brilliant start, but there will always be a limited number of them. The other side of the infrastructure coin that can easily be missed is the etiquette behind using the chargers.

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Free chargers are obviously popular, so do your best not to charge for much longer than 30 minutes.

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Charging etiquette might seem like a way for EV owners to be a bit imperious, stabbing fingers at an imaginary rule book, but it’s really just to keep the flow of electricity as fairly spread as possible.

Everyone knows that charging an electric vehicle takes a lot longer than refilling a petrol car. It’s one of the biggest flaws with battery power, and internet commenters are plenty vocal about it.

It can take anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour to juice an EV up to a decent level of charge, depending on the car and how powerful the charger is, which brings us to the first rule of charging – time.

While some chargers, like the ChargeNet hyperchargers, can power multiple EVs at once, it’s still polite to free the space when your time is up.

It’s generally accepted that 30 minutes of charging (or up to 80% of charge) is how long you should spend at a public charger, particularly DC chargers with one or two outlets. Some older stations have two cables but can only power one at a time, so there’s a good chance someone will want to use the charger before you’re ready to leave.

Plugging in at, say, a supermarket for “five minutes, I swear” and then taking more than an hour is not cool. Same goes for avoiding charging at home to use the free chargers at a mall but needing more than 30 minutes because the range says ‘2km remaining’ and you’ve got a full day’s driving ahead.

Of course, sometimes things take longer than expected, and that’s fine. Most EV drivers are understanding and sympathetic.

One tip for making sure you aren’t hogging a charger is to use an app. ChargeNet has its own app which can show you how long you’ve been on the charger for, remotely disconnect the cable.

When you’ve finished charging, unplug and free up the carpark for the next person. Just as bad as someone charging for too long is someone taking up the charger when they don’t need it.

Next, try not to unplug someone else’s car if you need the charger. It’s definitely a hard one to resist sometimes, but you know what they say – two wrongs don’t make a right.

However, if the screen says they’ve been plugged in for ages and they havent returned, some cars will unlock the charger after a certain percentage has been reached. If the car is above that 80% mark and either isn’t charging any more or the plug is unlocked, you can unplug it yourself. Just be aware this might not be seen as particularly respectful!

Mention the screen, every public charger will have a display of some sort showing the state of charge of the vehicle, along with how long it has been plugged in for. It’s totally okay to have a look and see how long someone has been charging for, even if they’re sitting in the car. Because if they’ve only been there for ten minutes, they shouldn’t feel guilty, right?

Finally, it’s perfectly okay to tap on a window and ask how long someone is going to be. But be nice about it.

Ethically Kate, aka Kate Hall, told Stuff back in 2020: “If I was waiting, I’d want to know how long someone was going to be – not to rush them, just so I knew. People can get a bit defensive, so I made sure to explain that I wasn’t trying to hurry them. But I only had to wait 2-3 times out of 39 charges.”